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REPORT TO INDUSTRIAL DIVISION

(November 14, 1959)

The class struggle in America has entered a new phase. The American ruling class is attempting to render the trade union movement impotent, and to prevent it from exerting itself as a powerful democratic force in the interest of the working class.

Imperialism has suffered consistent defeats for the past ten years. Its containment policies have been thwarted, its liberation policies negated, its atomic monopoly broken and finally its brinkmanship policies checked. Movements for socialism, national liberation and peace are sweeping the world. The socialist countries, with their powerful, rapidly expanding economic systems, are more and more emerging in the eyes of the people as the best system known to mankind. To make affairs even more difficult for the American ruling class, its "friends" are entering into more intense competition than ever before. The socialist countries are also entering goods on the world market. This also narrows the ability of American imperialism to impose itself on the world's masses. In the United States the working class and people generally are in varied forms demanding a more abundant and peaceful life. This has led more sober elements in the ruling class to move for a more realistic foreign policy. Essentially, these are the reasons why large sections of American imperialism have been forced to reexamine and to initiate charges in its relation to the Soviet Union. It is also because of this same set of circumstances that the ability of the American ruling class to maneuver and to continue to make maximum profit is becoming increasingly difficult. Consequently it is this same set of conditions that forces the ruling class to move decisively against the American workers and their unions. Thus improved relations with the Soviet Union, which spur trends towards coexistence, trace, cultural exchanges, etc., are no bar to sharper attacks on the labor movement. The present general tactic of the ruling class is to shift the burden of their contradiction onto the backs of the workers.

In the past two years an all-out offensive has been opened up against the American workers. It has developed and is continuing to move in five ways. First, the increase physical speedup on the job, and the attempt to trample on working conditions generally. The introduction of advanced science and automation without benefit to the workers. The ability to use automation to increase the production of workers who operate traditional equipment. The dislocation and relocation of plants. These and other methods have created wide-scale unemployment, and have created a nightmare of insecurity for large sections of the workers.

Secondly, the opening up of spurious investigations in the name of protecting the worker from his union. The McClellan committee was a governmental arm in softening up the trade unions and the public for the Landrum-Griffin killer bill, and helping to create the atmosphere for other such bills nationally and in localities. Its stock in trade was lies, deceit, degenerate witnesses, and other methods all too familiar to progressives and communists. Its tactic was essentially the big lie.

Thirdly, employers are emboldened by friendly administrations in the states and in Washington, and are further aided by the general passivity in the top echelons of the trade union movement, and by the self-seeking deals made by some unions as building trades, the ILGWU, and Meany, arranged deals with the politicos, thus undermining the unity of the trade unions on the whole question. When some in the labor movement sought to fight back, they were frustrated by the Meany steamroller. With this favorable situation the bosses move openly to crush the workers by forcing them into long-drawn-out defensive strikes. The companies openly boast of their unity, how they will aid one another in difficulties or keep others in line. They have  now forced a series of strikes across the nation, and perhaps with more to follow.

Fourthly, the government has been used increasingly as a