British Labor Looks to Socialism

Todd, Laurence

By Laurence rodd British Labor Looks to Socialism Charles Dukes, British Fraternal Delegate to A. F. of L Convention, Sees No Other Hope for Britain and the World—Tells of Purging of Labor...

...Labor had stood adamant against wage cuts which would remove the incentive of the workers to continue to hold their jobs...
...Unsympathetic and conservative leaders have dropped out...
...But he declared that the British Trade Union movement, whose political expression is the Labor Party, is a greater power in the nation today than at any time in the past...
...British labor answered by reorganising on a basis of the working class as a whole...
...If the Alabama officials will now recognize the flimsy case against these boys they will release them on bail and forget to hold another trial...
...The commission held an examination in 1927, compelling the veteran painters to take it over their protest that they had all worked beyond the probationary period and were eligible to permanent call...
...ent insurance in Great Britain as being of great benefit to the British trade unionists in these hard times...
...We have had more than ten years of unemployment and of increasing poverty, but the spirit of our workers is unbroken and their economic thinking unclouded," Dukes said...
...That these two spokesmen of rail labor will be active la the coming convention of the American Federation of Labor,' to hasten the drafting sad introduction in Congress of S strong unemployment insurance bill, WSS indicated Defers they returned to their respective headquarters...
...Speaking of the confident Spirit of the British -orkers, in spite of the blow suffered by the desertion of some of their political leaders such as Mae Donald, Thomas and Snowden, Milliman said: "These British labor men are convinced that the only lasting remedy is social Ism, and they are actively working toward that end politically and through their tremendous cooperative movement...
...Its political expression was the Labor Party...
...Discussing the desertion of the Labor Party by MacDonald, Snowden and their associates in 1931, Dukes said that this break of the conservatives had long been expected, but no one in the Labor Party ranks had foreseen that the group would run out on the Issue of the right of the unemployed to adequate relief...
...The Supreme Court held that the painters "are entitled to relief as prayed" for the five years they have not worked, although standing ready to work...
...We challenge the foundations of capitalism" He spoke of the complete transformation and tremendous gain in power which the British trade union movement experienced after the TafT Vale decision by the courts against Its right to use union funds for political purposes...
...The British delegate, who is a member of - the executive of the British Trade Union Congress, is president of the Public Service International, and is Manchester District secretary of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers, has twice served in the House of Commons...
...WASHINGTON...
...Charles " Dukes, fraternal delegate from the British Trade Union Congress to the coming convention at Cincinnati of the American Federation of Labor, told the Federated Press in Washington that British labor is forcing the crisis of capitalism in that country, and that Socialism is the program with which it is carrying forward to certain triumph...
...The men who operate factories are merely their agents in dictating terms of life to the workers...
...Its program became more and more anti capitalist, and more and more Socialist...
...If the Socialist movement means anything, it means socialising the money power, which controls credit and hence controls the employment policies of the country...
...Although courts are presumed not to know what everybody else knows, the U. S. Supreme Court could not have fairly come to any other conclusion...
...It is infinitely better than the kind of dole we hare in this country...
...The banks, as every student of modern industry knows, dictate the wage-cutting policy of the employers...
...Communists have no future In British politics, he concluded, "because they can offer nothing that we are not already fighting for with our fully organized movement" SCOTTSBORO DECISION HAILED BY BALDWIN COMMENTING on the U. S. Su^ preme Court decision granting new trials to the seven Negro youths sentenced to death in the Scottsboro, Ala., rape case, Roger N. Baldwin, director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said: "The plain fact of a trial in the midst of a mob of 10,000 around the courthouse, held in check by state troops, convinced everybody except the Alabama Supreme Court that the Scottsboro boys did not have a fair trial...
...No industrial country can avoid this crisis," the British delegate said...
...Skilled trades ceased to dominate, A people's movement was created...
...Milliman remarked that "The 'dole,' aa newspapers persist in calling unemployment Insurance, undoubtedly saved England from industrial revolution...
...I regard our decision to peg wages and to maintain relief standards at a high level, while we move directly to the nationalization of the banking function, as the most important action short of revolution that can be taken...
...Six Ousted Painters Win $30,000 From San Francisco in Pay Suit SAN FRANCISCO.—The Supreme Court of California decided that San Francisco must pay six painters a total of $30,000 because they wens dropped illegally by the Civil Service Commission in 1927 and subsequently barred from jobs...
...By Laurence rodd British Labor Looks to Socialism Charles Dukes, British Fraternal Delegate to A. F. of L Convention, Sees No Other Hope for Britain and the World—Tells of Purging of Labor Party—No Room for Communism in His Country...
...Mass needs have become its primary concern, while the decay of capitalist security ha* taught the workers to rely upon themselves...
...Through granting or re fusing credit, the banks control all industrial employers...
...The dole has at least afforded workers a chance to eat and has eliminated breadlines and much of the poignant misery which is only too apparent on this side...
...The Communists gathered up some 2,000 unemployed for a march on London to give greater publicity to the fight, but the actual resistance is being conducted by 7,000,000 organized workers who vote for labor candidates only...
...The "means test," which seeks to compel all members of a family to surrender their savings and earnings before any unemployed member of that family shall receive public relief, was designed by the employing class to force men and women to take jobs at wages lower than the relief standards...
...Considering the nature of the charges, the Scottsboro boys could never get a fair trial in Alabama, and the sooner they are turned loose and the prosecution forgotten the better it will be for everybody...
...They also noted that British workers do not work under speed-up conditions, so that they are actually paid as much or more, per unit of production, than are American workers...
...He explained that the present struggle over the "means test," or pauperization rule imposed by the MacDonald Tory government to reduce the payment of unemployment relief, is being carried on in every corner of Britain by the combined forces of the trade unions, the cooperatives, the Labor Party and the Independent Labor Party...
...This Includes the development o* great rowspapers like the DaUy Herald...
...The problem of unemployment relief, has naturally brought us up against the banks...
...If it were not fo- unemploy ment insurance, the so-called 'dole,' conditions would be infinitely worse in Britain," Franklin said while in Washington...
...That in effect is what the Arkansas authorities did in a similar case some years sgo, the state being 'unready' for trial on three occasions and the case finally being nolle pressed under a state law...
...He declined to set a date at which he expects the Lalior Party, with its Socialist program, to enter into full governmental power...
...General labor was enlisted...
...It was inevitable when the employers sought to drive wages down to within a few shillings of the minimum cost of maintenance of the workers...
...This is the plan sneered at by enemies of socla' legislation as .he "dole...
...The decision of the British Labor Party at its recent conference to make the socialization of the great private banks one of its immediate objectives, is a logical and necessary decision in this crisis of unemployment...
...City Hall reports were that the high court decision in effect compels the city to pay twice for its painting during the past Ave years, because approximately six younger men have been employed during thai time Returned Fraternal Delegates Endorse British "Dole" WASHINGTON (FP).-Josseph A. Franklin, president of the Boilermakers, and E. E. Milliman, secretary-treasurer of the Maintenance of Way Employers' Brotherhood, returned from attendance at the British Trade Union Congress as fraternal delegates from the American Federatl n of Labor, endorsed unemplo...
...In the "cleanout" younger men stood at the top of the eligibility Hat and the older employes were given- none of the periodic city work...

Vol. 14 • November 1932 • No. 20


 
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