Trade Union Educational League

TRADE UNION EDUCATIONAL LEAGUE. Formed in Chicago in November 1920 to coordinate the activities of left-wing militants within various unions, the Trade Union Educational League (TUEL) constituted the most important radical opposition group within the American labor movement until its dissolution in 1929. William Z. Foster, a former syndicalist who joined the Communist Party in 1921 and directed its trade union activity, was the league’s driving force. While the league was never formally affiliated with the Communist Party and included many non-Communists in its ranks, it generally adhered to the industrial policies of the Party and, in effect, acted as its trade union body.

The TUEL’s program called for industrial over craft organization through amalgamation of trades within the same industry; formation of a labor party; organization of the unorganized; a shop delegate system to ensure rank-and-file control of unions; unemployment insurance; support for the Russian Revolution; and eventually the establishment of a workers’ republic. Foster and his colleagues hoped to create progressive blocs in each of the major unions. These groups would push for the TUEL’s program within their respective industries and in this way help to win the labor movement over to the revolutionary struggle.

By firmly rejecting the common left-wing strategy of dual unionism while advocating a militant policy within the mainstream unions, the league scored some notable successes in its early years. Foster established an important alliance with John Fitzpatrick, charismatic president of the progressive Chicago Federation of Labor and the key figure in the labor party movement of the early twenties, and also with Alexander Howat, leader of an insurgent movement within the United Mine Workers of America. A TUEL railroad conference held at Chicago in 1922 drew hundreds of delegates from the many disparate unions in that industry, and hundreds of state federations, city labor councils, and local unions passed resolutions supporting the league’s amalgamation plan. Activists were elected to local office in the carpenters, machinists, and other unions, and league adherents won control of both the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and the Fur and Leather Workers Union.

The TUEL led important strikes in the textile industry at Passaic, New Jersey, in the New York City garment industry in 1926, and in 1928 at the cotton mills in New Bedford, Massachusetts. The organization and its activists were under attack throughout the 1920s, however, from the national leadership of the American Federation of Labor and conservative machines in the various unions. The conflict was most severe during the mid-1920s in precisely those unions, notably the Mine Workers and the needle trades, where the Left opposition was strongest.

The TUEL’s decline derived from two divergent forces: the Profintern—the international communist labor organization in Moscow—and the conservative leadership of various American unions. The latter set the stage for the formation of separate, revolutionary unions by expelling not only the Communists but thousands of other activists. Such expulsions in many unions during the mid-1920s provided a mass base and a deep sense of bitterness upon which the TUEL’s successor, the Trade Union Unity League (TUUL), was able to build a federation of dual revolutionary unions during the late 1920s and early 1930s. There is little doubt, however, that much of the inspiration for this new initiative came from the Comintern’s declaration in 1928 of a new strategic line—class against class—to meet what it saw as the revolutionary challenge of this era. The main rationale for the TUEL—to win the mainstream unions to a revolutionary program—was abandoned as hopeless, and the TUEL gave way to the TUUL.

Barrett, James R. “Boring from Within and Without: William Z. Foster, the Trade Union Educational League, and American Communism in the 1920’s,” in Eric Arnesen, Julie Greene,and Bruce Laurie, eds., Labor Histories: Class, Politics, and the Working-Class Experience. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1998.

Barrett, James R. William Z. Foster and the Tragedy of American Radicalism. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1999.

Foster, William Z. From Bryan to Stalin. New York: International Publishers, 1937.

Johanningsmeier, Edward P. Forging American Communism: The Life of William Z. Foster. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.