Stumbling in Darkness

It is said that at one time some of the rulers of ancient Greece suggested that their slaves be required to dress in uniforms entirely different from those worn by free people, whereupon some of the wiser heads replied that it would not be good policy, because the slaves were so numerous their garb of distinction would cause them to see their own strength and refuse to be controlled by their masters.

When a boy we heard the grown folks say that "we must not let the Negroes know that this war is being waged for their emancipation, as it might encourage them to assist their emancipators." Thus it is now, ever has been and always will be. The slave-drivers will resort to any method to keep their slaves in ignorance of their strength. "Knowledge is power, while ignorance is weakness."

The masters, the men who have charge of the means of production--"captains of industry," as they are sometimes called, but, if correctly named, would be called "exploiters of labor" --well know their own security, and as long as they can keep their dupes in ignorance of their own grievances, they feel secure in their positions; but should the masses learn to demand their just rights in a sensible way, they would feel different. If the toilers of the world could be lined up in a solid phalanx on one side and their masters, who systematically rob them of the greater part of their products, on the other side, so that the masses could realize their strength, they would put these parasites to earning their own living in short order.

However, as a rule, the masses are ignorant--not necessarily illiterate--to such an extent as to make it a national shame, but ignorant of the conditions necessary to the well-being of society at large; and the masters not only prefer to keep the workers in ignorance, but leave no stone unturned in their endeavors to keep them jealous of each other, for by so doing they make it impossible for them to organize or to learn their own strength. The masters cause the slaves to believe that they have no grievances, at least not against them, by saying to them: "Don't you know that the interests of labor and of capital are the same?"

Reader, if I owned all the houses in St. Louis and you were compelled to live in one of them, where would our interests coincide? Would not selfishness prompt me to seek my own interest by getting all the rent from you I could, and would not your interest be to get the house as cheap as possible? To say that the interest of capital and labor are the same is to speak truth, but to say that the interest of the capitalist and that of the laborer is identical is utterly false, at least under the present system. But right here is where the workers are deceived, since the average man can be shown that what is to the best interest of himself would enhance the interest of capital, for capital is only stored labor.

The controller of capital uses the term in such a way as to simply throw dust in the eyes of the workmen. If he can keep them ignorant, good; and if not, the next step is to bribe those who have found out that they have grievances. The capitalists of Jerusalem scattered the first labor organization, of which we have any account in modern history, for the organization established by Christ was essentially a labor organization, inasmuch as they were laborers and organized for the purpose of educating and bettering the condition of the masses. They were opposed by the capitalist, as was shown by one of their number being bribed.

It is not necessary now to bribe one out of twelve. Under our complex industrial system, cunning manipulators have so organized forces that it is not necessary to bribe more than one out of a hundred to create prejudice, strife, discord, mistrust, and scatter labor's forces. Then the laborers are weak and at the mercy of their masters. Men do not stumble and remain in darkness because they love darkness better than light, but because they were born in darkness and have not seen the light, hence they continue to stumble in darkness.

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Shame on the miser with unused riches,
Who robs the toiler to swell his hoard;
Who beats down the wages of diggers of ditches,
And steals the bread from the poor man's board.

Shame on the owner of mines whose cruel
And selfish measures have brought him wealth,
While the ragged wretches who dig his fuel
Are robbed of comfort and hope and health.

Shame on the ruler who rides in his carriage
Bought by the labor of half-paid men --
Men who are shut out of home and marriage
And are herded like sheep in a hovel pen.

---- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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50 Years Ago

Labor Day -- 1949

by William Green, President of the AFL

The keynote of all our Labor Day celebrations this year must be a call to action--action to preserve the free American way of life from the threat of domestic fascism and world communism.

Both on the national and international fronts, America is involved in a cold war. In our own country, reactionary forces are attempting to turn the clock backward and are gambling upon a depression to return them to power over the nation's economic and political life. On the world front, the leaders of the Kremlin are also gambling upon a depression to weaken American resistance and to enable them to gain dominion over all of Europe and Asia.

We must not allow that depression to take place. Our government must make every effort to prevent it. And the trade union movement must militantly maintain and defend its standards so that mass purchasing power, the nourishing force of our economic life, can keep the wheels of industry rolling.

During the past year, for the first time since prewar days, unemployment began to swell. It has not as yet reached alarming proportions, nor is it likely to do so; but it is a dangerous symptom and prompt measures must be taken to correct it before it is too late. Labor favors the preparation of a huge shelf of public works projects, ready to be set in motion if the need develops to create new jobs.

At the same time, the trend toward high wage rates has suffered its most stubborn resistance in many years. While business continues to derive huge profits, employers throughout the country, as though by a given signal have tightened up their wage policy, using the pretexts of declining prices and fears of future production cutbacks as justification.

It is true that some prices have fallen, but the cost of living to the nation's workers has not declined appreciably and in some cases has risen, because other prices have gone up sharply in the past year, especially rents. The unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor have fought courageously and are still fighting for reasonable increases in pay for their workers and in most cases they have been able to win modest successes.

All this time, in the midst of distressing and threatening developments, the trade union movement has been handicapped and repressed by the grim impediments of the Taft-Hartley Act. No other single factor during the year has hurt labor more.

Tragically, the drive to repeal the Taft-Hartley Act during the first session of the 81^st Congress fell short of success by a small margin. Despite the overwhelming repudiation of the reactionary policies of the 80^th Congress by the voters in the 1948 elections and despite the campaign pledges of President Truman, the new Congress was hogtied by a coalition of Tory Republicans and Dixiecrats. The whole program of progressive legislation, except for the public housing bill, fell victim to the coalition's axe.

This was a severe setback for labor, but not a permanent defeat. The reactionaries will find that out in 1950. I am confident that the workers of this country will turn out to the polls in unprecedented numbers in the 1950 congressional elections and break the hated coalition by defeating its members for reelection. Labor's League for Political Education, the aggressive political arm of the American Federation of Labor, is going to redouble its efforts to help bring about this major objective.

On the world front, communism suffered a crucial blow by the disintegration of the so-called World Federation of Trade Unions by the decision of the free, democratic trade union organizations in more than 50 nations to establish a new world labor body free of any communist taint. To my mind, this action will go a long way toward preventing any further spread of Soviet territorial aggrandizement through internal revolutions in Europe. Thus the leadership of free labor is helping actively and materially to keep the world free.

10 Years Ago

BMWE JOURNAL Front Page Lead Article

Court Catches ICC Abusing Authority in Arbitration Cases

A federal appeals court ruled July 25 that contracts between labor unions and carriers are not open for change by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC).

The ruling sets the stage for a possible judicial reversal of the commission's interference in the Kasher Award involving Guilford Transportation Industries, where the ICC relied on the same power the appeals court voided.

The decision is "a most significant victory for rail labor and a stunning setback for the ICC," said labor attorney William G. Mahoney.

Examining two cases where the ICC claimed powers over arbitration board decisions, the court found no basis for the power in the Interstate Commerce Act exemption clause that allows the commission to exempt carriers in ICC-approved transactions from "antitrust law and all other law." The commission fails to explain, the court said tersely, how the term "other law" can mean "all legal obstacles."

Merger Cases

The cases evolved from mergers that created the Norfolk Southern and CSX Transportation. Attempts to consolidate operations and transfer jobs after the mergers led to arbitration board examinations of the contracts under the protective conditions imposed by the ICC when it approved the mergers.

The arbitration boards and the ICC acted upon the apparent belief that they had the authority to abrogate any contract or Railway Labor Act provision that impeded the implementation of an ICC-approved merger.

In the CSX case, involving the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen, the ICC ordered the collective bargaining agreement abrogated, and in the Norfolk Southern case it upheld an arbitration board ruling to abrogate provisions in a contract with the American Train Dispatchers' Association.

The appeals court combined the cases for review and found the ICC's alleged power source to be bankrupt. "Nowhere does (the Interstate Commerce Act) say that the ICC may also override contracts, nor has it ever, in any of the various iterations since its initial enactment in 1920, included even a general reference to 'contracts,' much less any specific reference to

CBAs (collective bargaining agreements)," the court said.

ICC Denied Power

It added that the ICC itself denied it possessed that power until recently. "Never, either in its decisions here under review or in prior cases, has the ICC offered any justification for this most unlikely reading of the (Interstate Commerce) Act," the court said.

The court overturned the cases and remanded questions on the ICC's ability to abrogate the Railway Labor Act (RLA) to lower courts to reexamine. While refusing to consider the RLA question, the court nonetheless suggested that the ICC "reconsider" its position--if it had not already "abandoned (it) altogether" --in light of the recent Supreme Court decision in the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie case that found the Interstate Commerce Act was not superior to the RLA.

Immediate fallout from the appeals court ruling is sure to land on the ICC's ruling reversal of the arbitration award on Guilford Transportation's Springfield Terminal. The commission overturned the award by arbitrator Richard Kasher that ordered a return to the work rules, wages and benefits that were in effect before Guilford initiated a series of leasing arrangements between four rail subsidiaries and the Springfield Terminal, which has a less stringent labor contract.

The Railway Labor Executives' Association is appealing the ICC review to the same court that acted in the carmen and dispatcher cases.