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EDITORIAL

purpose of giving away the right to strike is selling us down the river. Those who have historically profited from our oppression are today trying to make "no-strike pledges" the new fashion. This is transforming the collective-bargaining table into an auction block. But we committed ourselves a long time ago, as a people, to the idea that

"Before I'll be a slave,
I'll be buried in my grave."

Then there is a style of labor leadership that calls for union activity to center upon lobbying in Congress. Now it is all to the good for labor to have its lobbyists on Capitol Hill. We learned a lesson in the Freedom Movement a long time ago that mass direct action is the most effective lobby we can organize. An assembly-line that has been closed down by the workers is the most effective "lobby" we have at this moment. More than a year ago an effort was made to say some of these things by black delegates attending the AFL-CIO Convention at Miami. But we are going to have to speak with a much bigger collective voice if we are to be heard. This is a matter of organization.

Perhaps the single overriding issue which has brought together black trade unionists in significant conventions of this type over the past twenty years is the continued existence of racist practices in industry and in many labor unions. This recent convention expressed a renewed determination to keep up the fight to end racism. In this struggle, one of our focuses has been to elect more black and Spanish-speaking workers to union posts as a means of affecting union policy and decision-making. This is all to the good. Yet experience over the years has also taught that power is in the people. And a union official, to be really effective, has got to maintain an organized base among the rank-and-file. Without that power base, black trade union officials, no matter how important their post, are really being put in the position of being emasculated and fronted-off by others in the union bureaucracy, who are the real decision makers. The recent significant victories of the rank-and-file movement in the United Mine Workers Union of America are an example of struggle which carries many lessons for our Freedom Movement at the present stage. Afro-American working people have played a major role in building the unions in this country, and we demand that union officials elected from our ranks have real power, not just the illusion of power. Without a power base among the rank-and-file,

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