Political Organizations and Labor
Political organizations sometimes see alliances with organized labor as a means to increase their effectiveness, and vice versa.
The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance (STLA) was closely linked to the Socialist Labor Party. The STLA existed from 1895 until 1905, when it played a founding role in the IWW. In 1908 the IWW modified its constitution to prohibit alliances with any political parties.
When the IWW underwent a split over the issue of decentralization in the mid-1920s, roughly half of the membership left to join the Communist Party (CP).
The Trade Union Educational League (TUEL) was a left wing movement inside the AFL by former Left Wing Socialists and former IWW members who became active in the American Communist movement. The TUEL "urged organization of the unorganized, more rank-and-file control of unions, federal unemployment insurance, and support of socialism." The TUEL rejected alternatives to the AFL, a policy at that time aimed at the IWW. The TUEL seemed capable of far-reaching influence in 1922, but attacks on TUEL members and a right-ward drift of labor resulted in its isolation.
In 1928 the TUEL became the Trade Union Unity League (TUUL), a federation of industrial unions established in opposition to the AFL craft labor unions. The CP played a significant role in the labor movement during the 1930s and '40s, particularly in the CIO. The CP was defeated during organized labor's internal battles in the aftermath of World War II.
Read more about this topic: Labor Federation Competition In The United States
Famous quotes containing the words political organizations, political and/or labor:
“No officer should be required or permitted to take part in the management of political organizations, caucuses, conventions, or election campaigns. Their right to vote and to express their views on public questions, either orally or through the press, is not denied, provided it does not interfere with the discharge of their official duties. No assessment for political purposes on officers or subordinates should be allowed.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Of all my prosecutors ... not one is my peer, but each and all are my political sovereigns; and had your honor submitted my case to the jury, as was clearly your duty, then I should have had just cause of protest, for not one of those men was my peer; but, native or foreign born, white or black, rich or poor, educated or ignorant, sober or drunk, each and every man of them was my political superior; hence, in no sense, my peer.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“His Labor is a Chant—
His Idleness—a Tune—
Oh, for a Bee’s experience
Of Clovers, and of Noon!”
—Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)