7?»'x, Official c4eport on the EXPULIO1N of COMMUNIST DOMINRATED ORGANIZATIONS from the LIJ T t. Ot UiDJ2STC.r& L | ATIINS L'13RB Py t U$$eIXV:~TY OF CALIFCRN'A RK LLEY . __l (~Publication No. 254) September, 1954 Compiled by Publicity Department CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS WALTER P. REUTHER President JOHN V. RIFFE JAMES B. CAREY Executive Vice-President Secretary-Treasurer 718 Jackson Place N.W., Washington 6, D. C. Price: 15 cents a3 Official Reports on the EXPULSION of COMMUNIST /- DOMINATED ORGANIZATIONS From the CIO I N D E X Page United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America ...................................-. 5 United Farm Equipment and Metal Workers of America......................................-.. 9 Mine, MiI and Smelter Workers Americaof. ..................................... ........ 11 Food, Tobacco, Agricultural and Allied Workers of America.................................. 23 WorkersUnitedPublic of America.............................................................................................34 United Office and Professional Workers of America...... .......... ..................... 56 CommunicationsAmerican Association............................................................................... 70 LeatherInternationalFurand Workers Union................................................................. 84 International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union ................................... 99 International Fishermen and Allied Workers of America............................................ 114 National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards of America....................................116 2 FOREWORD During 1949 and 1950, the Congress of Industrial Organizations expelled from its ranks eleven international unions which had been found to be Communist-dominated organizations. The process of expulsion was carried out in accordance with provisions of the Constitution of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, which bars affiliation with the CIO of "any national or international unions or organizing committee the policies and activities of which are consistently directed toward the achievement of the program or the purposes of the Communist Party, any fascist organization, or other totalitarian movement, rather than the objectives and policies set forth in the constitution of the CIO." Two of the unions were expelled from the CIO by action of the 1949 CIO Convention. The late Philip Murray, the president of the CIO, appointed a series of hearing committees which heard charges against the remaining nine accused unions. These committees filed reports of their findings and recommenda- tions. These recommendations, calling for the expulsion of the various accused unions, were approved and put into effect at subsequent meetings of the CIO Executive Board and formally ratified by the CIO Convention in 1950. This was a unique process in the annals of American labor history, both in the United States and in other nations. It was marked by a firn decision to avoid resort to hysteria and to preserve the traditional democratic concept of due process of law. The reports containing the findings and recommendations of these hear- ings are of considerable historical value. The CIO publishes them as a public service for trade union members and for all students of labor prob- lems and of democracy's successful efforts to combat the menace of totali- tarianism. Five years after this expulsion process started, the strength of Com- munist-dominated unions in the United States has been tremendously weak- ened-essentially by the wisdom, fortitude and courage of trade union mem- bers themselves. A number of these expelled unions have completely disappeared from the American scene: the Food, Tobacco and Agricultural Workers; the United Office and Professional Workers; and the United Public Workers. Some have merged. All have lost membership to democratic labor or- ganizations-most particularly, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, which at the time of expulsion, numbered nearly a half-million members. Over 80 percent of these men and women have joined the ranks of the CIO's International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (IUE-CIO). The CIO and its members are proud of this record of the constructive opposition to Communist domination of labor organizations-under a program which has preserved the benefits of democratic unionism for hundreds of thousands of American workers while reducing to a minimum the influence and effectiveness of the agents of the Kremlin on the American labor scene. Washington, D. C. September 1954 3 RESSOLUTION OF THE 1949 CIO CONVENTION ON THE EXPULSION OF THE UNITE ELECTRICAL, RADIO AND MACHINE WORKERS OF AMERICA We can no longer tolerate within the family of CIO the Communist Party masquerading as a labor union. The time has come when the CIO must strip the mask from these false leaders whose only purpose is to deceive and betray the workers. So long as the agents of the Communist Party in the labor movement enjoy the benefits of affiliation with the CIO, they will con- tinue to carry on this betrayal under the protection of the good name of the CI0. The false cry of these mis-leaders of labor for unity and autonomy does not deceive us. In the name of unity they seek domination. In the name of autonomy they seek to justify their blind and slavish willing- ness to act as puppets for the Soviet dictatorship and its foreign policy with all its twists and turns from the Nazi-Soviet Pact to the abuse of the veto in the UN, the Cominform attack upon the Marshall Plan, ECA, the At- lantic Treaty and arms aid to free nations. Now that they are at the end of the trail, these Communist agents cry out against "raiding and secession." What -they call raiding and secession is simply a movement of workers throwing off their yoke of domination. These workers seek refuge from a gang of men who are without principle other than a debased loyalty to a foreign power. Their masters have long decreed the creation of a new labor federation into which they hope to ensnare the labor unions they think they control. This has already taken place in many countries of the world. It will not happen in America. When they saw that their attempt to use UERMWA to subvert the CIO was failing, they resorted to the typical Communist tactic of systematic character assassination against the National C10, our President, Philip Murray, and all affiliated unions and officers who opposed the Cominform policy. Their program of vilification reveals the degradation of men who have surrendered the right and lost the ability to think for themselves. It brands them as unfit to associate with decent men and women in free democratic trade unions. The CIO is a voluntary association of free trade unions dedicated by its constitution to the protection and extension of our democratic institutions, civil liberties, and human rights. Free unions are voluntary associations of free men, held together by common loyalties and the elements of decency and honesty. We will fight with conviction and vigor against all enemies within or without the CIO who would trample or seek to destroy these sacred principles. The certificate of affiliation of the CIO is a symbol of trust, democracy, brotherhood and loyalty in the never-ending struggle of working men and women for a better life. There is no place in the CIO for any organization whose leaders pervert its certificate of affiliation into an instrument that would betray the American workers into totalitarian bondage. By the actions of its leadership, by their disloyalty to the CIO, and their dedication to the purposes and program of the Communist Party, contrary 5 to the overwhelming sentiment of the rank and file membership who are loyal Americans and loyal CIO members, the leadership of the United Elec- trical, Radio and Machine Workers of America have rendered their union unworthy of and unqualified for this certificate of affiliation. The UERMWA has been selected by the Communist Party as its labor base from which it can operate to betray the economic, political, and social wel- fare of the CIO, its affiliates and the general membership. The program of the UERMWA leadership that has gradually unfolded is but an echo of the Cominform. At the signal of the Cominform, the Communist Party threw off its mask and assumed its true role as a fifth column. Its agents in the labor unions followed the Communist Party line. The UERMWA leadership abandoned any pretense of loyalty to the CIO and its program. The record is clear that wherever the needs of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union dictated, the leadership of the UERMWA was always willing to sacrifice the needs of the workers. The evidence, known to every CIO member, is over- whelming: 1. The CIO along with the American people support the Marshall plan as a humane policy of physical and human rehabilitation and reconstruc- tion to stop the spread of totalitarianism and strengthen the forces of de- mocracy. The Soviet Union, the Communist Party and their highly placed agents in the UERMWA unite in denouncing the Marshall plan and vilify the CIO and the American people for their humanity. 2. The CIO along with the American people support the Atlantic Pact to prevent any further expansion of the Soviet Union's rule by force and terror. The Soviet Union, the Communist Party and the UERMWA leadership at- tack the Atlantic Pact as war-mongering but are eloquently silent about the fact that the Soviet Union has the largest