- A union is built on it’s members. The strength, understanding and unity of membership can determine the union’s course and it’s advancements. The members who work, who make up the union and pay dues, can best determine their own destiny. If the facts are honestly presented to the members in the ranks, they will best judge what should be done and how it should be done. In brief, It is the membership of the union which is the best judge of it’s own welfare; not the officers, not the employers, not politicians and fair weather friends of labor. Above all, this approach is based on the conviction that given the truth and the opportunity to determine their own course of action, the rank and file in 99 cases out of 100 will take the right path in their interests of all the people.
- Labor unity is at all times the key for a successful economic advancement. Anything that detracts from labor unity hurts all labor. Any group of workers through craft unionism or through cozy deals at the expense of others will in the long run gain but little and inevitably lose both its substance and it’s friends. No matter how difficult the going, a union must fight in every possible way to advance the principles of labor unity.
- Workers are indivisible. There can be no discrimination because of race, color, creed, national origin, religious or political belief. Any division among the workers can help no one but the employers. Discrimination is a weapon of the boss. Its entire history is proof that it has served no other purpose than to pit worker against worker to their own destruction.
- “To help any worker in distress” must be a daily guide in the life of every trade union and its individual members. Labor solidarity means just that. Unions have to accept the fact that solidarity of labor stands above all else, including even the so-called sanctity of contract. We cannot adopt for ourselves the policies of union leaders who insist that because they have a contract, their members are compelled to perform work, even behind a picket line. Every picket line must be respected as if it were our own.
- Any union, if it to fulfill its appointed task, must put aside all internal differences and issues to combine for the common cause of advancing the welfare of the membership. No union can successfully fulfill its purpose in life if it allows itself to be distracted by any issue which causes division in its ranks and undermines the unity which all labor must have in the face of the employer.
- The days are long gone when a union can consider dealing with single employers. The powerful financial interests of the country are bound together in every conceivable type of united organization to promote their own welfare and to resist the demands of labor. Labor can no longer win with the ancient weapons of taking on a single employer in an industry any more than it can hope to win through the worn-out dream of withholding its skill until an employer sues for peace. The employers of this country are part of a well organized, carefully coordinated, effective fighting machine. They can be met only on equal terms which requires industry-wide bargaining and the most extensive economic strength of organized labor.
- Just as water flows to its lowest level, so do wages if the bulk of the workers are left unorganized. The day of craft unionism-the aristocracy of labor-was over when mass production was introduced. To organize the unorganized must be the cardinal principle of any union worth its salt; and to accomplish this is not merely in the interest of the unorganized, it is for the benefits of the organized as well.
- The basic aspirations and desires of the workers throughout the world are the same. Workers are workers the world over. International solidarity, particularly among maritime workers, is essential to their protection and a guarantee of reserve economic power in times of strife.
- A new type of unionism is called for which does not confine its ambitions and demands only to wages. Conditions of work, security of employment and adequate provisions for the workers and their families in times of need are of equal, if not greater importance, than the hourly wage.
- Jurisdictional warfare and jurisdictional raiding must be outlawed by labor itself. Nothing can do as much damage to the ranks of labor and the principle of labor unity and solidarity as jurisdictional bickering and raiding among unions. Both public support and strike victories are jeopardized by jurisdictional warfare.
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Date: Third Thursday Every Month
Time: 7 p.m.
Place: Union Hall
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