[Out of 4,000 members Teamsters Local 544 ily…]

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Out of 4,000 members Teamsters Local 544 ily a few voted against e switch to the Coness of Industrial Organilions (C10).

The capitalist press, howr reported that the June a 1941 meeting had been ended by only 750 many them 'outside Trotskyists' IBT President Tobin used • capitalist witch-hunting his campaign. He spatched some 300 suppors (IBI and AFL officials i downright hoodlums) to neapolis and began a drive keep alive Local 544/AFL. (Organising campaign" New officers were pointed and an organising Impaign' planned.

This campaign:

•.. took the form of a horist attack upon the -mbership of 544-CIO. on squads began cruising : city-many in cars with t-of-state licence platesposting truck drivers on the eets and inside workers at i places of employment. The purpose was to make - motor transport workers n cards pledging support to 4-AFL and at the same he to forcibly collect Ambership dues.

... Tobin's thugs used ibs, blackjacks, chains, ives and guns. *CIO members were beaten • some after having been igged from trucks and lers while working on ding docks or inside wareAses. *Similar tactics were used assaults on 544-CIO road vers at freight transfer ints throughout the region hand Minneapolis'.

Police help And of course the re their support. i n several instances lavans of IBT goons arrived truck terminals and wareuses escorted by police lad cars. *The cops then looked the her way when 544-CIO ibers were slugged. They ived in only when groups angry workers sought to firmly with the binites !In the face of such intimition the leadership of 544D proposed the membershould accept dual imbership of 544-AFL. The Local 544 Union fence Guard was not abilised because of the nger of provoking a fullboded assault by the state rees.

Legal moves

¡Local 544CIO leaders ned at demonstrating conlued support for their class luggle policies but attempts I draw workers into indus•l action were blocked by moves such as court ders to ban picketing. •To continue with this would have simply aced the best Militants in bon.

The legal basis for moves alass struggle action Rouserelt's •Wagner bor Relations Act 11953) premental at state level I te Minnesota Stassen Act 9391 So Tent trade union forced to negotiate with unions representing majority of their employees the Wagner Act also included "unfair labor practices" clauses and established a National Labor Relations Board for purposes of compulsory arbitration.

The provisions of the Stassen Act were as follows:

'No one was compelled to join a labor organisation. Strikes in violation of a working agreement with an employer were declared an 'unfair labor practice' In the warehouses that were to be permitted, a majority of those engaged in picketing had to employees of the struck firm. At plants where no strike was in progess, protest actions could involve no more than one picket at each entrance. Sit down strikes were banned outright.

In all cases, unions had to give ten days' advance notice of a desire to negotiate with the employers. Another ten days' notice was then required if the workers decided to go on strike, which made a total of twenty days before a walkout could begin. That, of course, gave the bosses time to prepare strike breaking measures.

The governor was to appoint a state labor conciliator to mediate workeremployer disputes. If the conciliator decided that an industrial conflict was 'affected with public interest, the governor was to have a commission of three to investigate the matter. Hearings were then to be held by the commission, and that body had thirty days in which to make a public report on the controversy. During the thirty-day 'waiting period' the union was forbidden to strike.

It was declared unlawful to interfere with 'free and roadse up ted ustruct public to and egress from' any place of business. An even more specific stricture was included to protect scab trucking. That neitber is party to a strike As a final ironic touch, court injunctions were authorised against unions engaged in 'unfair labor practices' and in cases where an unlawful act was 'threatened'.

With employers all over the state refusing to bargain with 544-CIO or its supporters the Trotskyist leadership decided to apply to state Labor Conciliator Blair for a ballot of employees to decide to which union they wanted to belong.

Inappropriate

Earlier when Tobin's gangs were cruising the streets of Minneapolis 544-CIO obtained a court order against their thug activities.

Tactics such as these must be carefully considered.* Clearly Dobbs is correct to argue the inappropriateness of using the Local's Defence Guard but the use of the courts against Tobin did not help the workers involved to develop a line of struggle independent of the capitalist state.

The case of demanding Blair authorise a ballot of employees is more complicated.

In general the workers' movement must not use these fake 'neutral' bodies-such as industrial tribunals.

The lesson of the Wagner and Stassen Acts is that trade unionists who support state regulation of the labor movement are placing a rope around their necks.

The independence of the trade unions is a principle -not just a good tactic. Yet in the particular circumstances they found themselves in the SWP felt justified in using the courts as a tactic.

Hemmed in with heavy legal restrictions on all sides and a trade union bureaucracy quite prepared to use physical measures in alliance with the state against the militants, they could not rule out any avenue to protect themselves and move towards a stronger position irom Dobbs the SWP action in sacrificed Dobbs stresses at every point that use of the was subordinate to the use of class struggle methods.

Plant ballots

feels that because did not suspend deference to the they had not independence.

Under the terms of the Stassen Law Blair had to announce a date when the application for plant ballots would be heard.

This was fixed for June 30th. The hearings dragged on until August 2nd when Blair refused to petition.

Between those dates the witch-hunt was escalated decisively.

Inc licted

On June 27th Roosevelt moved against the Trotskyists. The SWP headquarters in Minneapolis was raided and the Trotskyists indicted on July 15th.

The charges which led to the jailing of the 'Minneapolis 18° were based on two One was an 1861 statute aimed at the counter revolutionaries of the Southern slave states but left unused until 1941.

Under this statute the Trotskyists were charged with a 'conspiracy to overthrow the government by force and The second part of the indictment was based on the Smith Act of 1940 'the first statute since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 to make mere advocacy of ideas a federal crime'.

Charged Under the Smith Act the defendants were charged with advocating overthrow of the government by force, publishing and circulating literature advocating this, forming organisations to teach advocate and encourage such overthrow' , becoming members of such organisations: distributing publications which 'advised, counCold War period.

A full study of all the issues involved in the trial and the policy adopted by the SWP in the face of imperialist war is beyond the scope of this review.

In addition to Teamster Bureaucracy material on this is to be found in James P. Cannon's Socialism on Trial and The SWP in World War Iwa (both published by Pathtinder).

However, a tew points can be made. The Communist Party for example, not only refused to join the defence campaign, but enthusiastically supported Roosevelt's attacks on the Trotskyists.

Less than ten years later the Stalinists themselves were the victims of the Smith Act and the SWP were almost alone in the labour movement defending them.

Ironically, the conviction of the Trotskyists was used as a precedent against the Stalinists.

Pardon demanded

The Civil Rights Defense. Committee, set up to organise the defence campaign, was able to gather support from a wide range of academics, civil libertarians and, most importantly, working class organisations.

For example in 1942:

"around one hundred and fifty central labour bodies and local unions, speaking for over one million workers passed resolutions protesting the violation of our constitutional rights.

By 1944, when the victims were already in jail, labour organisations representing over 3 million workers were demanding a Presidential pardon.

The jury found the 18 defendants not guilty on part one but guilty on part two of the indictment.

On December 8 1941 just one day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour) 13 year and a day.

Even after the trial 544-CIO was able to organise some struggles which resulted in wage increases for the workers involved. Further attacks put a stop to this, however.

The Teamster series raises many political questions not covered in this review.

Vital question

More space would be needed to assess them fully. as does the vital question of a Labor Party in the USA and the errors committed by the SWP on this issue.

Perhaps most outrageous of all is Dobbs' 'Afterword' in which he attempts to show a link between the class struggie record of the SWP in the 1930s and their current practice in the 1970s.

If any honest comparison is to be made between these two periods it must begin by drawing the sharp contrast between the 1930s movement with its orientation into the working class and today's SWP, which is a petty bourgeois grouping preoccupied with civil rights protest and reformist demands, in a political bloc with the Pabloite United Secretariat (from which • reactionary US legislation debars them from affiliation.)

Vital period This review is not intended to answer these questions, but to give some of the flavour of the struggles fought by our movement 40 years ago in the USA. Teamster Bureaucracy is highly detailed.

Buy this book and the others in the series (Teamster Rebellion, Teamster Power and Teamster Politics).

Read them and rediscover this vital period in the history £ 41. -ASM LATHE

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