AMERICAN BUSINESS
53
act toward unions in such a way as to aid communist-led unions
against anti-communist unions. I shall illustrate this particular stu–
pidity by two specific examples.
In 1947, the anti-communist leader of the United Automobile
workers, Walter Reuther, was in the midst of a bitter and gallant
internal union fight against the faction led by the communists. His
success in that fight had as one condition his ability to win a reason–
ably advantageous contract with General Motors. Though the maj–
ority of General Motors employees are members of the UAW, a
considerable number (in the non-automotive divisions) are members
of the United Electrical Workers (United Electrical, Radio and
Machine-Workers Union), which is under communist control. In
the midst of negotiations with Reuther, the General Motors manage–
ment suddenly made a settlement with the United Electrical Workers,
on terms which Reuther had publicly rejected. The General Motors
management no doubt thought this a very smart trick whereby to cut
the ground from under Reuther's feet. They were unaware that they
were the dupes, not the instigators of the trick. The trap was in reality
sprung by the communists: they-as so often sacrificing to party
policy the interests of labor solidarity-offered the seductive settle–
ment in order to weaken Reuther's position in relation to the com–
pany, and to force him, as they hoped, into public defeat which
would undermine his position in his own union. Reuther, fortunately,
was a better and a braver general than either the management or the
communists. He got a good ·settlement with the company, and smashed
the communists in the autumn convention. For the latter result-a
major victory in the present war for the world-no thanks are to be
given to the executives and directors of General Motors, those fulsome
defenders of "the American Way."
On the Pacific Coast, the sailors and allied workers are organ–
ized in a group of unions led by the Sailors' Union of the Pacific, the
leader of which is the militant and extremely anti-communist Harry
Lundberg. The union of the Longshoremen, warehouse workers and
others is under the control of the communists, represented most pub–
licly by Harry Bridges. In the late summer of 1948, Bridges tied up all
the principal Pacific ports. The shipowners fumed and blustered. Up
and down the Coast, they declared that this time it was not a matter
of wages and hours and working conditions; it was now a matter of
