Marxists’ Internet Archive: ETOL Home Page: Trotskyist Writers Section: Farrel Dobbs
Source: Socialist Appeal, Vol. 4 No. 47, 23 November 1940, p. 2..
Transcription & Mark-up: Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
The membership of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, CIO, is increasing at a rapid rate with the present figure the largest since the defeat in Little Steel. This organization presents an imposing structure in an important basic industry, but it is a union of unknown strength which has not been thoroughly tested in struggle.
Its main contracts – U.S.Steel, etc. – have been obtained without a fight. The strike in Little Steel was poorly led and did not put the union to a decisive test of its strength. The main strategy of the strike was dependence on governmental agencies. The official leadership of the SWOC, learning little from this defeat, lias continued to base its key policy on the hope of assistance from the government.
The rise in membership of the SWOC is due in part to increased production and the resultant pickup in employment. Steel output is now close to the 1929 peak and there is a big back log of orders, knottier important factor which is swelling the ranks of the SWOC is the rise in militancy among the workers.
There have been an increasing number of stoppages involving crews, whole departments and occasionally an entire plant.
A recent job action at the Lackawanna (Bethlehem) plant in Buffalo is a typical example of this new militancy. A furnace crew sent a committee in to see the management on a grievance. The demands of the crew were refused and the committee was given fifteen minutes to get back on the job – or else.
When the committee reported back to the crew, the news of the management’s attitude spread like wildfire among the men and before the fifteen minute deadline had elapsed the entire department of more than 600 men had walked out of the plant. The company officials waited a while for the workers to send in a committee. When this was not done, the bosses soon came out on the street to innocently ask what was wrong. They were told in plain language and it took only a few minutes to straighten out the grievance which the management had refused even to discuss a short time before.
These militant actions are symptomatic and they are increasing in size and number. But the trend is only just developing; it has not yet reached into all the corners of the industry. Some workers take comfort from the feeling that there is plenty of work. They remember the past periods of heavy unemployment but try to kid themselves into thinking that this boom will last. They ignore the fact that it is based on preparations for war and not of any improvement in the internal economy of the country. They close their eyes to the dangers of the mountain of grievances that is piling up, especially the violations of the 40 hour week. Other workers are much disturbed over the increasing arrogance of the corporations but hesitate to act because of lack of confidence in the SWOC leadership.
Prior to the last few weeks, the SWOC officialdom sought to curb “unauthorized” job actions by the steel workers. They sometimes used quite drastic methods to do this. However, the sweeping changes in the whole situation in steel have forced a partial change in official policy. Today the SWOC staff is to a certain degree Implementing the spontaneous job actions of the steel workers.
Not long ago the U.S. Steel, for example, was often in a position to use the. workers against the SWOC staff. The corporation would admit violations of the contract only to defy the union to do anything about it. They were confident that the employees would not back up the union officials. Today this situation has reversed itself. The workers in U.S. Steel,, as well as in other plants, are becoming more militant. The corporations now often feel constrained to make an appeal to the SWOC staff against the workers. Generally the staff has sided with the workers in recent cases.
However, the new policy of the SWOC leadership is only a partial adaptation to the changing conditions. The main objective of the new militancy in the leadership seems to be an increase in membership not a fight through these methods for fundamental improvement of employment conditions in the steel industry. There is little evidence to indicate that they have turned towards trade union action to get contracts.
Undismayed by the rebuff from the administration in the issuance of war contracts to Bethlehem Steel and other violators of labor legislation, the SWOC general staff still expects to get conditions for the steel workers as a gift from the government.
Further than this, the SWOC still has a representative functioning on the so-called “National Defense Committee” and has thus, continued to lend this committee authority in the eyes of the steel workers.
Certainly the steel corporations will not take such a union leadership very seriously. The corporations violate the labor laws and still they get war contracts. And the leaders of the union of their employees stay on the Committee which awards contracts under such a flagrant anti-labor policy. Since the SWOC was pushed around with such ease in the question of letting war contracts, the government will not take very seriously its demand for union contracts with the steel corporations.
A growing section of the SWOC membership is beginning to realize the impossibility of the present official policy. The demand is spreading: “All union officials off the so-called National Defense Committee.”
The first responsibility of the union leadership is to fight for the rights of the membership. All possible pressure should be brought upon the government to enforce labor legislation, but the SWOC cannot rely upon the government to get union contracts from the steel corporations. The first and most reliable weapon in this fight is trade union action.
An ever-larger number of the steel workers are becoming aware of this fact. The main problem today is one of leadership.
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Last updated: 15 November 2020