The Big Split

Last week was a big one for the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, better known as I. L. G. W. U. The third edition of Pins and Needles, its famed home-talent satire, opened on Broadway. The rich, well-run union donated $235,000 to refugee aid. And I. L. G. W. U.'s executive committee tossed off a resolution on labor peace. If things go well for labor in the next few months, I. L. G. W. U.'s resolution may be called an important item in labor history. If things go badly, it can at least go down as a dire prophecy. The resolution announced that:

1) Peace between A. F. of L. and C. I. O. is now a primary/- need to the well-being and progress of U. S. workers.

2) A. F. of L. had changed its position on the great labor questions--the industrial organization of mass-production industries, democracy in unions--that first brought about the formation of C. I. O.

3) Prospects for labor peace are nevertheless far from bright.

4) I. L. G. W. U. at its convention next May will consequently vote on the question of returning to A. F. of L.

That was good news for William Green, bad (but expected) news for John Lewis. For David Dubinsky, short, energetic, good-natured president of I. L. G. W. U., it was a good way of saying where, in his opinion, lay the responsibility for labor's split. Nobody in the labor movement doubted that I. L. G. W. U.'s 250,000 would follow President Dubinsky back into A. F. of L., just as they had followed him out of it into C. I. O. They stayed in line behind him when, last year, C. I. O. set itself up as a permanent organization and I. L. G. W. U. decided to play a lone hand. "We're independent," says President Dubinsky, "and we don't like it."

Storm Warnings. Behind I. L. G. W. U.'s move lay a growing conviction that labor's six-year record of growth was genuinely imperiled by labor's split. Good union men could look skeptical while businessmen complained loudly about the cost of A. F. of L.C. I. O. conflict. They could listen, polite but unimpressed, while politicians shuddered and sighed over the fearful feud of Bill Green and John Lewis. Last week Son Elliott Roosevelt talked long and earnestly over the radio about the Chrysler strike, suggested that John Lewis' inability to make peace with Bill Green indicated he was not all "he had been cracked up to be."

But nobody could question either the friendliness to labor of Nebraska's Senator Norris, or of his right to advise it. Still one of the most imposing landmarks in U. S. labor history is the Norris-LaGuardia Anti-Injunction Act, which improved the legal status of unionism, drastically checked the granting of injunctions against unions in Federal courts (average before it was passed: 100 a year). Last month Senator Norris let it be known: "I have worked with and for labor for 30 years and I am disgusted with the situation now. . . . There is something wrong with the leadership or they would get together."

Mayor LaGuardia, not an easily dismayed man, backed him up, rapped leaders who prolong strikes, declared that "the longer the division continues, the more irritation and wounds will be inflicted, and the scars will become permanent."

New York's Senator Wagner went further: "Everything is to be gained, and nothing is lost, by exploring every avenue for labor peace. Men of labor, the time for peace is now!"

To believers in labor unity, it was unfortunate that the New Deal's Thurman Arnold opened his blasts against the A. F. of L. building trades unions, dragged up old A. F. of L. scandals by the dozen, inflamed A. F. of L. conservatives and renewed C. I. O. suspicions, at a moment when sentiment for labor peace was thus growing.

Obstacle. In Manhattan last week David Dubinsky looked back over the history of the C. I. O.-A. F. of L. dispute, found little logic in the present C. I. O. position. Four years ago, when Lewis, Dubinsky, and various progressives in A, F. of L., joined by Sidney Hillman's big, sprawling Amalgamated Clothing Workers,* formed the Committee for Industrial Organization, they did not demand industrial unionism for all A. F. of L. unions. Nor did they set up C. I. O. merely because they disliked individual A. F. of L. leaders, or disapproved of the way some unions were run. Basic complaint was that while A. F. of L. talked of organizing the big, mass-production industries, steel, rubber, autos, etc., it accomplished nothing. Lesser complaints were that unions were arbitrarily run by executives, that new members pouring in were frequently denied votes (mostly because new members threatened the complicated structure of union benefits that old members had accumulated). First peace negotiations broke down because A. F. of L. officials insisted that C. I. O. unions return with the same status they had held before the split. But when A. F. of L. agreed in effect to accept them as they now are, the last big obstacle to peace, so far as I.L.G.W.U. was concerned, disappeared.

Last week David Dubinsky made it clear that he was not joining in the hue & cry for C. I. O.-A. F. of L. reconciliation, felt that he had been too optimistic about it before,wanted the I. L. G. W. U.'s action to speak louder than words for peace. Left-wing charges that A. F. of L. was too reactionary, that many an old-line A. F. of L. leader was a visionless labor boss, he brushed aside--all the more reason, said he, why the progressives should be back in A. F. of L., to moderate such tendencies. "The obstinacy of one organization caused the break," said David Dubinsky, "the obstinacy of the other organization is perpetuating it and making it deeper and wider."

/- John L. Lewis, last June, called labor peace "secondary."

*It was organized in 1914 when radicals bolted the conservative A. F. of L. United Garment Workers.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.