A Foreign Policy for Organized Labor
A Foreign Policy for Organized Labor Democracy in Asia as in Europe Depends on Labor By Charles Kreindler t > Charles Kreindler, Vice-President af tha Interns Una! Ladies' Garment Worker*'...
...I am convinced that the great mass of the people of both the victorious and the defeated countries are as hungry for freedom as they are for bread...
...Too long have we of the West . ignored the East...
...We of organized labor have done more than our share in winning the war over Nazi-Kawcist totalitarianism...
...There Is no exception to this truth...
...On my recent visit to Japan and China, I was pleasantly surprised by the eagerness of Japanese labor to organize into free unions and democratic political parties...
...As the largest free trade union movement in the world, organized labor in America mutt be in the forefront of all forces ttfiring fur an active democratic foreign policy by our nation...
...Our free labor movement, with its vast numbers, tremendous industrial strength, and traditionally democratic background, is face to face with its most urgent task: organized labor in the United States must become the most dynamic force far the development and expansion of democratic principle* and practices in our own country and in other landt...
...te the conditions of 1939, which gave ';>*¦ ana total war...
...Gilberts, Mariannes, Philip pines, Okinawa and Japan...
...The Korean Debacle...
...Kreindler was a member af a commission sent by the War Department, on which he represented tha AFL...
...Parenthetically, I do not I - count as evidence of the democratic regeneration of Japan, the recent audden if conversion to a united front with the Communists of such aggressively imperialist papers of yesterday as the Yomiuri-flochi and the Asa At...
...1 sincerely hope that American free labor will come to the aid of the toilers of China and Japan ' and help them to organize bonafide trade union movements—free from government domination and spared the trials and tribulations of the disruptive maneuvers Of totalitarian cliques and peddlers of dictatorship...
...The AFL is a united body in this respect...
...Ladies' Garment Worker*' Union, has recently returned from an inspection trip ta military ramps ia the Pacific...
...These three points are valid just as much for the Far East as the Near East, for Europe as for Asia, and for our own country as for all our neighbors in both Americas...
...The extension af democracy from the political into the social and economic fields ia a llfe-and-death question for the postwar world...
...The decisions of its last Executive Council on the support of democracy in Spain, Chile, and Germany, confirm this beyond challenge...
...Any other course would be dangerously false and fatal...
...Toward equipping itself for meeting the above urgent tasks, American labor should consider the following' principles in its basic policies during the crucial period through which we are now passing: 1 —The cornerstone of labor's domestic and international policy In every country must be the strengthening of democracy in political, economic and social relations...
...Before the militaristic clique wrecked the Japanese trade unions in 1940, they had a membership of about 460,000...
...But democracy In every country can mean something only if it guarantees full freedom of association, the right to multiple political organisation, and the opportunity for the great masses of people to attain economic security and the Improvement of their living conditions...
...Even before Japan surrendered, thousands of Japanese workers in Tokyo, Osaka, Yokohama and other Japanese cities had dem* nnstrated against the unbearable speed-' ap, the starvation wages, and the crushing burdens of war...
...I am anything but pessimistic as to the prospects for democracy and labor in the Far East...
...In this light, the American labor movement has a vital duty to perform in behalf of its own democratic ideals and for the sake of all human progress...
...Trade unions are democratic only If they are free from manipulation or domination by government agencies, employer organisations, and political parties, run by and for their membership, with a full sense of labor's responsibility...
...n, 2—Military victory assured the de-., lent of the Axis sggressors in yesterday's battles...
...Recently 125 labor leaders gathered in Tokyo to lay the foundations for a reborn and strengthened trade union movement...
...It will be much easier to arrive at pesitive proposals for policy and action h? we can come to an agreement on cer* tain basic ideas: 1—Mankind can never again return...
...4—The maintenance of international security can be achieved only by vigorously applying tha principles of iha Atlantic Charter and the Four Freedoms...
...Hence, the AFL is really free to move for the support and extension of democracy at home and abroad...
...American labor must fight to have our government pursue a foreign policy calculated to build a United Nations Organization which shall protect the weak against the strong and not the powerful nations against the weak countries...
...Being opposed to all power polities and spheres of influence, I am dead set against trying to work out an international policy for labor on the basis of particular zones, areas and spheres...
...We must be ready to do more than our share toward winning the peace—toward winning a world free from the fear of totalitarian terror, the menace of war, and the curse of exploitation and poverty...
...v__:_______• j NO one should try to break up the preaent world situation into airtight eompartmente, separata frees each other, into distinct spheres...
...In the American Federation of Labor, the liberal and progressive forces of the world have a large, strong, and vital trade union movement committed to such a policy...
...This means American initiative, consistency, and vigor in the organization of a world security organization which will be worthy of its name and aim...
...Given half a chance by the Big Three, the people of the liberated aqd defeated lands in the Far.East and Europe will make real ' contributions toward building a democratic, peaceful, and prosperous world...
...As I see it, the expansion of democracy is no high-sounding notion far demagogues to toy with...
...I think this makes sound common sense...
...I assume we all want >,«.' avdifferent and a better world...
...e * e WrlEREVER the people of Europe west ' of the Curzon Line have had even tha slightest chance, they have decisively repudiated the apostles of totalitarian Communism...
...The AFL does not have within its ranks a large and influential totalitarian force which owes its first allegiance to powers and interests outside our own country...
...5—American labor mast strive far maximum collaboration with the free labor movements and genuine democratic forces of every country—the "backward" included -in the furtherance of human progress...
...3—In Asia as in every other part of the world, free trade unions are the bulwark of modern democracy...
...The terror to which Japanese workers were subjected by .their rulers dad not eradicate their desire to organize and to live as free men and women...
...Atomic power in itself can never prevent and may even precipitate a super-total war and only bring an self-extermination for mankind unless it both expends and extends democracy...
...But military victory itself does not guarantee the triumph of the democratic way of life, of progres* sive ideas in the postwar world...
...The chances for a revived and strong free labor movement in Japan are good...
...3—For genuine democracy to win the peace today, the truly democratic forces of all countriea must work for a social, political, and economic program which will be more attractive and dynamic than the platforms offend by the defeated totalitariana of yesterday (Nazis and Fascists) and the aur-viving (and momentarily thriving) totalitarianism of today (the so-called Communists...
...This is not wishful thinking on my part...
...Without political de- , mocracy there can be no free trade unions in any country, and without free trade unions there can be no political democracy...
...It is practical...
...He visited camps in the Hawaiian Islands, the Marshall...
...2—The one-party system is the very opposite of political democracy...
...We sanst first of all face the problem as a whole, find certain fundamentals, and then apply these basic ideas to the concrete conditions in the various countries...
...American labor has a vital stake in the elimination of this dictatorial menace to dem» ocratic principles...
...It is not for American labor to dictate the exact form which the democratic state structure should take in |ny particular country...
...I mean a world federation in which all nations—small as well as big —can be really free and secure and not merely satellites, pawns, and objects of exploitation for the benefit of any ruling clique in any big power...
Vol. 29 • March 1946 • No. 12
