June 10, 1970
Page 19117
ADDRESS BY JACOB S. POTOFSKY
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, on May 25, in the keynote address to the 27th biennial convention of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, General President Jacob Potofsky spoke out in favor of congressional efforts to bring about an end to the war in Indochina. Citing unrest at home and neglect of our other interests abroad as results of this endless war, Mr. Potofsky made an urgent appeal for a reordering of our national priorities and, above all, for peace. I should like to second him in his closing words, as he said:
This is the hour of decision. Our nation needs peace now. The world needs peace now. Let us all be united to help achieve that inspiring goal.
I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Potofsky's keynote address be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the address was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY JACOB S. POTOFSKY, GENERAL PRESIDENT AMALGAMATED CLOTHING WORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO, CLC
Members of the General Executive Board, Distinguished Guests, Delegates and Friends: Greetings:
I salute you on two more challenging and eventful years.
The past two years have brought many gains to our members. We met two years ago just at the conclusion of the most difficult but most productive negotiations we had ever held in the clothing industry. You may remember that those negotiations brought a substantial wage increase, totaling 57½ cents an hour. Along with that increase came substantial improvements in our medical and retirement insurance programs.
Less than a year ago we followed up with a substantial increase in the cotton garment industry. Again our negotiations were the 6 toughest we had ever experienced. It was not until almost the final hour that we settled on our increase of 45 cents an hour, plus major gains in our insurance and pension programs.
This period also saw the largest gain ever won for our laundry workers in New York; substantial improvements were also made for our many retail workers throughout the country; and another major increase was won for the members of our Xerox division in Rochester and other parts of the country. Gains were also won for our members in other branches, including gloves, neckwear, work clothes and uniforms, cleaning and dyeing and alteration tailors. Major gains were also made for our large group of members in Canada, and by our new joint board in Puerto Rico.
STEADY GROWTH
The past two years have also seen a steady increase in our membership. Almost 17,000 new members joined our ranks through organizing drives since we last met. Many of them were in Southern and Southwestern states and in retail stores, another expanding area. We brought a large group of glove workers in upstate New York into our union. But in general the new members come from every state and every industry in our jurisdiction.
I would like to welcome to our ranks the new-comers who are here for the first time. May I ask the delegates from new shops to stand up and accept the welcoming applause of the convention.
Organizing the unorganized is a basic principle of our organization. We have therefore devoted more of our resources and energy than ever before to our organizing mission.
The problems are many and difficult. I cannot count the number of times we have won bargaining rights through an election but have been unable to sign a contract because an employer refuses to bargain in good faith. When we use the procedures of the National Labor Relations Board, we are met with lengthy delays – delays which sometimes destroy our efforts to maintain an organizing campaign. A ruthless and determined anti-union employer can prevent his workers from winning their right to a union contract for months and even years, by using the loopholes of the law and delays of NLRB.
A 16-YEAR STALL
Perhaps the most notorious example is the Rutter-Rex case in New Orleans, which began with an election victory in 1954 and is still not over 16 years later! We have won two elections and several favorable decisions before the NLRB and in the courts, but Rutter-Rex workers still do not have a union contract.
Last month we won an outstanding Supreme Court decision in the Rutter-Rex case. One hundred and sixty-one former workers there received more than $160,000 in back pay due them for wages lost during a strike. It was a fine decision – but our battle is not yet over. We still have a claim for back pay from 1960 and the Rutter-Rex workers still do not have a contract. And what is outrageous is that although Rutter-Rex has been found guilty of unfair labor practices, the government has showered that firm with contracts involving millions of dollars. That, my friends, should not be permitted!
MORE THAN WAGES
We have been winning wage increases and organizing new members despite all obstacles – but we have been doing a lot more, besides. Our health and retirement programs have been improving. In all our recent negotiations we have recognized that we had to increase the level of benefits to try to keep up with the increased costs of medical care.
In our two major industries, clothing and cotton garment, our members are now covered for most of their hospital costs, and we have raised benefit levels for disability and surgery. Similar improvements have been won in all our industries. During the two years we have raised our pension benefits in all industries – including a $10 a month increase for clothing workers which was agreed upon a little more than a month ago.
I cannot help but be proud of the benefits we have paid. In the last two years, we had 370,000 claims and paid out $80 million.
Since 1944, the beginning of our health insurance program, we have had 2.5 million claims and paid out $400 million.
Today there are over 40,000 Amalgamated members receiving pensions. Since 1947, when the program was started, we have paid out $317 million. Would you believe that in about 25 years our members have received almost three-quarters of a billion dollars through our own insurance and retirement programs? It is true, and we are mighty proud of it.
Our services to our members do not end with the welfare and pension programs. The Amalgamated, since its inception more than half a century ago, has looked for ways in which it could serve its membership beyond the boundaries of the factory and shop. Early in our history we began to pioneer in building low-cost cooperative housing and insurance programs and labor banks.
As the years went by, we expanded and improved on those institutions and continued to pioneer in new areas, such as medical clinics, day-care centers and scholarship programs. By now we have a network of institutions and programs, serving a variety of the needs of our members, and I am pleased to say that they are thriving and growing.
MEDICAL AND DAY-CARE CENTERS
Our medical centers and programs in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Rochester, Baltimore and several areas of Pennsylvania are constantly offering additional services, such as drugs, psychiatry, preventive care, services for dependents and other programs.
We have three day-care centers already in operation, two in the Baltimore region and one in Chicago. Four more are in progress – three more in the Baltimore region and one in the planning stage in New York. Meanwhile we have also become a major force in the campaign to expand the government's efforts in this field, which is of growing importance for all women workers.
In addition, we are providing more and more of our members' children with scholarship help, and we have pioneered in a new program to provide scholarships as a matter of right.
As the founding members of the United Housing Foundation in New York, we are building more low-cost housing than any other agency, public or private, in the United States. And we are about to start in Chicago, too.
Our bank in New York still offers low cost loans and checking accounts. This year, it made banking history by offering small savers the same high interest rate income which only corporations or the wealthy were able to obtain at other banks.
These are only some of the activities our union is sponsoring. I could spend much of the morning talking about our educational seminars and institutes, about our retiree centers and retiree educational programs, about the special rehabilitation program sponsored in New York or the special retiree apartment house in Philadelphia.
The range of our efforts to serve our members spans all of life, from childhood to the years of old age – from recreation to education to insurance to housing to health.
These are the activities of a union old in experience but young at heart, eager to find new ways we can serve our members and improve the communities where we live and work.
IN MEMORIAM
I want to take a moment to pay tribute to the men and women whose dedication and sacrifice helped make our achievements possible, and who are no longer with us as this Convention opens.
Since our last gathering, we lost two of the great pioneers of our union, Hyman Blumberg and August Bellanca.
Hyman Blumberg spent his entire lifetime in our ranks, starting in Baltimore in the first decade of the century and rising to become the executive vice president of the Amalgamated. During his more than a half century as a leader of our union, he played a role in many areas, including Rochester and Canada, New England and the South. He was a man of tremendous integrity, devoted to the membership, warm and friendly and beloved by all who knew him. He was also an excellent negotiator and a forceful organizer – a truly outstanding labor leader who gave his life to our cause.
August Bellanca came out of the same generation as Blumberg. He started with the Amalgamated in New York in the 1912 strike, and quickly established himself as a leader. He served as a vice president of the Amalgamated for many, many years, and was active in many areas. He was particularly well known in the Italian-American community, where he gave leadership to the democratic forces, during and after the Mussolini period. He, too, was a man much beloved by the many people who knew him and worked with him. Like Brother Blumberg, he will be long remembered.
May I say a word, too, about our late research director, Milton Fried, who for fifteen years gave to the Amalgamated his skills as an economist and a diplomat; and also about Samuel Smith, a one-time manager of the Chicago Joint Board and a vice president of our organization, both of whom died during the past two years.
I also want to pay tribute to Walter Reuther, one of the oustanding leaders of labor of our time, who died with his wife in a tragic airplane accident three weeks ago. We of the Amalgamated felt a special closeness to Walter and to his union, for we shared in the creation of the UAW in the early days of CIO. Reuther was a man of unusual vision, and all of us in the trade union movement will miss him.
My friends, for these leaders of labor, and for the others who are listed in our GEB Report who died during the past two years, I would like the Convention to rise and remain standing for a minute of silence.
The delegation arose and stood in silent tribute to the memory of their departed brothers.
CHALLENGES AHEAD
Most of my remarks so far, have been about the achievements of the union. I want now to refer to some of the challenges facing us, today and in the years ahead.
One of the challenges has been the changing nature of our industry. What was once an industry of small firms and family ownership is gradually being transformed into an industry of conglomerate giants, managed by professional administrators.
It is an inevitable change, matched by similar changes in other industries, but it poses many new problems. In past years we were able to establish a relationship based on mutual respect and long personal relationships with the individual owners of the companies with which we had contracts.
Today some of the new conglomerates have long records of anti-unionism. Their ownership is more distant and more difficult to approach. The challenge of these changing conditions in our industry will put us to the test.
Another development that gives us concern is in the technological field. Many new devices, processes and machines are being developed – all of them designated as "labor saving." My friends, we are watching these developments with sharp eyes. I can assure you that we will halt and we will not permit the introduction of any device or change which will in any way affect the security of your jobs or your wages. Job security and wage preservation are basic and will always remain so!
There is another challenge that does not lie within our control – and that is the current economic situation.
Continuing inflation has brought recession in its wake, and with recession we are now going through a period of growing unemployment. The results have been felt in our industries, which are experiencing declining sales, short work weeks and layoffs.
These conditions make even more serious and immediate the increasing threat posed by imports of apparel. The problem has grown so acute that just two months ago hundreds of thousands of our members carried out a mass work-stoppage to demonstrate our concern about the rising imports.
I want to tell you and I want to tell the nation that our work-stoppage was just the beginning of our campaign, not the end! We have no intention of standing idly by and allowing our jobs to disappear or our working conditions to deteriorate.
DANGER OF IMPORT FLOOD
We believe in international trade. But the old concepts of international trade no longer hold true.
Under the old theories, which were popularized 35 years ago, international trade was supposed to bring benefits to all the trading nations. Each nation naturally specialized in products based on its own resources and skills, and traded its products for those of other nations.
Today the advantages of technology are quickly available to any nation, and the speed of transportation has virtually eliminated special skills or resource.
Today, giant corporations set up factories all over the world, and every nation, developed or underdeveloped, has the capacity to produce.
Today, the principal advantage of one nation over another is likely to be low wages. The result has been that low-wage nations, particularly in the Far East, have been rapidly building up their textile and apparel industries and have zeroed in on the rich United States market.
You all know the result. Tremendous increases in imports, amounting to as high as 300 percent in some categories. Clothing and department stores are featuring foreign-made apparel at high mark-ups for themselves. We must put a stop to this!
The answer now is a law, a law to establish quotas for imports. Such a bill has been introduced by Chairman Mills of the Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives. I testified only last Wednesday in Washington in support of the bill, as did spokesmen of other unions. Many of you have already contacted your Congressmen, but we have to continue our efforts to impress on Congress the importance of passing a law, and passing it quickly.
Because of inflation, the threat of low-wage imports will grow even more serious. The threat must be stopped now, before our industry is overwhelmed and our jobs are lost. We have fought and we will continue to fight, until we have won this battle.
Our country is facing one of the darkest periods of the century. We are beset by a host of problems – more complex, more perilous and more numerous than at any time in recent history.
The war in Southeast Asia is escalating without end in sight; more of our boys are being killed and maimed. The blight of our cities is becoming worse with each passing day; pollution is increasing; our natural resources are being wasted; inflation is continuing at an intolerable rate; unemployment is increasing daily; prices and interest rates are soaring; dissent is discouraged and intimidated; our young people are frustrated, alienated and angry; our foreign friends are bewildered by our actions; extremism of right and left is becoming a part of our daily life; and our country is more bitterly divided than it has been in a century or more.
TIME TO SPEAK OUT
This is a sad and sorry picture. It can be remedied only if we begin by having the courage to look honestly at these issues. It is time to speak out. That is what I shall attempt to do.
I shall therefore talk principally about Vietnam because it underlies practically all our troubles.
Vietnam is a vital key to war or peace in the world. On its swift end may well depend the very preservation of our own democratic way of life. And everything that we cherish lies in balance on the developments in that area.
I am not suggesting that the American public is of one mind about Vietnam. Because that is so, it is important to analyze the issue as rationally as possible.
Now, let's see what are the facts. Vietnam has cost us almost 50,000 of our young and almost 300,000 wounded and maimed.
A week before last, more of our soldiers were killed than in any week during the past nine months.
It has disrupted the lives of millions of our young who were inducted in that war. It has brutalized and demoralized our soldiers on a scale never before experienced.
We have devastated a land that we are trying to save; villages and towns have been destroyed; uncounted numbers of innocent Vietnamese have been killed or uprooted.
This war has already cost us more than $100 billion; yes, $100 billion.
The President recently vetoed a measure of Congress providing one and a half billion dollars more for education, on the ground that it is inflationary. Yet, at the same time, we are spending more than 2½ billion dollars a month on the war in Vietnam.
How topsy-turvy things are! Money for education is inflationary but money for killing is considered by some to be right.
But $100 billion is not the only cost.
We shall have to pay interest on that $100 billion probably indefinitely, and the interest bill alone in the future will be tens of billions of dollars.
We have been in Vietnam for almost nine years. We have bombed Vietnam, North and South, with more explosives than were used in World War II. Think of all that bombing against a small country. Yet it appears that the military will of the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong has not been broken.
MILITARY VICTORY A QUESTION
It has become questionable whether a military victory will ever be possible – a fact that even the generals are now admitting.
General Ridgway – the former UN and U.S. Commander in Japan, Korea and Far East, and later Army Chief of Staff, said some time ago:
"We should repudiate once and for all the search for a military solution and move resolutely along the path of disengagement."
On April 20, the President gave the nation a reassuring report that "everything is going well and we are in sight of a just peace." He announced at the same time an intention to withdraw 150,000 troops within a year. Yet, only nine days later, with nothing substantially new developing on the military scene, the President widened the war in Cambodia and renewed the bombing of North Vietnam – a complete re-escalation of the war.
One may ask: why the panicky rush? Why didn't he consult with the Congress about this? There was plenty of time. Was he afraid that the Congressional and public opposition would veto the military eagerness to go into Cambodia? After all, Congress has a Constitutional responsibility in these matters, too.
Our invasion in Cambodia means that all the tragic errors of escalation are being repeated. We are being plunged deeper and deeper into the pit of disaster.
CONGRESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY
That is why we support the efforts of those courageous and truly patriotic American Senators who have sponsored legislation designed to bring to a speedy end the most disastrous war in our history. Let us pray that success may crown their efforts.
The Congress must exercise its Constitutional responsibility of not leaving the warmaking decisions to the President alone. To do so would spell the abdication of its responsibility.
The Cambodian invasion is tragic on other grounds as well. For example, it may undermine or threaten the success of the arms control negotiations and talks in Vienna. And the success of these talks is vital to the peace of the world.
Another damaging consequence of the Cambodian maneuver is the definite weakening of American power to influence the situation in the Middle East. I need not remind you what a powder keg that is. The Mideast may blow up again.
Israel's security is an over-riding moral imperative of the world. Yet the Soviet Union freely sends arms, planes, missiles, technicians and pilots into Egypt to support Egyptian and Arab belligerency. Direct Soviet intervention in the Middle East has already stimulated Egyptian offensive action along the Suez Canal.
Do you believe that the Soviets would have dared to risk such brazen intervention into Egypt – particularly after its brutal invasion of Czechoslovakia – if we were not bogged down in Vietnam?
One must ask: "How did our country get so involved in Southeast Asia? What is the explanation?"
I suggest that there are two explanations underlying our activities in Vietnam. One is the dominant role of the military, and the other is the enormous profitability of war.
MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
It is probably, a fact that never before in our history have the military and their allies in defense industries possessed such power in our nation. This military influence even worried President Eisenhower after his long experience as a general and as President. And if anyone had intimate knowledge of this military-industrial connection, President Eisenhower was the one.
President Eisenhower said in his farewell speech (January 18, 1961) :
"We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence . . . by the military-industrial complex . . . We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes . . ."
Yet, that is exactly what happened.
The record of military miscalculation in Vietnam is terrifying.
Our so-called military experts have made one costly mistake after another. They have asked us to swallow their forecasts of victory through escalation far, far too often. They have asserted that their special sources of secret intelligence should command complete and unquestioning support.
But their dismal record of failure has lost them their right to a blank check from the American people. We have all paid, and are still paying dearly, for their mistakes – and how much longer? Who knows?
Now we come to the other half of the military-industrial complex. If profits were taken out of war, we would have fewer and shorter wars. I have no hesitation in saying that if profits were taken out of the Vietnam war – profits shared by industrialists here and by the new crop of millionaires in Saigon – the Vietnam war would have been a dim memory by this time. All the talk about saving democracy for the South Vietnamese would have vanished into thin air by this time. Pious cries of security and patriotism are too often the mask for profiteering patriots. Let us never forget that.
The military are responsible for the staggering increase in defense expenditures from 12 billion dollars in 1948 to 80 billion this year – an increase of 700 per cent.
Senator William Proxmire established that military spending could be cut by $10 billion a year without impairing national security. The waste runs into billions more.
An Air Force efficiency expert testified on the enormously inflated costs of a Lockheed plane for the Air Force, amounting to $2 billion. You know what happened to him? He was fired for telling.
Over 2,000 former officers of the rank of colonel or navy captains or higher were employed by the leading military contractors. I don't have to tell you what that means.
The former Research Chief of the Pentagon called on Congress to halt the growth of the United States military machine before it became a Frankenstein monster that could destroy us.
WASTE VERSUS SECURITY
Do you know what happened when Congress was asked to scrutinize defense spending more closely? The President appointed a blue-ribbon panel to serve as a watchdog over the Pentagon.
But do you know who was on the blue-ribbon panel? Eight of its members have interests of more than a billion dollars in defense-related industries. Instead, what we desperately need is the most critical, intensive examination of every aspect of defense spending industries.
Let us not mistake waste for security. The true American patriot is not the one who wants to increase defense spending. The true American patriot is the one who wants every dollar spent on defense to be spent effectively, not wastefully – and not for the benefit of defense profiteers.
We want an America which is strong – strong not only militarily, but economically, politically, diplomatically, and above all, humanly.
Now – let me turn from the military arena to our domestic scene. What has the Vietnam war done to us at home?
The war has done great damage to the spirit of America. There is a bitter and ugly mood in the nation. A climate of fear has descended upon our land. The war has set men against each other.
The war has caused division between the people and their government. It has aroused suspicions and false accusations. It has brought back some of the evils of McCarthyism – an evil which it took us years to overcome, and which we had all hoped would never reappear.
Today we have taped wires, political snooping, secret informers – all of them the marks not of a democracy but of a police state.
Our Bill of Rights is in danger of erosion. Until we have peace, our very democratic processes are threatened.
Today those who oppose war are attacked for their lack of patriotism. Dissent is confused with disloyalty. Yet high government officials try to intimidate our newspapers and radio and TV.
THE RIGHT TO DISSENT
Let us bear this important fact in mind. Dissent is the spur to reform. It is in troubled days that the rights of the dissenters must be upheld if the liberties of the many are to remain safe.
Let us not forget that our nation's greatness springs from the vision of greater freedom for all, not restricted liberties for some. We must carry the torch of freedom against the forces of dark suspicion and fear.
When the war ends, we can hope that we will be able to establish our democratic priorities once again. But it may take much longer to recover from the spiritual effects of this military disaster.
One of the greatest tragedies is what has happened to our youth, so many of whom have lost much of their faith in our leadership and in our democratic system. Students are not saints, but neither are they bums or rotten apples.
Their frustrations and alienation have become intense. Some have resorted to violence – and in some cases, such as in the tragedy at Kent State and Jackson State, they have been met with inexcusable violence. It is most unfortunate that it took these tragedies to wipe out the indifference with which the problems of the young were met in high places.
I do not wish to be misunderstood. Violence must be condemned. It is self-defeating and leads only to more violence.
VIOLENCE LEADS TO CHAOS
Those who practice violence – whether they be young or old – whether they be white or black – whether they be students or national guard, or police or workers – must recognize that they are all contributing to chaos. If history teaches one thing, it is that chaos is followed by periods of the iron fist. After the chaos, no one knows what kind of dictatorship will emerge. We do not have to be reminded how Hitler came into power.
Let me say one word to the youth, to our young – for they are our most precious asset. Meet the challenge that faces you not with violence but with practical, constructive action. Choose the traditional way of democracy, the peaceful way. Become active this summer and fall in the election campaigns; work with labor to elect candidates who will help end the war in Vietnam speedily. Help not only end the war, but enable America to meet its domestic needs.
Years ago, students used to be excused from school to harvest the crops in the fall. Today, why not let them out of school to harvest votes?
I hope that we will give our youth the right to vote in national elections:
It will bring the talents and energies of our young into the normal democrats processes. Today, the educational levels of our young people are so much higher than they were before. They are old enough to fight and die in Vietnam; they are old enough to work, to marry, to pay taxes, yet they are denied the basic right to participate in our democratic society – the right to vote.
As a matter of fact, by depriving 18, 19, and 20-year olds of the right to vote, we are contributing to one of the causes of their despair.
The 18-year vote is overdue and should be passed by Congress this year.
BY-PRODUCTS OF WAR
There are many other consequences of the Vietnam War.
The 30-billion dollars a year we spent for war cripples our financial ability to deal with serious domestic needs.
Every warplane built for Vietnam means we cannot build a new high school. Every shipment of guns costs us public housing for our cities.
Every tank and truck means a cutback in our war on poverty.
Our needs are almost without end. Our resources of water and air are being polluted at such a rapid rate that the very life of civilization is in danger.
To reclaim our air and water will cost billions of dollars, to build advanced disposal plants, to change the way we burn our fuels, to create new and cleaner sources of power.
We must spend those billions of dollars if we are to preserve life itself – but today we are spending those billions on tanks and ammunition for Vietnam – almost $3½ million every hour of the day and night.
NEED DECENT HOMES
One of the most serious national needs is housing for those of moderate income. We need officially 2,600,000 new units of housing each year just to keep up with our population growth, but we are building less than half. In some cities, including, New York, our stock of housing is slowly growing smaller at the very time when our needs are increasing.
We will never solve the crisis of our cities until we start a massive housing program. But today inflation has driven up the cost of housing beyond the means of private enterprise to build it, and the war has robbed our government of the funds to build it.
As a result, we are not building middle- or low-income housing to meet our needs, and our cities continue to deteriorate.
Many of our citizens – blacks, Puerto Ricans, Mexican-Americans and others – have not been given equal opportunity. Some of their needs must be met through laws requiring an end to discrimination in voting, jobs, housing and education. These laws must be enforced vigorously and fairly.
TO WIPE OUT GHETTOS
But some of the needs of minorities can only be met by new expenditures for schools and housing and medical facilities to wipe out the ghetto slums from the face of the land. So long as we have a war budget and inflation, we will not have the funds that are needed for these purposes. Until we have peace, we will not be able to make substantial progress in reducing poverty and ending all trace of discrimination and bringing all people into a first-class citizenship.
My friends, the quicker we extricate ourselves from the war in Vietnam, the sooner we can attend to these urgent needs.
There are other costs of war as well. Working people in America do not need an economist to tell them about inflation. We feel and see inflation every time we walk into a supermarket or barber shop or movie theatre. We feel and see inflation when we buy a car, or look around for a modest home to buy – those who can afford it – or get a bill from a doctor or hospital.
Despite wage increases negotiated by trade unions for every major industry during the past five years, workers' real wages have gone down instead of up.
There appears to be no end to the inflationary spiral. Despite the Administration's repeated predictions to the contrary, the battle against inflation has been lost! It is estimated that it won't take many more years before our present dollar will lose a third of its purchasing power.
Inflation is a direct consequence of our swollen wartime economy – and so are the steps taken by the Administration to halt inflation. One of these steps has resulted in the highest level of interest rates in more than a century. The government had to borrow more than 100 billion dollars for the Vietnam war. This has resulted in an escalation of interest rates, with the result that every purchase became more costly. The cost of money affects every nook and cranny of our lives.
If the war continues, interest rates may go so high that the government may find it difficult to finance the war and even minimum domestic requirements. That will mean higher taxes and more will be taken out of our pay envelopes.
Between inflation and high interest rates, many businesses will have to close down or face bankruptcy.
We don't need dictionaries to tell us when a recession comes. It is here right now – it is here!
UNEMPLOYMENT AND INFLATION
What do you think will happen when businesses close down? More and more unemployment.
Those still working will be working fewer hours. Take home pay will go down and down.
I ask you, who is the first to lose his job when unemployment rises? Is it the President of General Motors or Dupont? Of course not! It is the working man, and what is worse, it is likely to be the least skilled, the member of a minority group, the person who has the least savings to fall back on, and the one who has the most difficult time to find a new job.
Neither inflation nor recession affects all equally. It is those of modest means – workers, retired people – who are hardest hit by both. If this trend continues, social tensions are bound to be aggravated. Both inflation and recession are a direct result of the war, and we will not end them until we end the war.
Two years ago we faced the challenge of a Presidential election. The trade union movement met the challenge with all its energy and determination, and almost singlehandedly made it one of the closest elections of modern times. Nevertheless, despite our efforts, the election was lost.
The 1970 elections will be a battlefield for the control of Congress, particularly the United States Senate. In the elections of six to 12 years ago, a number of remarkable liberals came to the Senate from marginal states – men who might never have won except for the unusual liberal landslides of those years.
This year, no one has any expectation of a liberal landslide, and, as a matter of fact, a number of those Senators face very difficult re-election races. One of them, Senator Ralph Yarborough, of Texas, the chairman of the Senate Labor Committee and one of our liberal champions, has already lost to a conservative in the primary.
The labor movement must meet this challenge with all its resources. These Senators depend to a large extent on organized labor, because the support which used to come from their party has sharply declined. Only the trade union movement survives as a strong, nationwide institution to support liberal candidates.
I know I do not have to urge the officers and staff members of the Amalgamated to greater political efforts, for it was under Sidney Hillman's leadership that the labor movement first became active in political education and we have continued to devote ourselves wholeheartedly to this important goal.
ACHIEVEMENTS AND CHALLENGES
So, delegates, I have talked this morning mostly about challenges, not achievements. The fact is, that we have much to be proud of. We have given working people a strong voice in their own destiny. In the course of our years, we in the Amalgamated have built institutions to provide many of the necessities of a decent life – health insurance, pensions, education, housing, medical care, and much more.
But this is no time to rest on our achievements. The challenges that confront our country and indeed the world, are overwhelming. If we do not meet them, our way of life, and civilization itself could be in mortal danger.
We, as Amalgamated officers and members, represent a cross-section of American working people, men and women from every area of the nation, from big cities and small towns and villages, from North and South, from the East Coast and the West Coast. Our membership works in factories and stores and service establishments. We represent every nationality and every race and religion.
Delegates, I am convinced that our members, like all working people, and like the majority of all Americans, want peace. They want peace now, without delay. They want peace without further military adventures, without more killing.
So I call on you today, to bring up all your reserves of strength and dedication to our noblest ideals and goals.
PEACE, NOT WAR
We must strive to impress upon our government that the people of our country and of the world want and demand an immediate commitment to peace, not war.
We must bend every effort to influence our military leaders that death and destruction must come to an end, that the way of weapons is not our way.
I do not talk of peace next year. I talk of peace now. The hour is late and the danger is great.
This is the hour of decision.
Our nation needs peace now. The world needs peace now.
Let us all be united to help achieve that inspiring goal.
(The audience stood and applauded.)