Marxists’ Internet Archive: ETOL Home Page: Trotskyist Writers Section: Farrel Dobbs
Source: Socialist Appeal, Vol. IV No. 21, 25 May 1940, p. 3.
Transcription & Mark-up: Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
Roosevelt addressed a joint session of the United States Congress on May 16, beating the drums for a bigger and better armament program. The last echoes of his speech had hardly faded before the hounds of big business, hot on the scent of greater war profits, were baying loudly in the halls of Congress.
Full of patriotic zeal, the bosses are more than anxious to build planes, guns, tanks and all the other engines of death and sell them to the government. But they want no interference with their profits.
Roosevelt has been quick to oblige. Administration officials and Congressional committees are preparing legislation which will repeal the limitations on profits and, at the same time, void the main provisions of the Walsh-Healey Act and the Wage-Hour Act.
The Walsh-Healey Act forbids the issuance of government contracts to employers unless they pay the prevailing wage. The unions have been able to make use of it in protecting union wage rates in some industries and in establishing the 40-hour week. The Wage-Hour Act calls at present for a minimum wage rate of 30c per hour and a maximum work week of 42 hours.
The “impartial” government is preparing to revise legislation affecting the war industries so that both capital and labor will have a free hand – capital to make unlimited profits and labor to work longer hours at lower pay.
The top officialdom of both the AFL and the CIO have steered a deliberate course away from independent working class action. Instead, they relied upon the “friends of labor” in the government apparatus. They hailed the passage of the Walsh-Healey Act and the Wage-Hour Act, among others, as proof of the wisdom of this policy. This leadership sought to curb militant class struggle action by the trade unions in strike struggles against the employers and denounced all efforts of the workers to establish their own independent political party.
Now the mass production workers in the war industries find that their “friend” Roosevelt and their “friends” in Congress are stepping away from all responsibility to which they previously committed themselves.
The trade union workers, following the false advice of their national leadership, depended upon Roosevelt. He has double-crossed them again. They must now overcome their delusions and prepare for an independent struggle against the bosses.
Roosevelt has already anticipated that this struggle will be made. The demand of Congressman Martin Dies, public stool pigeon number one, that special funds be appropriated to investigate “Fifth Column” activities in the war industries, is the first step in a strikebreaking program. The “Fifth Column” which Roosevelt-Dies really have in mind is none other than the militant workers who will stand up and fight for their rights.
The struggle of the workers will become increasingly difficult. Roosevelt will intervene more and more openly on the side of the bosses. Victory for the workers lies only in militant trade union action, and independent political action of the workers through their own party.
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Last updated: 18 August 2020