Synthesized answer
According to the passages, the Trade Union Educational League (T.U.E.L.) was not a dual union; it explicitly opposed forming rival unions that pull militant workers out of existing trade unions [1]. Instead, the T.U.E.L. described itself as an "educational body seeking to develop the trade unions into more effective organizations for the workers" [1]. Its strategy was to work from within the existing labor movement, using informal committees to infuse workers with a spirit of struggle against the employing class [2].
The T.U.E.L.'s program included organizing the unorganized, amalgamating craft unions into industrial unions, and fighting for class struggle rather than class collaboration [2][3]. The passages emphasize that the left wing, organized in and around the T.U.E.L., aimed to eliminate craft strikes in favor of national industrial strikes, which required broadening unions from a craft to an industrial basis [3]. This internal, educational approach was presented as a superior alternative to "dual unionism" or "outlaw" strikes, which the text notes had mostly failed in American labor experience [5]. The passages do not provide further details on how the T.U.E.L. implemented…
Synthesized from the book passages below. Chat with the book on Feynman for follow-up.
From the book
all workers' struggles and all workers' organizations, economic, political, co-operative, etc., against capitalism. 10. An alliance of American labor with peoples oppressed by American imperialism in a common fight for mutual interests. 11. Trade Union Unity, nationally and internationally. The Trade Union Educational League is in no sense a dual union or affiliated with dual unions. It is opposed to such movements as take militant workers out of trade unions and form "perfect" little so-called unions with few members as rivals to large trade unions. The T. U. E. L. is an educational body…
← Strike Strategy ( 1926 ) by William Z. Foster Foreword → No 18. in the Labor Herald Library 4279082 Strike Strategy 1926 William Z. Foster 290 page Organize Your Struggles! Left Wingers and Progressive trade unionists who know what they want and how to get it are organized in the Trade Union Educational League, a non-partisan organization of informal committees covering the entire trade union movement, whose purpose is to infuse the mass with spirit and understanding for struggle against the employing class. The Trade Union Educational League asks all workers, regardless of political…
t varied trades and callings in single actions against the employers. The left wing organized in and around the T. U. E. L., must intensify this broadening out tendency, which is now being checked by the reactionary trade union leaders with their program of class collaboration and no fight against the employers. An important point in our strike strategy must be the elimination of the craft strike and the development of the national industrial strike. This requires a corresponding broadening out of the workers' unions from a craft to an industrial basis and the mobilization of the unorganized…
t itself with the principles and practices of strike strategy, of the science of effective struggle by the trade unions. The general question of strike strategy has received very little concentrated attention until within the last few years, that is, since the formation of the Red International of Labor Unions. Prior to that time the reformist trade union leaders, whose attention was fastened, not on making an effective fight against the employers, but on coming to agreement with them, gave very little thought to the development of a scientific strike strategy. In fact, the first real…
and in the other the very life of the Miners’ Union has been threatened by the disintegration of its bituminous section. Forcing the Issue The left wing strategists must find ways and means to force the hands of the right wing leaders in such critical situations by mobilizing the membership against them. This is a real test of our strike strategy, especially where the left wing has but little organization. In the past, in such instances, there has been too much recourse to the unauthorized, or "outlaw" strike, and, dual unionism. Sometimes, in especially desperate circumstances and after…
More questions about this book
- The text claims strikes are "living refutations" of shared capital-labor interests. How do specific points in the TUEL's 11-point program, such as "Class struggle against class collaboration" and "Recognition of the Soviet Union," actively embody and escalate this fundamental assertion?
- Given the TUEL's goal to "infuse the mass with spirit and understanding for struggle," what are the potential advantages and disadvantages of their "transform from within" approach compared to forming entirely new, ideologically pure unions?
- Beyond simply listing them, explain the interconnectedness and logical progression of the TUEL's 11 programmatic goals. How do they build upon each other to achieve the overarching purpose of "struggle against the employing class"?
- If Foster's "Strike Strategy" argues for "breaks of the workers with capitalism," what foundational assumptions about economic systems and power dynamics must be true for such a strategy to be considered both necessary and effective?