On second thought: From the Western Socialist (1994)

From issue 11 of the World Socialist Review

The main flaw in the industrial union as a means of emancipation is the fact that a labor union, in order to gain any sort of recognition, must open its doors, even to the point of compulsion, to any and all workers in the industry it seeks to control. If it does not do so it will not be in a position to control anything. If it does its membership must be dominantly made of workers who are not socialists.

Even if the “political arm" were 100 percent socialist, how could they hope to be backed by a union whose membership were predominantly non and anti-socialist? And if it is argued that the socialists of the “political arm” would educate the union members to socialism, this merely knocks De Leon’s theories for another cocked hat. This would certainly demonstrate once more that the political party does not arise from the industrial union.

The truth of the matter is that unions of any kind, whether craft or industrial, arise out of the relations of wage-labor and capital. They can only be used as weapons by the workers in resisting the pressure against their living standards by the capitalist class. They are the means the working class must use under this system to sell labor-power at its value. It may be argued that industrial organization is superior to craft unionization, but even if this is so it only applies in so far as it concerns a capitalist society, for no union could possibly be carried over into socialism. The material conditions for their existence will be absent in a society devoid of economic classes.

“The Socialist Labor Party” HARMO, July-August 1948