Teachers Union
[2] Its principal co-founders were Henry Linville (a Harvard-educated, Socialist, pacifist biology teacher) and Abraham Lefkowitz (a New York University-educated academic).
[2] Heading the Research Study Group was TU secretary (and CPUSA member) Benjamin Mandel (later director of research for the House Un-American Activities Committee or HUAC); members (not yet split into two rival communist parties) included: Ben Davidson, Bertram Wolfe, Jacob Lind, Rachel Ragozin, Jack Hardy (party name of Dale Zysman), Sarah Golden, Clara Reibert, Abraham Zitron, and Isidore Begun.
[2] In a counter-attack, the two communist factions made their own minority report (written by Begun, Davidson, Florence Gitlin, and David M. Wittes) on the TU's administration.
[2] On April 29, 1933, John Dewey delivered the Committee of Five's report, which called for investigation into the two groups and whether a new local might form free from communist influence.
[4] The CPUSA then tried to gain control of its parent, the American Federation of Teachers (whose president at that time was Jerome Davis, later involved in a sensational libel suit).
[4] At the same time, the CPUSA tried to mobilize Teachers Union members into joined various United Front-style group, including: During an August 1935 national convention of the AFT, the TU administration asked for a referendum to reorganize, voted down 100 to 79.
The TU then became Local 555 of the United Public Workers (UPW), affiliate of the AFL's national rival, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).
[1] After World War II, the Teachers Union found itself attacked by "Hearst press, the American Legion, and the rural-dominated state legislatures.
[1] In his 1959 book The Communists & the Schools, Robert W. Iversen noted that the Great Depression had caused impoverished families to send their children to "free municipal colleges" (e.g., City College of New York), where the Young Communist League of America worked to recruit them or steer them toward YCL-CPUSA-controlled fronts (e.g., the American Student Union).
The TU's primary objectives were to overcome barriers to education, which include racial discrimination and poverty – in addition to higher salaries and better working conditions for teachers.
Ultimately, he concludes, the TU created a "unique type of unionism that was in the forefront for civil rights and academic freedom.
The early UFT, like its Teachers' Guild ancestor, succeeded, in large measure, as a result of the evisceration of the Teachers' Union, which had been expelled from the AFT in 1940 and effectively destroyed in the late 1950s amidst a swelling chorus of McCarthyite red-baiting, propagated in large part by TG leaders.
