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From The Militant, Vol. 12 No. 50, 13 December 1948, p. 4.
ranscribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
The CIO convention in Portland took so many reactionary steps that some people have begun to ask themselves if there is any longer any important distinction to be drawn between it and the AFL. Such a question would never have occurred to anyone in the early days of the CIO, when it contrasted favorably and, progressively with the moss-back AFL in every field – in organizing drives among the mass production workers, in economic struggles and in social outlook. But with the sharpened trend toward conservatism, bureaucratization and red-baiting which were manifested at the Portland convention, doubts about the overall progressive character of the CIO as against the AFL are bound to appear and spread.
In our opinion, there still remain many important differences demonstrating the superiority of the CIO. We can illustrate one of these differences by an incident at the Labor Department’s 15th annual conference on labor legislation, which is attended by CIO, AFL and independent union representatives as well as federal and state labor department officials.
A proposal was made at this conference to endorse Truman’s civil rights program. Most of the 143 delegates declined to vote on the question, and it was defeated by a vote of 23 to 21. More significant, than the vote, however, was the way the CIO and AFL people divided over the question, with most of the CIO representatives voting for the resolution and most of the AFL representatives joining the Jim Crow Southern state officials in defeating it.
Why did this happen? Not because the CIO leaders are personally wiser or more moral people than their AFL counterparts. It happened because the AFL’s main base is still the conservative craft unions, in which the Negro plays little part, while the CIO’s main base is mass production industry, which could not remain unionized without the support of Negroes. Despite what goes on in Philip Murray’s mind and despite the resolutions he can push through at CIO conventions, the very composition of the CIO still compels it to play a different and more progressive role in American society.
Both the AFL and CIO launched big organizing drives in the South after the war. In most cases the AFL has adapted itself completely to the Southern Jim Crow system and has not hesitated to use anti-Negro prejudices in order to win contracts. The CIO’s record in the South is much better, but still not 100% clean. It too on occasion has soft-pedaled on the Negro issue or tried to evade it, which is one reason for the lack of progress made in Operation Dixie.
Because the roots of the national Jim Crow system are in the South, the unionization of the South, and particularly of the Negro masses in the South, is of paramount concern to militant Negroes everywhere in the country. Despite the growing conservatism of its leadership, the CIO remains the best instrument for achieving this task. The job of the Negro people then is to make their weight felt in the CIO, both from inside and outside, so that it will really come to grips with this problem. When it does, radical changes will take place both in the status of the Negro and in the position of the labor movement.
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