How to organize unemployed councils
How to Organize and Conduct United Action for the Right to Live, a manual written by Herbert Benjamin, National Organizer of the Unemployed Councils of U.S.A., was published in 1933.
Contents
Issues and Grievances Around Which Action Can and Must Be Taken
The Organizational Forms That Provide Means of Effective Action and Struggle
Where and How Committees of Action Are Formed
How to Conduct an Assembly Meeting
Initiative Committees and Branches
Shop, Trade, Industrial, and Language Committees
Registration—Consolidation of Our Forces
The Unemployed Council—A Delegate Body
How to Enforce Our Program and Win Our Demands
Direct Relief—Legal Defense and Self-Defense
Propaganda, Educational, and Social Activities
United Front and Opponent Organizations
The prolonged crisis and consequent mass unemployment confront the working-class masses in an acute form, with many new issues and problems. Living conditions, which have never been good, now become intolerable. The very existence of millions of workers is actually threatened. Countless families live in daily fear that on the morrow they will lose such shelter and belongings as they still possess. Hunger is an ever present actuality and menace for millions of men, women and children. Not only the future but the present of every worker is insecure. Our mode of life has been disturbed and our family existence disrupted.
The developments since Roosevelt replaced Hoover as chief executive for the Wall Street government, result in further increase in the numbers of impoverished and destitute masses.
Our general, basic aim is and must be to win greater security. We must fight for guarantees that will assure us of a steady existence on the basis of a minimum of health and decency. To this end we fight for federal unemployment insurance, equal to full average wages, for all workers unemployed through no fault of their own, at the expense of the employers and government. Such insurance is an imperative need for the entire working class of this country, regardless of whether they be now employed or unemployed, regardless of their present place of residence, and regardless of their present circumstances; all our struggles must be directed towards the realization of this demand.
The Unemployed Councils have from the very first moment of their formation raised this as their central demand. Through the many local, state and nationwide demonstrations and struggles organized and led by the Unemployed Councils, this demand has been popularized so that great masses are now conscious of the need for such insurance and considerable progress has been made towards its achievement. It is most essential that we continue to keep this demand in the forefront; that we shall contrast our program for relief and security through such a system of unemployment insurance with the many fake relief and insurance measures that are being sponsored by the many and various enemies of the toiling masses. We must endeavor to unite all workers and organizations whose membership is composed of working men and women for consistent, uncompromising and determined support and struggle around this demand.
Our movement cannot however limit itself to propaganda and occasional struggle for unemployment insurance. To do so would be to prevent successful struggle even for this demand.
The Unemployed Councils are created by the workers themselves for effective united struggle around the most urgent daily needs—for food, shelter, clothing and other elementary necessities of which we are deprived because of unemployment, part-time work and other effects of the crisis (bank failures, high cost of living, etc.)
The Unemployed Councils and the Committees of Action whose delegates constitute the Councils, will justify their existence, rally and retain broad mass-support and thus develop the power necessary for achieving our central demand (unemployment insurance) only to the extent that they actually organize and lead the struggles for the most minute, elementary and basic needs of all workers regardless of affiliation or belief.
Issues and Grievances Around Which Action Can and Must Be Taken
The rich, and their government agents, not only refuse to improve the inadequate and intolerable relief system and standards, but are constantly looking for new means of reducing and worsening them. Both the quantity and the quality of unemployment relief is being lowered in many direct and indirect ways.
Whereas in the beginning of the crisis, relief was provided in cash (even though too little of it), most places have already changed to first a scrip (grocery order) and then a commissary (food basket) system. In this manner they have not only reduced the quantity of relief, but also have taken from us the right to decide what kind of food we shall eat.
According to the admissions of welfare experts, most of the unemployed get no relief at all. In some places (Detroit) only 10% of the unemployed get any kind of relief, while the rest are left to shift for themselves. The average, as reported to a Senate Committee, is 32% of the unemployed on relief.
New schemes for discrimination and denial of relief are invented daily. Almost everywhere, workers who seek relief are forced to strip themselves bare of all their possessions before they can become eligible for relief. Snoopers are sent into our homes and hovels to make a thorough search and investigation into every, most intimate and private, nook and corner, before our right to relief is even acknowledged. Postponements and delays are systematically made under various pretexts, so that what little we get shall be made to last longer. Unofficial reductions from even established standards are a frequent occurrence. Every few weeks relief is altogether suspended and workers are left to starve and freeze because officials falsely claim that funds are exhausted.
Thus we are constantly faced with the need for daily struggles to secure relief for individuals and large numbers of workers. We must fight for enforcement of such standards as already prevail even while fighting to raise the standards. We must prevent all attempts at discrimination, particularly against Negro workers who are most often victims of such practices. We must make it impossible for the authorities to enforce their various schemes regardless of the pretexts that may be given as justification for suspending or reducing relief.
It is necessary that we shall establish and take steps to enforce an adequate relief standard of our own. Such a standard can be embodied in a local “Workers’ Relief Ordinance” which should be prepared in close consultation with the local workers and their various organizations. Such an ordinance when once adopted by the workers should be presented with the support of large masses to every local Councilman (Alderman) and other public officials and pressed upon the City Council as a whole. In the event of elections, we should support only such party and candidates as will unreservedly and earnestly support our ordinance.
A Workers’ Relief Ordinance should embody and be based upon the following conditions and demands:
- A minimum basic rate of $— weekly cash relief for every single unemployed worker plus $— for each dependent.
- Work relief to be permitted only on basis of a minimum 55 cents cash hourly wage for not less than 24 hours of the week.
- Unemployed workers who cannot pay rent shall not be subjected to eviction and shall be entitled to retain their rooms or move to equally convenient rooms of their own choice at expense of the city. Gas, light, water and transport shall be furnished free to all unemployed.
- Unemployed workers and their dependents shall be entitled to medical care by doctors and hospitals of their own choosing at a fixed rate to be paid by the city.
- Welfare and relief stations shall be established wherever 350 or more unemployed make known the need for such stations in their section.
- Employers shall be liable and required to pay relief in the amount of not less than half the normal weekly wages and in no case less than $— plus $— for each dependent to every worker whom they lay off or discharge. When an employer because of bankruptcy or other reason fails to make such payment this obligation shall be assumed and discharged by the city.
- Homes and other possessions of the unemployed shall not be subject to foreclosure or repossession for non-payment of interest, principal or taxes during the period of unemployment and until afforded ample opportunity for rehabilitation.
- These provisions shall apply to all workers, regardless of race, nationality, religious or political affiliation.
- Relief funds shall be administered by committees directly elected by the workers for this purpose.
- These provisions shall be operative until such time as the federal or state government enacts the Workers Unemployment Insurance Bill.
Each Council shall decide on the amount and similar details. Before final adoption, we shall submit our draft to workers in the neighborhoods and organizations for approval and amendment. This will be part of the campaign to mobilize masses for support of the ordinance.
We must however guard against a tendency to consider such an ordinance and the relief demands embodied therein as merely propaganda demands. In our every action, as we go for relief for any worker or group of workers our demands must be based upon the standards outlined in our ordinance and we must see that this is actually won. The adoption of our ordinance will come only after we have enforced its provisions through our persistent daily struggles.
Strikes should be organized and conducted against all forced-labor jobs with a view to winning the minimum wage and hours demands. These need not always take the form of a general action but can often be of a character involving groups on certain jobs, etc.
Determined efforts must be made to prevent any and all evictions regardless of whether the landlord controlled authorities consider such action legal or not. The same applies to foreclosures and repossession.
Special attention should be given to the struggle against mass-layoffs. Employed and unemployed should unite to resist attempts of the employers to expel workers from the factories without making provisions to supply them with a minimum of relief, in accordance with our ordinance.
In addition to these issues we must conduct the most vigorous struggles on behalf fo the special needs of children. The health of the working class children is being undermined as a result of undernourishment and lack of proper housing and clothing. We must force the authorities to provide free, wholesome meals and warm clothing, medical care, transportation and school supplies.
The general and persistent refusal to provide relief for single workers and youths and especially for single women results in a growing army of homeless, destitute paupers. It is causing hundreds of thousands of youths to break their family ties and is turning them into aimless wanderers who are driven from pillar to post, subjected to the most brutal abuse of all types of petty officials and exposed to all manner of physical danger from disease and accident. Whenever attention has been given to this problem, we have been able to better conditions in the flophouses and at the bread lines. In a number of cities we have been able through determined struggles to win cash relief for single workers. This can undoubtedly be done everywhere by involving these as well as all workers in the struggle.
Much more attention must be given to developing struggles against the unsufferable abuses and discrimination against the Negroes. No instance of these hideous practices should ever be overlooked or neglected. Each such instance must serve to evoke the most bitter and vigorous opposition especially of the white workers. Only in this way will the necessary unity of all victims of mass unemployment be forged. Only through such struggle can the interests of all be defended and advanced.
The fight against hunger and misery, for the defense of the interests of the toiling masses, involves action and struggle around not only those issues that can be here anticipated and enumerated. Many needs and wants that arise in the daily life of the masses, become manifest and must be met in the course of the day to day work of the basic organizations. Whether these needs of one or two workers or a general need, it is necessary that we act unitedly to satisfy these as they arise. Thus, there is the fact that pots, pans, brooms and other household goods and furnishings must be replaced. There have been struggles for tooth brushes and past and innumerable other small items. The workers have need for these and have a right to get them.
To the problems that face workers in their homes must be added also those that they confront in their organizations and in relation to their political rights which are being constantly attacked. Thousands of workers are being expelled from their unions controlled by the high salaried, reactionary misleaders. While the funds of these organizations are being squandered by these officials, members who have paid dues for many years are being chased out of these organizations because they cannot pay the high dues and assessments. Similar problems face also those workers who hoped to provide for the future security of their families through membership in the various fraternal lodges. Unless these workers organize, they will be unable to offer effective resistance to these attacks.
The disenfranchisement of the unemployed which is effected by means of poll taxes, residence qualifications and other schemes are also part of the effort to prevent the workers from giving expression to their needs and taking steps to enforce their demands through the election of their own representatives. Such disenfranchisement must be opposed also because it represents a brazen denial of the last vestiges of the rights which have been gained through centuries of struggle against tyrannical oppression by the wealthy ruling class. It is a further expression of the contempt which the rich and powerful feel for those who have produced all the immense wealth of this country. It accompanies the ruthless terror, the savage beatings, shootings, arrests and deportations by means of which the ruling class seeks to enforce its hunger program.
The Organizational Forms That Provide Means of Effective Action and Struggle
These issues and problems indicate the tasks of all who would conduct struggle in defense of the immediate needs and interests of the toiling masses against the ruthless hunger war of which they are victims.
We are now able to draw upon the concrete experience gained in such struggle during the past three years and to use these experiences and lessons to guide us in the further struggles ahead.
We have seen that the decisive factor determining our immediate welfare is the organized action of workers themselves. We get only as much food as we are able to force the local, state and federal authorities to supply. We are secure in the provision of only such shelter as we can safeguard through our united action in defense of our homes. We can obtain all other necessities only in the measure determined by the effectiveness of our organized mass power.
Our resolve that “Not One Unemployed Worker or His Family Shall Be Without Decent Housing, Food, and Clothing” is meaningless unless we are able to enforce this resolution by creating, strengthening and consolidating the instruments of enforcement—the organs for united, militant mass action.
There will be none to guard our homes, our families, our needs and interests, unless we ourselves stand guard! The task of solving this life and death problem cannot be delegated to someone else. We ourselves, must assume this task in all its details.
Our own elected committees, made up of the most willing, determined, capable and militant men and women in our own community, and backed by our combined forces, must be set up to meet and solve our every problem.
Such committees must represent the needs and interests and must try to win the active approval and support of every worker (employed as well as unemployed) in the community or area of its activity. Race, nationality, religious or political belief and affiliation must not be a barrier to this united action.
The program of each committee must be determined by the decisions and will of the majority of those whom it is to represent. This program need not in every case embrace all the issues and demands embodied in the program of the city-wide, state-wide and national movement. Very often such Committees of Action will originate as a result of only one or two immediate, urgent local issues (eviction, discrimination, relief-cut, etc.). It must be the aim however of the most conscious workers within the given community, to bring forward and convincingly explain every issue of concern to the workers and eventually to secure endorsement of proposals for the necessary militant action on any such issue. In this manner, the temporary unity which is achieved in action around one issue, is consolidated into permanent unity around a broader program.
Where and How Committees of Action Are Formed
Most of the problems that face the victims of mass unemployment arise around their homes or such places as have taken the place of homes for those who have already lost them.
The basic organizations for struggle around these problems must therefore be built in the neighborhoods (or in the flophouses, Rooseveltburgs, bread-lines, ect.).
In large cities and thickly populated sections, it is possible to build Committees of Action within each block. In smaller towns and in sections where one family dwellings are the rule, committees can be formed by and on behalf of workers of an entire locality as a ward, precinct, or similar subdivision.
The workers who elect the Committee of Action constitute the (Block, Precinct, or Ward) Assembly. The Assembly meets either periodically or on the call of the Committee of Action. All workers (and all others who wish to support the fight for their needs) who reside within the given area are entitled to participate in the Assembly, in the election of the Committee, and to vote on whatever question may be properly brought within such Assembly. Efforts must be made to induce all of them, employed and unemployed, women, men and youths regardless of race, nationality, religion or political affiliation to attend.
How to Conduct an Assembly Meeting
The Assembly should meet at least every two weeks. Additional special meetings should be called by the elected Committee of Action whenever some issue arises which requires a general mobilization, discussion and action.
The Committee of Action should carefully prepare for every Assembly meeting. The order of business, the kind of reports, and who should make the reports should be taken up in advance by the Committee and then submitted to the Assembly for approval and amendment.
If the Assembly is called only for the purpose of a report and discussion on some general issue, this should be announced in advance.
If action is to be taken, the Committee should be prepared to suggest the action by preparing motions and resolutions, as well as a plan which will indicate where, when, how and by whom the action shall be prepared and carried out.
Ordinary parliamentary rules can serve to govern the meetings of the Assembly. The principle of majority rule should always prevail. In this manner, the time limit for discussion can be set. When a decision is arrived at all should cooperate in carrying it out.
Elections should take place whenever it is necessary to fill vacancies created by Committee members who drop out or are inactive. Normally, elections should take place every three months.
Employed, women, Negroes, youth and other elements should be represented in Committees wherever this is possible, where such elements are available.
Initiative Committees and Branches
Experience has shown that the Committee of Action provides the most effective form of organization for the daily struggles that must be waged on the most minute problems of the workers. It is necessary, however, that we be flexible and that we do not impose this form upon workers prematurely, before they are ready to understand and give up resistance to such forms.
Such resistance is however too often manifested by only those workers who have been among the first to realize the need for struggle. These sometimes think that the other workers are still too backward to unite for action and therefore that they alone can substitute for the broader masses. It is vital that we understand that this is wrong and impossible. The most advanced workers can serve to initiate and rally broader masses for action, but the action cannot be as forecul and effective if only a few advanced workers are involved. Even though it may appear to be more difficult to get workers to do things for themselves than to go out and do it for them, we must realize that even our victories are more limited and insecure, unless they are preserved by the action of the workers themselves.
The branch form of organization which tends to limit active support and participation to the comparatively few forces that can be involved in a tight, rigid organization and in meetings and activities that revolve around meeting halls, is not adapted to the kind of struggles that must be waged.
Such branches or a self-constituted committee of more advanced workers can serve to initiate and cary through organization work and struggle in the neighborhoods, etc., which will lead to the establishment of the proper representative Committees of Action. The speed with which they accomplish these tasks will determine their success. A group of real live wires will not continue to exist as a “Branch” or initiative committee very long but will quickly develop into a real Committee or Council.
In addition to the general problems that affect all workers, there are also many problems of special concern to certain sections of the working class. The Negros, women, youth, veterans, home-owners, bank depositors, etc., have various such special problems which overlap the neighborhood and require common action together with similar groups in other neighborhoods. In order to make such action possible, special sub-committees should be appointed to deal with each of such problems.
The sub-committees should register all workers in the area who are specifically concerned with such problems. Special meetings of all such workers may be called from time to time for the purpose of considering actions related to these problems.
The work of all such sub-committees can be coordinated and directed by similar sub-committees of the regional or local Councils.
Shop, Trade, Industrial, and Language Committees
The principle that Committees of Action must be formed wherever common action on a common issue against a common enemy is required, also dictates the need for such committees on shop, trade, industrial and language lines.
Many employed as well as part time workers have been reduced to wage levels so low that these must be supplemented by relief if they are to live. A committee of Action or Relief Committee within the shop can serve as the medium through which such needs can be raised and pressed.
Similar conditions extend into trades and industries and can thus become a means for organizing common action of all workers within the given trade and industry directed against the particular bosses; union officials and local government bodies.
Workers who are unable to give free expression to their needs in the English language and who may be dependent on relief upon certain national relief agencies likewise have need for their own committees.
The development of such organization through the establishment of such committees should be encouraged and aided. We must however, see these committees not as a substitute, but as a supplement to the basic organizations in the neighborhoods and localities. Affiliation to the one shall involve also affiliation to the other.
While our movement must depend upon voluntary association on the basis of common needs, interests and action, and must not impose upon those who so associate themselves any obligations which they themselves do not wish to assume, we must nevertheless make every effort to convince all workers of the necessity for constantly perfecting our organization.
Registration—Consolidation of Our Forces
Certain minimum organizational requirements are essential. We must know what forces we have succeeded in organizing. How many men, women, youths, Negroes, ex-servicemen, members of various unions and fraternal organizations, etc., are already united within our organized ranks. It is necessary that we shall check up on this from time to time so that we may determine whether in any given place our movement is growing rapidly enough or not.
For this purpose, we register all workers (employed and unemployed) who are willing to record themselves as supporters of the movement and struggles. To those who so register, we give an affiliation card which serves to identify them as workers who recognize the need for united action and struggle.
The fee for registration is only $0.05 per quarter (every three months). No worker should be deprived of the right to participate in general assemblies, elections, etc., because of inability or unreadiness to become and affiliated supporter. But the leading committees should make all efforts to secure the affiliation of all workers.
The Unemployed Council—A Delegate Body
While most of the smaller, day to day problems can be met by the Committees of Action in the various localities, neighborhoods, shops, institutions and organizations, many such problems and the bigger and more general issues can be met only through join actions of all workers in larger areas (wards, sections, cities, counties, states, and nationally).
In order to effect such action and coordinate the work of all existing organizations, each interested organization elects delegates to a Council. Thus the Councils are formed for every sub-division and constitute bodies that are representative of all organizations whose membership is composed of workers and all others interested in the struggle against the effects of unemployment.
In order to avoid unnecessary duplication and make possible active participation, each organization affiliates to a corresponding Unemployed Council. Thus, a union or lodge which meets and is composed of members living in a certain ward may affiliate to the Unemployed Council in that ward. Where such organizations have also central bodies as a City Committee, County Committee, etc., this body affiliates to a corresponding Unemployed Council.
Every affiliated organization should set up its own Committee of Action, should register all members as affiliated supporters and take up the case of its own members in the same manner and on the basis of the same program as that of the Unemployed Council to which it is affiliated Where additional forces must be mobilized for any such case, this is to be reported to the Council and acted upon with the joint forces of the entire Council.
Other conditions and actions can be determined upon by the Council as a whole, with the consent of a majority of the delegates.
Each Council should elect an Executive Committee of as many members as may be needed and such sub-committees as are required to give attention to various phases of work. These committees function between meetings of the Council to whom they are responsible and must report regularly.
How to Enforce Our Program and Win Our Demands
Experience has shown that all public officials are bent upon carrying out the ruling class hunger program. All are concerned with only the problem of saving the wealth and profits of the rich. Even the few public officials who profess personal feelings of “sympathy” admit that they are not able to follow any policy other than the policy of the ruling class.
Only the mass pressure of the workers, employed and unemployed, can prevent application of the hunger policy of the ruling class. It is not possible to secure our rights by begging or pleading.
We are not begging for favors. We are demanding what we have a right to get. We can get only so much as we are able to force the ruling class to give.
It is important that every worker shall not only recognize this, but that our every action shall be based upon a realization of this fact.
Militant, determined, persistent, sustained mass struggle. This is the only way in which our interests can be defended.
Such struggle takes many forms. In some cases, a delegation accompanies the worker who has a grievance. When the authorities know that a large mass of workers are ready to back up such a delegation, they often make the required concession. This applies to individual cases involving some form of abuse or discrimination.
More often, it is necessary for a large body of workers to demonstrate and act. This is especially true, for example, in cases of actual eviction, where it is necessary to have a large mass that can prevent execution of an eviction order. It is also true in instances where an increase in relief is demanded or resistance to a general cut must be offered.
We must never allow ourselves to believe that a concession has been secured by reason of the kindness of heart of some official or because of the persuasive powers of one of our members. No matter how skilful any of us may be, if we are not backed up by broad and determined masses, we can not hope to win any lasting victory.
Demonstrations in front of relief offices, in front of City Halls, County courthouses; homes and offices of local politicians, at state capitols, etc., are some of the forms of mass action and protest. The intensity of our struggle is determined by the requirements of the given situation. If we are ignored and denied our needs when we come in hundreds, we return in thousands. If one action fails to produce results, we conduct many more. But, we must never give up any necessary demand until we have won it, no matter how long we must fight for it.
Since the success of our every struggle depends upon the extent to which it is supported by the masses, we must be sure that the masses understand the issues involved in our struggles. Our program must therefore be submitted to the workers for their approval. This we do through mass meetings, discussion in various organizations and places where workers assemble, through leaflets, pamphlets and other literature. Such support can often be registered first by means of resolutions and petition.
Not only workers, but even small business men can be rallied for support of our demands. This is for example true in cases where the commissary system is instituted. Such a system deprives the small storekeeper of trade and results in bankruptcy of the small neighborhood merchants. In the same way this section of the population as well as the professionals (doctors, teachers, architects, etc.) are concerned in our basic demand for unemployment insurance. If such insurance were provided, we would have the means of paying for professional services and of buying the articles sold in the stores. We must however bear in mind that the small business and professional elements have divided interests and cannot therefore be the most dependable forces in our struggle.
Direct Relief—Legal Defense and Self-Defense
Occasionally the struggle to secure relief for a needy case is prolonged. We cannot allow workers involved in such cases to starve until the fight is won. For this reason we may wet up machinery that will serve to provide emergency, direct relief. This can be done by a sub-committee that collects food and other essentials from merchants and distributes this to such emergency cases.
Similar provision can also be made for workers who are blacklisted or otherwise unable to secure relief because of their activity in our movement and struggle. Many times, such workers are too busy to go to relief offices on specified dates or go to the forced labor jobs. We must be careful however to avoid making such emergency direct relief a substitute for the struggle to force the proper agencies to provide relief. It must be supplementary and comparatively insignificant phase of our activity. Preferably, some other organization, such as the Workers International Relief, should be called in to organize and conduct such direct emergency relief activity.
In many instances when active workers are taken from our ranks by police, we must make sure that these are provided with the necessary defense. This does not merely mean attorneys. Courts as well as all other agencies of the government are ready to disregard our rights and imprison us for daring to insist on the right to live. The most effective defense for workers is mass defense.
The International Labor Defense is an organization which has been created by the workers themselves, to conduct such defense struggles. We should set up a legal defense committee in every Council and form a branch of the International Labor Defense (I.L.D.) in every neighborhood, to direct and conduct our defense struggles. This should be done in line with the general program of the I.L.D. on the basis of a combination of legal with mass defense methods.
In addition to defense in courts, we are also faced with the problem of defending ourselves against extra-legal measures of our enemies. Often times, bands of hoodlums are organized by the bosses to attack our meetings and headquarters. We should organize self-defense squads to lead any struggle which must be waged against such extra-legal attacks.
The form these take is usually a group of eight under the leadership of a captain. Such groups always stick together in action and come to the defense of any worker who is being attacked.
These groups or “Defense Squads” should operate not only in an emergency, but in the everyday work in the blocks and neighborhoods. Thus when a rapid mobilization is required for any purpose, the squad captains are informed. These inform the members of their squads who are by this means instantly mobilized for the necessary action.
Propaganda, Educational, and Social Activities
In order to maintain permanent organization that shall be capable of instant action, it is necessary that the masses shall understand the nature of the problem, the prospects for the future, the various schemes of our enemies and the reasons for our program and demands. We must also popularize our every achievement and the manner in which these have been made.
This understanding is achieved by reading working class literature, by participating in meetings, discussions, lectures, forums, etc., where problems are discussed from our point of view.
It is important that we conduct such activities as part of our work and struggle. We must issue and circulate our papers, our own literature, and leaflets. We must arrange frequent meetings, lectures and discussions on timely questions where our point of view will be convincingly presented to large numbers of workers.
This educational activity can be supplemented with regular classes and other educational activities.
At the same time, we must also note that the workers have need for social diversion. The crisis deprives workers of the opportunity to go to movies, theatres, concerts and dances. We can organize such activities ourselves, with the help of existing workers’ cultural organizations. This will serve to fill a real need and bring us into closer contact with one another. It will also help to raise the funds necessary for the financing of our work and struggle.
In connection with the problems of finances, we must bear in mind the principle that applies to all our problems. Our power lies within our own forces. No one will help the unemployed and employed workers conduct struggle against the bosses, except the unemployed and employed workers. Our funds must therefore come from our own ranks.
Naturally the amounts of the individual contributions are of necessity small. But, if millions contribute pennies, these will in their totality produce sufficient revenue for the conduct of our work.
We must therefore organize our work on the basis of small contributions from large numbers of workers. This is why the registration fee is kept down to $0.05 for three months. This is also why the main method of general financing is by the sale of “Penny Contribution Tickets.” Every worker and many others should consider it a privilege and duty to contribute one cent every week, every pay day or every time he attends a meeting or affair, for support of our common struggle.
We must also realize that workers who sacrifice pennies that they badly need for their personal use in order to help support their militant organization, are entitled to assurance that these funds will not be misused. Strict accounting of finances is a duty of every serious workers organization. We should insist on this in every body of our movement.
United Front and Opponent Organizations
The Unemployed Councils are by their very nature a united front movement. No one is excluded from this movement because of differing political or religious views and affiliation. All are free to submit their views on every issue that arises. The united front is the most effective instrument for struggle in defense of our daily needs and interests.
Despite this fact, various individuals and groups are attempting to set up rival organizations. Some of such organizations are the result of the fact that their sponsors are not yet aware of the character, aims, program and policies of the Unemployed Councils. In most cases, these rival organizations are organized by agents of the bosses with the deliberate purpose of splitting our ranks and weakening our forces through sowing confusion and internal strife.
The workers have nothing to gain and everything to lose from splits and divisions within their own ranks. There is no need for a variety of unemployed organizations. If any plan has merit as a means of aiding us in solving our problems, such plan can easily be incorporated into the program of our one united movement.
Usually, the plans of rival organizations are not aimed to make our struggle more effective, but on the contrary, to weaken our struggle and resistance to the hunger policy of the bosses. Those who sponsor such rival organizations do so for the personal and political advantages which they gain by this means.
Most of such organizations base themselves on a so-called “self-help” program. That is, instead of struggle to force the bosses and government, who control the wealth, to provide adequate relief and unemployment insurance, they advocate that we workers shall help each other by sharing our poverty. They also advocate various barter schemes whereby we exchange our labor for some products. This serves to place large numbers of unemployed in competition with the employed workers who work and fight for adequate cash wages. Such a policy inevitably results in reducing both wages and relief standards.
In our fight against such schemes and those who sponsor them we must be careful to differentiate between the leaders and the rank and file workers. The leaders are our enemies, we must defeat and isolate them. But the workers who join such organizations do so for the same reason that we build Unemployed Councils. They hope to better their conditions through organization.
We must, therefore, go into such rival organizations and propose to the workers that they join with us in action and struggle for relief, against evictions, etc., in the same manner as we make such proposals within our Assemblies and Councils. Those leaders who oppose such proposals will expose themselves as enemies and will thus become discredited. The workers who will join in such actions will learn through experience, that only by means of a fighting policy, program and organizational form can they defend their existence. Thus, they will be convinced of the necessity for building one united unemployed movement in their neighborhood, city, state and nationally.
These activities should of course be supplemented with effective propaganda which will serve to convince the workers belonging to such rival organizations, of the need for unity, the treachery of their misleaders, and the correctness of our program. From time to time we should publicly direct ourselves to workers in such organizations with proposals that their organization shall join with ours in common action on some immediate issue of common concern, (relief-cut, forced labor, for establishment of additional relief stations, etc.).
Such a united front should however in no way commit us to give up the right to frankly criticize politics and tactics which are detrimental to the interests of the workers.
The suggestions contained in this pamphlet are based upon the experiences of the workers in the United States and in other countries. They are by no means the last word that needs to be said on this problem As the crisis deepens and ever larger masses are affected by unemployment and its consequent misery and insecurity, our struggles will of necessity increase and sharpen. From these struggles we will gain further experiences which will serve to guide us in the constant improvement of our organization and methods of struggle.
Every worker owes it to himself and his class to help build Committees of Action in every street and neighborhood. Through these Committees, linked up by Councils, we can and will defeat the hunger program of the bosses and their government agents.