Earl R. Browder

The Labor Movement

Splitting Activities of the Reactionaries in the American Labor Movement

(8 November 1923)


From International Press Correspondence, Vol. 3 No. 70 [46], 8 November 1923, pp. 804–805.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2020). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.


Cynically and cold-bloodedly, the reactionary officialdom of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union have engaged in a campaign of expulsions, disfranchisements, and Czaristic dictatorship, which threatens the very life of that great organization. Under the direct leadership of Abe Cahan, of the Jewish Daily Forward, and in close cooperation with Gompers, this conspiracy has reached its height in the expulsion of 11 old-time members of the Chicago unions, the forcible removal of 19 out of 25 officers of Local 22, New York, expulsions and suspensions in Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and other places, the use of thugs and gunmen, the breaking up of local union meetings, denial of the right to talk, to read, to think, and even to work. Along with this has gone the most vicious newspaper campaign of lies, slander, intimidation, and intellectual prostitution that has ever been witnessed in the American labor movement.

The reactionaries felt around in New York and Philadelphia to find the most favorable place to start their expulsions. But the workers in those cities were on their guard, owing to previous attacks by the right-wing elements. So Mayer Perlstein, vice-president, was sent to Chicago to begin the war. There he found the Unions running along in comparative harmony, organizational work being carried on, and the left-wing militants taking a most active part in the work of the union, devoting their efforts outside of shop-hours to the union without pay. Perlstein is on record himself to this effect. It is also on record that he came to Chicago for the specific purpose of starting expulsions of these same workers. He called for an organization campaign, and the left-wing elements immediately took him at his word and intensified the campaign to bring the unorganized into the union. But this manoeuvre of Perlstein’s was only a means of putting the workers off their guard.

In the midst of the organization campaign, elections occurred. The left-wing advocates of amalgamation and the labor party, were elected in a majority of the offices, all of them members of years standing and trusted in the work of the union. Perlstein immediately began his disruption. He brought charges against ... Davidson and Alex Kanevsky, and had a trial committee appointed. In the proceedings that followed, Perlstein violated every safeguard thrown up for protection of the membership by the Laws of the Union. In spite of his threats and violations of the law, the Committee returned a verdict in favor of the left-wing militants by a vote of 5 to 1. But by disfranchising 16 out of 35 members of the Joint Board, Perlstein succeeded, through coercion and corruption, in getting 11 of the remaining 19 to overthrow the decision of the trial committee. Then he expelled the members by executive order. Immediately after he expelled 9 more, including Dora Lipshutz, I. Litvinsky, I. Terry, I. Goldman, Jennie Schwartz, Clara Gabin, Sam Cohen, Nathan Bosen, and Hymen Fogel, all of them without trial or even pretence of trial.

This opening gun in the war against progress was quickly followed by a general letter from the International Executive Board, signed by Sigman and Baroff, president and secretary, calling upon all locals to expel members of the Trade Union Educational League. But everywhere the rank and file refused to follow the reactionaries. In not a single instance did any local union take action against the left-wingers – and a logical thing that is, because in the local unions the left wing is respected and trusted. So the bureaucracy swung into action again. In New York they arbitrarily removed Rose Wolkowitz from the Joint Board. In Boston, Cleveland, and Philadelphia, they rushed about cooking up charges to place against the advocates of amalgamation. The whole union was thrown into a turmoil of protest.

The expelled members in Chicago appealed to their local unions to enter protest against Perlstein’s strong-arm methods.

His answer was the appointment of a “Committee of Ten” to prevent all discussion of his Czarist rule. His agents broke up the local union meetings to prevent motions of protest from being adopted. As a final recourse to bring their case before the membership, the expelled members called a mass meeting in Ashland Auditorium, also know as Carmen’s Hall.

The meeting in Carmen’s Hall was an historic one. Those in charge had not expected more than 400 or 500 members, about the number of regular attendants at local meetings. Instead of that, and in spite of an exceedingly stormy night, fully half the membership of Chicago appeared, and the committee had hastily to arrange to open the great Auditorium to accommodate the crowd. The officials had their “Committee of Ten” on hand, together with a collection of Chicago’s notorious gunmen. These endeavored to break up the meeting by interruptions and disturbances, and kept matters in a turmoil of noise and confusion for over an hour, until the manager of the hall threatened to call the police if they were not quiet. The meeting proceeded under difficulties, with great demonstrations from the 2,000 people present, and culminated in the base attempt to shoot Wm. Z. Foster, the story of which has already made the round of the world.

But if Sigmin, Perlstein & Co. expected to intimidate the amalgamationists by their rough-stuff, they were sorely disappointed. Great mass meetings of protest were held in every needle trades center. The one in New York City, held in Rutgers Square on Sept. 8., was attended by 10,000 workers. The reactionaries had over-reached themselves, and the rank and file were united into a great demonstration against the Fascist-like tactics and against the expulsions.

In the meantime, notwithstanding the growing storm of resentment in the membership and their own public discredit, the bureaucrats continue the war against the militant rank and file. The local unions have stood solid against the wrecking tactics, and refused to approve them. Meeting after meeting has been broken up by the officials to prevent the passage of motions of protest. In Local 22, New York, the president Sigman, himself attending to obtain approval for his course, the membership voted him down overwhelmingly. In Philadelphia the dressmakers voted 3 to 1 to repudiate his demands. In Cleveland the Joint Board laid his communication on the table.

But with arbitrary ruling, disregarding all constitutional limitations on their power, the administration continues to lay charges against members, deprive them of office, rule them off the union floor, place fines of $25 to $100 against them, and terrorize them in every conceivable way. In Local 18 of Chicago, J. Gerber was fined $50 by ruling of Perlstein for signing a petition for reinstatement of the expelled, and M. Krendell was fined $25 for handing out a circular. Both were deprived of the floor and privilege of holding office for 2 years. This is but a sample of a thousand happenings of a similar nature, unexampled in their audacity and cynicism, occurring throughout the I.L.G.W.U. In Local 22, New York, 19 out of 25 members of the Joint Board recently elected, have been removed by Executive order.

Probably the most outrageous proceeding of all, however, has been the suppression of the right to petition the General Executive Board. Even the Czar of Russia allowed his miserable serfs to petition for redress of grievances. But not so Sigman, Perlstein & Co. When friends of the expelled members in Chicago, denied all democratic procedure in the unions, began to circulate petitions for their re-instatement, the first move to stop if was the publication in the Forward, reactionary Jewish daily, of a “warning” that agents of the manufacturers were endeavoring to procure an injunction by getting signatures from the shops and that no one should sign anything as it would probably be for that purpose but disguised as a petition for the expelled members. Next Perlstein published an advertisement over his name, ordering all shop-chairmen to prevent the circulation of petitions, leaflets, etc. and sale of tickets of solicitation for subscriptions to the Freiheit, and to stop from work any one violating the order. He also prohibited all members from reading, talking, or in any way acting in regard to the expulsions, on pain of dismissal from the shops. He backed this order up by placing fines against some members who disobeyed the instructions.

From the local unions the light is now being carried into the shops. The union officials declare that they are going to push through their arbitrary policy even if if is necessary to smash the union in so dong. All shop meetings are now being broken up if the officials are questioned in any way or called to account for their wild issuing of “orders” and “rulings”. Threats are freely strewn about that there will soon begin wholesale discharges from employment unless the orders are obeyed unquestioningly. An open alliance with the employers is in preparation for the purpose of carrying out this disgraceful program.

In this crisis in the I.L.G.W.U., the honest workers are joining hands together in a great movement under the slogan: “For the Unity of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union”. Against expulsions and disruption, and for defeat of the union-wrecking officialdom, there is arising a powerful movement of the rank and file. Soon no man or woman will be able to be elected to any position of trust in the I.L.G.W.U. until he or she has repudiated the policy of expulsions and disfranchisements. The union-wreckers will l»e swept into oblivion by the righteous wrath and overwhelming votes of an outraged rank and file. The officers of the I.L.G.W.U. will be brought down from their high seats of Czarist rulership, and will either be made again the servants of the garment workers and not their masters, or will be sent to join their aristocratic prototypes who once arrogantly ruled over the workers of Europe as Sigman, Perlstein, Baroff & Co. now seek to rule over the I.L.G.W.U.



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Last updated on 28 April 2023