Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR ICFTU CONGRESS John P. Windmuller's article on the recent world congress of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in Brussels ("ICFTU Do-Nothing Congress." NL. January...
...But isn't that one of the great hallmarks of a democratic organization ? The real issue, it seems to me, is the fact that the ICFTU is the first international free labor organization which has grown and prospered during its decade of existence...
...But my article made it quite clear that the 10th Anniversary Congress failed to reach agreement on a number of critical issues and instead deferred decisions in a manner calculated, in my opinion, to weaken rather than to strengthen the organization...
...On the contrary, both of us welcome the considered expression of differences of views on vital issues, as they arise, for the purpose of "hammering out policies" on which affiliates can agree and which will advance the cause of freedom to which the ICFTU is pledged...
...Of course, there are differences—significant differences, if you will—regarding the ICFTU administration, just as there is about the administration of any union, any government, any organization...
...But, of course, there were many more constructive achievements at this congress and I can assure Professor Windmuller that in the next decade the ICFTU will continue to make the kind of progress which has impressed not only its friends, but its foes in the Kremlin...
...free-enterprise capitalism, for example...
...However the reviewer arrived at his opening statement, the "overwhelming" effect produced by the quantity of data and the complexity of the analytical method warrants evaluation...
...Truman states in the first chapter that this is an avowed purpose of the study...
...Let us start with a simple truth—the ICFTU is a democratic organization, representing the widest variety of political, economic and social views and yet rooted solidly in the cause of freedom...
...NL, January 4), may have done potential readers a highly qualified service in his method of noting in the book a quantity of data which is not readily assimilable...
...Let me assure Professor Windmuller that there will never be an ICFTU board meeting or congress at which you will not see debate, often harsh debate and conflict—and why not...
...Thus, while the effort required to comprehend the empirical evidence may leave the reader "benumbed," we must be very grateful to Truman for having given us a seminal, valid, empirical approach to a subject notoriously unamenable to empirical analysis...
...And yet nobody in the ICFTU would suggest that it is a record without its defeats as well...
...Three factors seem relevant: The data are accurate, the empirical analysis is valid, and this approach allows, for the first time, empirical verification of a few of the intuitively advanced hypotheses about Congress...
...This is true, as it must be if the empirical relevance of the data is to be retained...
...I also tried to assess impartially the responsibility for the breakdown of the decision-making process in the ICFTU...
...To list its achievements in 20 years would take up more room than is to be found in an issue of THE NEW LEADER...
...Of course, a labor delegate from a colonial country will have a different view of the world than a labor delegate from Belgium or Britain...
...we revel in argument because words have meaning to us, policies are io be hammered out publicly, not behind the scenes by dictators...
...Professor Windmuller has chosen to see the bleak side of a congress which, if it did nothing else, established an iron-bonded relationship with the newly emerging African countries...
...Both of us want the ICFTU to be a viable, expanding, democratic force...
...We are not the WFTU...
...But the ICFTU has no "party line" dictatorship...
...It seems unlikely that this was either inadvertent or an afterthought...
...Look back upon the bleak history of earlier similar organizations, with their endless disputes about doctrinaire socialism vs...
...This statement, proffered as criticism, ignores the fact that insofar as an analysis is empirical it must be dominated by the data...
...Under the banner of the ICFTU, there are today 137 organizations from 97 countries and territories representing a combined membership of 56 1/4 million workers—quite a phenomenal growth from 1949—fighting on significant fronts: colonialism, peace, the battle against totalitarianism, organizing workers in underdeveloped countries, racial discrimination, stabilization of raw material prices, increasing productivity and dozens and dozens more...
...It may well account for Lane's opening statement that Truman's explanation of Congressional leadership is made "almost inadvertently and as an afterthought...
...January 11) is, unhappily, a one-sided view which has overemphasized division and conflict to the exclusion of constructive achievement...
...there would be loud cheers and monolithic unanimity...
...Life, of course, would be a lot simpler if, as in the Communist-controlled World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), the ICFTU could be run by party diktat...
...But they agree on the life-and-death issue—freedom...
...A 150-page report, "ICFTU, the First Ten Years," will soon come off the printing press...
...One can, by a process of selection, quite easily create a desired image...
...There would be no difference, no quarreling, no disillusioning—to Professor Windmuller — debates...
...Finally, it should have been obvious that my analysis did not pretend to be a comprehensive and balanced evaluation of 10 years of ICFTU activities, but was limited to the proceedings of the Sixth World Congress...
...Of course, British trade unionism and American trade unionism will not agree on every issue in the field of international labor...
...And it is on the floor of an ICFTU congress that these clashing views are debated...
...The voice and vote of a Kenyan or Indian trade unionist is heard and listened to just as the voice and vote of an American or French trade unionist...
...the method simply takes over...
...In that sense, it is an international organization somewhat like the United Nations or the International Labor Organization, with the rather significant difference that within the ICFTU there are no Communist labor fronts...
...Resolutions would come out from a politburo...
...It is the methodological conditioning of the discussion which overwhelmed this reader, and which may similarly have affected the reviewer...
...Truman also refutes some in the process...
...Is it not an achievement that in Africa there are today trade union organizations, several of which were born because there was an ICFTU with money, trained organizers and, above all, the will to do something...
...Furthermore, approximately one-third of the book specifically deals with Congressional leadership...
...He states: "The data, not their meaning, dominate the discussion...
...Why is this "most depressing...
...In stating that "the method simply takes over," Lane apparently means that Truman's presentation was conditioned by the analytical method...
...New Haven Louis KUSHNICK...
...Naturally, it makes for what may seem to be an unruly meeting, charged with tensions and hot oratory...
...To suggest that I favor the suppression of open debate would misrepresent my views...
...EXAMINING CONGRESS Robert E. Lane, in his review of David Truman's The Congressional Party ("The Trouble With Congress...
...New York City BILL KEMSLEY Director, New York Office, ICFTU John P. Windmuller replies: Basically, there is no disagreement between Bill Kemsley's and my position...
...Is the aid which the ICFTU gave to the people of Tunisia and Morocco when they fought for freedom and, today, to Algeria, Kenya, Tanganyika and other lands to be forgotten...
...And having said all this, let me emphasize that the ICFTU is far from achieving its high goals, but it has made tremendous progress...
Vol. 43 • February 1960 • No. 5
