Union, unemployed unity strengthened labor battles

Below is an excerpt from Teamster Power, one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for June. It tells how Minneapolis Teamsters Local 574 used the power won through three hard-fought strikes in 1934 to extend the union throughout the Upper Midwest, back organizing efforts by the unemployed and combat employer frame-ups. The book is the second in a four-volume series by Farrell Dobbs, the central organizer of an 11-state campaign to unionize over-the-road truckers. Dobbs later served as national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party, from 1953 to 1972. The excerpt is from the chapter “Federal Workers Section.” Copyright © 1973 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.

BY FARRELL DOBBS
Many millions were jobless nationally. All were victims of the capitalist economic system, forced into miserable circumstances under depression conditions. As workers, they deserved trade union support in a fight for social concessions from the capitalists to improve their lot. Such aid would not only be a necessary act of class solidarity, important though that was as a matter of principle. It was the best way to prevent the bosses from duping the unemployed into taking the places of trade unionists who went on strike. Therefore, we insisted, organized labor should do everything to help the jobless. …

Once again, Local 574 was about to take a pioneer action designed to increase the combat power of the working class.

Basic guidelines for the project were set down in the local’s by-laws. The pertinent section read: “It is the duty of the unions to assist the unemployed workers to organize and improve their living standards. To fulfill this obligation the union shall maintain an auxiliary section of unemployed workers to be known as the Federal Workers Section of Local 574. This section shall function under the direct supervision of the union Executive Board and shall have the full assistance of the union. Members of the Federal Workers Section shall not have voice or vote in the regular meetings of the union.”

There were several reasons for the latter provision. Enrollment in the Federal Workers Section (FWS) was not confined to Local 574 members who had been laid off. Its ranks were open to all the city’s unemployed, including jobless members of other unions. Thus it was bound to be a heterogeneous formation and, hopefully, one of considerable size. Such a body could not be formally incorporated into the union with voice and vote. That would have distorted the local’s basic character as an organization of workers employed in the trucking industry. The resulting problems would have weakened the union base upon which the unemployed movement was to be built. Hence the new body had to be structured as an auxiliary section of the local.

Special union buttons and membership cards were issued to workers who joined the FWS. They paid dues of twenty-five cents a month, which was about all they could afford. Additional funds needed to carry on the necessary activities were provided through subsidies from Local 574 and, after a time, through donations from other unions. Regular meetings of the section were held at which its members hammered out a program and shaped a course of action to deal with their specific problems as unemployed workers. …

By mid-1935 they had managed to revivify their struggle nationally to the point where they were pressing vigorously for federal concessions. So the great liberal in the White House decided to break it up by repeating the 1934 cycle. A transition was set into motion from the ERA to a new federal setup called the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

It was precisely at this point that the unusual effectiveness of a union-sponsored unemployed organization was demonstrated. Members of the Federal Workers Section were not left adrift without a rudder in the changed situation, as were most of the unemployed. Their association with a strong trade union became a stabilizing factor for them in their moment of crisis. This meant concretely that they got effective aid in moving swiftly to remobilize the unemployed generally for continuation of their struggle.

As soon as the new WPA projects got started the FWS launched an organization drive among the workers involved. Elections of job stewards followed on all projects, leading to a union representation structure of the kind Local 574 had established in the trucking industry. A fight was then opened for the adjustment of grievances submitted by the workers, and there were many.

Unemployed workers were being removed entirely from the city’s relief rolls and put to work under the new WPA setup. In many cases there were big time gaps between their last relief check and their first payday on WPA. After a big hassle the city authorities were forced to cease their practice of removing these workers so hastily from the relief rolls, and compensation was secured for individuals who had thus been victimized.

A general grievance affecting all on WPA arose over the rate of pay. The scale was $60.50 a month, truly a starvation level. In fact it was below the budgetary level the city of Minneapolis had been forced to establish for relief clients. As a result workers who were transferred from direct relief, paid by the city, to the federal “work-relief” system got an automatic cut in income.

The FWS set out to block this swindle by mobilizing the workers around a demand aimed at the city fathers: either get the WPA to pay more, or provide supplementary relief for those on WPA. Our campaign was effective. Supplementary relief was granted by the city, raising the total received by WPA workers back to the amount they would have gotten if still on direct relief.

By this time the Federal Workers Section was establishing itself as the major organization of the city’s unemployed.

Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home