"Who's unAmerican!" - 1947 pamphlet issued by Food, Tobacco, Agricultural & Allied Workers Union of America C.I.O.

1947 Pamphlet issued by FTA-CIO addressing the tactics of HUAC, who would use the sensationalism of anti-communism and "reds" in the capitalist press to discredit union organizing and the CIO. The pamphlet asks "Who is unAmerican?" and discredits members of the committee who in Congress have voted against the right of American serviceman to vote overseas and against the Fair Employment Practice Commission (FEPC) that would have banned discrimination in Federal employment and wartime industries for African-Americans and other minority workers.

"FRONT FOR THE BOSSES

That [same] fall of 1938, the unAmerican committee heard testimony against Harry Bridges, head of the CIO Longshoremen and warehousemen Union. Chief witness was one Harper Knowles. Harper Knowles swore bridges was a "red," should be deported. This is what Knowles did not tell the committee about himself:

1. Knowles was executive secretary of the Associated Farmers, Inc. west coast vigilante outfit run by big banks for the purpose of smashing unions, especially unions organizing agricultural workers.

2. Knowles was contact man for Jerry Doyle, chief labor spy for Associated Industries of San Francisco - anti-union organization of west coast corporations.

But then, the unAmerican committee didn't ask him to tell these facts. All it wanted was "evidence: against Bridges and the unions.

Later FTA President Henderson urged the unAmerican committee to investigate the Associated Farmers, Inc., which he said was merely a front for "the California bankers, railroads, public utilities and big industrialists."

The Dies committee did not answer Henderson's letter.

In October, 1939, merchant seamen newly organized in the National Maritime Union, CIO, were negotiating a contract with shipowners. Seamen's wages were then around $50 a month. The Dies committee issued a blast as the NMU as a "communist" organization. Its chief witness was a shipowner's stool pigeon later indicted and sentenced for the murder of a rank and file NMU member.

Next month, November, 1939, the CIO Packinghouse Workers Union was engaged in an election drive in Armour and Co., one of the biggest of the "Big Four" of the meat packing trust. Armour was the ket to organizing the meat packing industry.

Three days before the NLRB election, the unAmerican committee came to Chicago to hold hearings. The hearings repeated the now familiar charge that the CIO union was "red," "communistic," etc. The newspapers, acting for the meat trust, naturally made screaming headlines of the charge - but the workers saw through it and chose the CIO union.

The same month saw CIO auto workers in Detroit in a fight with the Chrysler Corporation, one of the toughest of all the automobile manufacturers. Before the strike was a week old, the chief unAmerican himself, Martin Dies, announced that he was going to Detroit to "investigate" the charge that the UAW in Chrysler was led by "reds." Dies did not go to Detroit, but the mere announcement was enough for the anti-union newspapers to make a three-day sensation."