International Union of United Brewery, Flour, Cereal & Soft Drink Workers of America (AFL) 1933 Constitution

“DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES

In our society of today there are two classes whose interests are directly opposed to each other. On the one side stands the propertied class, that owns almost all the lands, all the houses, the factories, the means of communication, all the machines and raw material, all the means of life. Compared with the nation at large this class is only a small minority.

On the other side stand the workers, who possess nothing but their physical and intellectual labor power, and this they are compelled to sell to those who own the means of production. The workers number millions.

It is to the interest of the propertied class to buy labor at the cheapest possible price; to produce as much as can be produced, and to heap up wealth. The few hundreds of thousands, who compose the propertied class take from the workers the greater part of the wealth they have created.

Of all the product of their toil the millions of workers receive only just as much as enables them to eke out a miserable existence.

Every new invention in machinery; every new discovery of natural forces, inures to the benefit of the propertied class alone, which is still further enriched thereby. Human labor is, as a consequence being constantly more and more displaced.

The superfluous workers have to live, and therefore have to sell their labor at any price they can get. Labor falls more and more in value; the working people become all the time more and more impoverished, their consumptive capacity continually declines; they are able to buy less and less of the products they have produced; the sale of goods stops, production is checked, and in places it comes altogether to an end. The crisis has come. 

The propertied class has taken into its service the State, the police, the militia, the press and the pulpit, whose task it is to declare the sanctity of, and to defend the possessions that others have created for them.

On the other side stand the workers in their millions; without the means of life, without rights; defenseless, betrayed and sold out by the State, press and pulpit. It is against them that the weapons of the police and militia are directed.

Taking all these facts into consideration, we declare: 

1. That in order to emancipate themselves from the influence of the class that is hostile arrayed against them, to the working class must organize locally, nationally and internationally, must oppose the power of capitol with the power of organized labor; and must champion their own interests in the workshops; and in Municipal, State and National affairs.

2. National and International unions are in a position to exercise a great influence on production, on wages, on the hours of labor; to regulate the question of apprenticeship; to uphold their members in various emergencies.

3. The struggles which they naturally have to wage with the organized power of capital bring them to a recognition of the fact that individual unions must unite in one large league, which shall proclaim the solidarity of the the interests of all, and give mutual support. Soon thereafter will come the recognition of the fact that our whole system of production rests exclusively on the shoulders of the working class, and this latter can, by simply choosing to do so, introduce another, a more just system.

4. There is no power on earth strong enough to thwart the will of such a majority conscious of itself. It will irresistibly tend towards its goal. It has natural right upon its side. The earth and all its wealth belong to all. All the conquests of civilization are an edifice, to the rearing of which all nations for thousands of years past have contributed their labor. The results belong to the community at large. It is organized labor that will finally succeed in putting these principles into actual practice, and in introducing a condition of things in which each shall enjoy the full product of his toil.

The emancipation of the working people will be achieved only when the economic and political movements have joined hands.”