Members of the United Food and Commerical Workers Union join in the March for Soviet Jewry, held last December in Washington.
H
istory can be a question
of perspective.
For union leaders, la-
bor's record in one of the
most critical periods in
Jewish history — the Holocaust —
is solid.
The trade union's role during
World War II is "one of which we
can all be proud," AFL-CIO Presi-
dent Lane Kirkland wrote in a let-
ter to labor leaders.
Yet the record is not without
imperfections. The unions opposed
any change in U.S. immigration
laws — but so did the majority of
American citizens.
Comparatively speaking, the
U.S. labor movement can indeed
boast a strong record in helping
Jews during the war, according to
Professor Kenneth Waltzer of
Michigan State University.
"It , did a lot better than
religious and other liberal groups?'
he said.
Assisting beleaguered refugees
was something American Federa-
tion of Labor founder Samuel
A Solid Record
Gompers never even considered.
Started as a federation of craft
unions, the AFL initially lobbied
for economic concerns, such as
limiting the work day to eight
hours.
Gompers is just one of the Jews
who helped shape the character of
the U.S. labor movement. Others
include Abraham Cahan, editor of
The Jewish Daily Forward, and
Sidney Hillman, first president of
the Amalgamated Clothing
Workers of America.
Yet the most famous and pro-
bably most powerful of these men
was David Dubinsky. Dubinsky im-
migrated in 1910 to the United
States and began his climb up the
labor ladder through the ILGWU.
From the garment workers' union,
Dubinsky rose to power in the
AFL, where he was elected vice
president in 1934.
Only one year later, Dubinsky
became caught in the crossfire of
those supporting industrial
unionism and those in favor of the
craft unions, then characterized by
the AFL. Eventually," this would
lead to his decision to help
establish the AFL's rival federa-
tion, the Congress of Industrial
Organizations.
By the 1940s, both the AFL
and the CIO had amassed millions
of supporters. Listing 150,000
members in 1886, the year of its
formation, the AFL boasted more
than 9 million by 1945.
The relatively new CIO also
had its share of supporters — some
6.5 million workers were affiliated
by 1945.
The two federations would
merge as the AFL-CIO in 1955.
The 1940s are often singled out
as critical years in relations bet-
ween the labor movement and the
Jewish community — and this
because of events that occurred at
a great physical distance from
both: the Holocaust and the
establishment of the State of
Israel.
There is no question, Waltzer
said, of the unions' opposition to
Hitler. "Labor was anti-Nazi from
the first moment Hitler came on
the scene?'
According to Waltzei, Jews
within the mostly Catholic unions
may have contributed to the
unions' decision to fight Hitler.
It was an eloquent speech by B.
Charney Vladeck, manager of The
Jewish Daily Forward, that
reportedly inspired the AFL's deci-
sion to give financial assistance to
Jews in Nazi Germany, making it
the first non-Jewish organization
in the United States to do so.
Another dimension to labor's
support may have been its rela-
tions with the Jewish Labor Corn-
mittee, which Dubinsky and
Vladeck also helped found. During
the 1940s, the JLC "claimed to
speak for one-half million
workers?' Waltzer said.
Although initially disinter-
ested in the Zionist movement,
the JLC, like many others,
jumped on the Zionism bandwagon
when news of Hitler's atrocities
became known.
Together with William Green,