The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 19, 1926, Page 6

E ~ 6 ( b n . 3 e e t 4 rt I 4 a Page Six att. THE DAIL¥,WORKER ; THE DAILY WORKER 42mmsrra Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. 1113 W. Weshington Blvd., ‘Chicago, Ill. Phone Monroe 4711 SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mall (in Chicago only)! By mali (outside of Chicago): $8.00 per year $4.50 six months | $6.00 per year $3.50 six months 2.50 three months { $2.00 three months Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 1113 W, Washington Blvd. Chloago, Ii, \GDAHL J. LOUIS WILLIAM F, DUNNB MORITZ J, LOEB..... Business Manager 2 Oi a Rc FOE! 2 DA OA REP GES Entered as second-class mat] September 21, 1923, at the post-office at Chi cago, Ill, under the act of March 8, 1879. Advertising rates on application <P 20 Piece-Work and the A. C. W. in Montreal Some time following the Montreal strike of the Amal- gamated Clothing Workers, Tuz Darzy Worker published a news article by Victor Frank, charging, at least by inference, that the a. 0, piece-work, H. Schneid, a general organizer of the A. C. W., resented the charge and sent us a very lengthy letter challenging us for proof. He cited Maurice Spector, editor of the Worker of Canada, as one who would vouch for his claims. In conclusion he said ¢ “Yes—piece-work, week-work, standard of production maa- imum and minimum, are the problems that is facing us and we cannot by mere resolution do away with it. It must be faced and will be faced; not thru high-handed manners to choke down the rank and file, but thru consulting and soliciting the opinions of the membership. We will install @ system that will safeguard the jobs of the workers for which they have and are now and will in the future have to struggle—H. Schneid.” From Maurice Spector we received a letter from which we quote the following essential paragraphs: “This strike in Montreal was an organization strike. Its demands were for the recognition of the union. The outcome was that the union signed up between twenty and thirty new shops. It goes without saying that the left wing fought valiantly for the organization objectives of the strike. “Immediately following the strike, however, there were rumors among the membership that piece-work was under dis- cussion by the ‘higher-ups’ of the Amalgamated. And the pres- ence in Montreal of Weinstein of Chicago, the Amalgamated’s production expert who surveyed one shop, Kellerts, seemed to give countenance to these rumors. “While no official openly urged the members to accept piece-svork, neither did the general officers deny that there was @ danger of the introduction of piece-work. “Finally the preasers’ local adopted a strongly worded reso- lution denouncing the piece-work idea and ‘those who were silent? about it, which resolution was published in the Freiheit. Since then the talk of piece-work died doton and there is ap- parently no suggestion of introducing this system into shops organized previous to the strike. : “I SAY ‘APPARENTLY, BECAUSE ‘NOWHERE IN SCHNEID’S OPEN LETTER IS THERE A) CATEGORIC REJECTION OF THE IDEA OF PIROE-WORK. AND WHAT DOES HE REALLY MEAN BY HIS PERORATION THAT ‘WE WILL INSTALL A SYSTEM THAT WILL SAFEGUARD THE JOBS OF THE WORKERS, ETC. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?” (Emphasis ours.) We, too, are in the dark as to Brother Schneid’s enigmatic ut- terance, and we, too, cannot see why, if he is opposed to piece-work as a settlement of the problem, he does not come out and say so in plain words. at the charge of Victor Frank was not founded upon a post-mortem expediency, but upon principle. Why the Open Shop Changed its Tune The American Federation of Labor opened with a blast from the “open shop” organization of Detroit, telling the A. F. of L. to keep its hands off that city and its huge ante industry. The convention closed with the same open shoppers singing peans of praisé of the Green-Woll bureaucracy of the A. F. of L.. Partic- ularly do the open shoppers show their affinity with the reactionary officials of the A. F. of L. in the latter’s attack on the Soviet Union, and their refusal.even to investigate the first workers’ and farmers’ republic. But this is not all. While the open shop organs, which savagely attacked the labor movement when the convention began, voicing a bitter opposition to even a suggestion that the 700,000 workers in the auto industry should be unionized, their silence on this particular sub- ject as the convention closes, together with their enthusiastic laudation of the Green administration on the attack against the Soviet Union, proves that the Detroit open shoppers feel assured that so far as Green and the A. F. of L. officials are concerned, they were mistaken in fearing any serious drive to unionize the auto industry of Detroit. The Green officialdom has, by its evasion of the challenge of the open shoppers, given this assnrance. The organization of the workers of the auto industry was taken np by the convention of the Metal Trades Department. But it re- ferred the matter to the A. F. of L. convention. The A. F. af &. convention, in turn, referred the matter to the executive council. The execntive council met directly after the convention, but took no action. ‘The council will not meet.again until January in St. Petersbury, Florida—far from the disturbing roar of the ma- chines in the open shop anto factories of Detroit where 700,000 wo sill await organization. Detroit epen shoppers quite naturally feel assured that the vais folk at the convention was merely for publie consumption, that it don’t mean anything. It ix up to the left wing in the A, F, of L., particularly in the metal trades, to force the organization of the auto industry, ~ oR eer mm te ER RONAN W. officials were trying to compel the members to agree to} This would assure the workers that his indignation | ed. By ANNA LOUISE STRONG. RIMEA, Oct. 11—Some folks think | there are never any strikes in the |Soviet Union,—that ‘these are sup- | Pressed with an iron hand. It is {true that there are infinitely fewer |than in most places. But none the |less they occur; in the past two days ithere have been two of them in the newspapers. The first was a little strike of boot and shoe workers in eight work- shops in the town of Seezeran, which refused to grant the demands of the union for increase of pay. tral committee of the boot ‘makers’ ‘union sanctioned the strike, which was completely successful. The un- dertaking signed a collective agree- ment granting the demands, and the strike-days were paid wages like or- dinary work-days, since the strike was considered the fault of the manage- |ment! That’s a typical strike in a \private establishment. | More Serious Affair. \Bet here is a more serious strike, { On a government railroad, under jconditions which sound like an I. W. |W. description of construction work jin the Imperial Valley of California. jIt is a pretty bad situation: on the far borders of Afghanistan in central Asia, a railroad is being built across a hot, sandy desert, shortening the | old caravan route by many days. “It {is hard, very hard,” writes the soviet |journalist describing the strike, “to jlay steel rails across shifting sands, {on a waterless waste, with tempera- jtures from 120 to 140 degrees. One | would think that the knights of spade |and mattock, called upon to conquer this desert, might count on some at- {tention to their needs. “But the affair proceeded thus: They sent the workers to the desert, gave them some tools, and some doz- ens of technical bosses and said, “Get busy... .” Of human dwellings not a trace. Under canvas tents on the glowing sands, hot enough to cook eggs, the building workers must sleep. Private Manager. “The food provision was let on con- tract to a private manager. This fel- low greased his hands at the cost of the workers’ bellies f. . A bit- ter complaint was the water ‘sup- ply.’ The administrator was obliged to supply the workers with water. And they ‘supplied’ it, muddy and warm, in old kerosene and off barrels, In the matter of wood for boiling this water, the ‘regime of economy’ was strictly observed, “From dirty unboiled water and rotten food many got sick. There was a doctor on the pay roll but no rea! medical attention . . The techni- |cal bosses In their attitude towards |the workers revived all the mean practices of the old regime . For a long time the diggers actually did not know what pay they were get- ting. There was a collective agree | ment, all right—two of them; one |Signed by the administration of the ; construction with the representatives {of the artel (working gang) without | knowledge of the union, and ‘the oth- jer signed by the officials of the build \iug workers’ union, without knowl- edge of the first agreement and with- jout, consulting the workers on the Job. The actual situation first became lelear to many of the workers when (on casting wip Aécounts for provisions and other “€or¥veniences, they were ‘told they owed the railroad money, “THE district attorney came down and the workers complained | He made many promises bur {bim, G. O. P. leaders are becoming worried over the progress of the party’s fortunes In a number of states In which the outcome of the elections is doubtful so far as the re-election of White House stand-patters is concern- Map (with key at lower left) shows political situation in various states. Left to right: Chairman Lawrence Phipps of Republican senatorial campaign committee; Rep, Wm. R. Wood of the fepublican congressional committee; Chairman Peter G. Gerry of the democratic senate committee, and Wm. A. Oldfield of the democratic congressional committee. How the Soviet Union Deals The cen-! TION STANDS CHANCE OF LOSING cer BOTH HOUSES IN CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS Ej Democratic | EEA Republican Me went away and did nothing. Many other little bureaucrats behaved like- wise. Finally the .-.workers lost all faith in the local authorities, and |struck, to the number of 700 |From Samarcand and Tashkent there jcame down a_ highly - authoritative commission. It was,enough for them |to come to the construction camp, to hear the complaints. of the workers, |to satisfy them within reason, to set jup a court of arbitration—and liter: ly within a few irs the strike was over and the wore resumed work- {$B ss eh, P Like wobbly, cient So far, except aps for the last sentence, one might be reading the complaint of an L.,.W. W. construc- |tion gang in the sands of the Mohave \desert. Construction gangs reclaim- |ing wildernesses are much alike and have much the same problems. Even the race problem .recurs; just as a ‘construction gang on the Rio Grande| would have a large majority of Mexi- leans, unorganized,.. ignorant of the laws of America, so this gang of | casual laborers on the edge of Af- |ghanistan was not. Russian, but made jup of the backward, unorganized |tribes of central Asia, probably large- ly illiterate, peculiarly unprotected. | As for the eal a of+the manage: jment, technical end financial, doubt these also existed, but the Sov- tet journalist does not mention them. O far, then, it might have been any- where. But now comes the differ- ence. Who was. punished for this strike? The Soviet placing of respon- sibility, and the various relations be- tween various organizations—govern- ment, unions, Communist Party— is strikingly shown by the resolution adopted by the Central Asiatic Bu- reau of the Communist Party: “The bureau entrusts to the depart- ment of labor (government) and to the Asiatic section of the Central Trade Unions—the legal prosecution jof the technical d agministrative personnel, who and gent out workers under 81 “We remind of Usbekistan (the her th under which this ocurred at they have failed to carry out the orders of the party regarding work among cas- ual construction workers . . . We call attention also to the absence of any kind of work ig these work- ers on the part of the construction workers’ union, Drastic Action. “The facts of such neglect towards workers’ conditiong, the facts Of such a criminally burei ic attitude by the construction Workers’ union to- wards the needs ye casual work- rs, form grounds,’ a special re- slection. In the organizations of the nearby local w e will ‘be car- ried out new elections of the con- trolling committees, Thereafter, in the nearest future there will be held a special regional congress of con- struction workers. In the trade union from the bottom and up thru to the top there will take place a thoro shake-up. “The county committee of the Com- munist Party in this region of the strike, is herewith dismissed, and its members called to account before the party; and there is ordered a special party conference for the election of a new county 6o: +p», Or having failed in’ duty of pro- tecting the wor! ) u's. Chmpared, NY ‘worker wanieeto American con- ditions will to read this re- olution two or thi times to get its lavor and me: utterly differ sOUg Oy By. ROBERT WOLF. s bripeaas Friday I saw the first night of a@ movie. I have seen a lot of. movie first nights.. They are always interesting— usually there are a good many film actors and actresses present. Friday. there were several thousand of them at the performance. For interest and dynamics and sheer excitement, these ten thousand amateurs played Valen- tino and Bebe Daniels. off the screen. The\movie was, the Passaic Strike, and the audience and the actors were the Passaic strikers. They Haven't Forgotten, NYTHING is a nine days’ wonder in New. York for the. metropoll- | tan press, and the papers and some of the itberals who were. so active in,| their support ,the first few ,months seem to have forgotten that the strike exists. But the strikers.have not for- gotten, and the strike has lasted eight ‘ “Now Showing--All-Star Cast” .|And/imagine a high commission from -|under some remarkably liberal state no) Below are the campaign leaders. With Strike ent is the approach to a strike in the Soviet Union. Imagine a strike of un- organized construction workers, most- ly Mexicans in the Mojave desert. Los Angeles and Stockton setting | forth to the scene of the trouble, hear- | ing complaints, satisfying them . . ./ So far, perhaps, you can imagine, un- der some reform administration. |Even, perhaps, might be imagined, department of labor, a prosecution of | the employment agencies and manage- ment which sent workers to such con- ditions. It would be rare, but it might conceivably happen. ’ | But then imagine,—no, you can’t— a meeting of the republican party committee for the southwest—order- ing its county committee disbanded and held to account and a new elec- {tion held, for failure to care for the | meeds of Mexican workers in its vicin- |ity, Imagine furthermore, a re-election ‘from top to bottom in the appropriate \district union of the A. F. of L. on \the ground that they had criminally | failed in their duty towards these cas- jual unorganized workers—had failed |to send organizers among them or to protect them in any way. ~ OW simple it would be for an anti- Soviet propagandist, using nine-| tenths of the above facts, to point out that when an unauthorized strike oc- curred in Russia because of rotten conditions, the trade union officials were punished for allowing the strike. Quite true. Strikes in Soviet govern- ment undertakings are considered a terrible disgrace to somebody. Not only to the bosses who have disre- garded the needs of the workers, but to the appropriate trade union offi- cers, who were asleep at their posts and-allowed workers’ conditions to) reach such a disgraceful state that | there was Jeft as recourse to the workers on the job only the waste- ful method of the strike. If union officials can't satisfy the workers— even the casual unorganized workers —enough to prevent unauthorized strikes, then let them make way for somebody who can. Speed-Up System Being Inaugurated By Railroads Now By a Worker Correspondent TOLEDO, O., Oct. 17,--There is a plan on foot at the present time to bring about a different system of working of the men in all wood and steel railroad shops. Piece work is being abolished and.a system as bad or worse is being substituted. Tam made to believe that the men responsible for this new speed-up sys- tem are not directly connected with the railroads, but are selling their plan, Men receiving large salaries are sent out to supervise this work, Wherever these men haye appeared workers have been put on what te called standard of performance, as fol- lows: 4 Af 4 worker attains a rate of 76 cents per hour, based upon @ schedule re- cently worked out, he gets a bonus of 1 per cent; 77 cents, a bonus of 2 per cent, and so on. The Rail- road {s among the firat this out. Faithful men have and are boing dis- charged and demoted because they are not able to hit It upc@festhis, terrific pace, This new system of working and larger road I months. The mill owners, have not forgotten either. ae In the thirty-odd weeks of the strike the strikers’ ranks have been little depleted—sometfmes. one, sometimes two, in sections of thirty or fifty have gone back to work. Out of sixteen thousand perhaps two or three hun- dred altogether. Hire Outside Scabs. O the owners have had to hire out- side scabs. Five per cent, ten per cent, in some places fifteen per cent are claimed. They are a fine bunch of brass check scabs. They walk in the mill doors, then they sit and smoke, The other day half & dozen of them got into a fight and had to be arrested. Actually, scabs arrested! And as the American Legion says, this isn’t Russia~yet. ~ You’ can’ imagine what sort of scabs. Some ‘of them have gone out on strike. The mill chimneys smoke—a little—but no tex- tiles go to the station in trucks. And bombs explode that hurt nobody, with the police conveniently planted near the scene. That is the present state of warfare on the Passaic front, On one élse called. Looms in full ae tion—taken before the strike—flashed on. “Weayers—wiepers’ in half a dozen accents, ran thru the crowd. First-Class Production, The movie itself was a first-class professional production, even to the usual amount of hokum. Before the strike drama there was a prologue, which, a8 far as hokum was concerned, was just a little bit bigger and better hokum than almost anything I have ever seen on the screen before. I sup- pose the producers wanted to make us ‘feel at home, It was just as well. Before the stark realism of the mass drama, something was needed to put us {nto a movie mood. HE mais drama was a grand affair, Thave seen three mass dramas on the screen—“Grass,” “Potemkin” and “The Passaic Textile Strile” — and they make most individual dramas look sick. “No commercial producer dares touch them, but they hold the future of a large part of the screen. The movie man has a great advantage over other dealers in realistic art— he can take his material as jt comes, then rearrange, cut and select it in the privacy of his studio. But what he works with is the raw matertal of life. According to my theory of art, rearranging, cutting and editing is all the artist does anyway, so I recom- mend a few of our young artists to learn the ‘technique of the camera and take a few photographs of strikes. An Artistic Work. CENARIO of “The Passaic Textile Strike” Was excellently arranged. This is the most difficult in fact, the decisive job. If I did not know that “Potemkin” was not shown here till aftér the Passaic movie had been pro- dué6d, I ‘should suspect its continuity writer of. having béen influenced by “Potemkin.” The scenes came one, two, three—bang—bang—bang—bang —with that dynamic quality that we have learned to associate with all good movies. Scenes were torn out of their chronological order and slight violence the owners’ side all the signs of de- moralization and collapse, on\the strik- ers’ a movie audience ‘of te thousand. Park Too Small.. HAVE seen more interesting movies —perhaps one or two-+tho, for the | minute. I .can’t. remember where or when, but I never saw a more interest- ing audience. They were packed into Belmont Park, the same park that was closed by an officious’ sheriff months ago, and had to be reopenéd because even the ‘courts decided this was ‘too Taw a violation of thé law, and as far as I could see the only‘reason there weren’t sixteen thousand instead of ten Was that there wasn’t room. Gus- tave Deak, the young chi#irman of the strikers’ local, came out on the screen. “THERE'S Deak,” yelled the crowd, hugely. delighted. ‘Half a “dozen textile workers were sidwn. “Gera workers,” said a woman beside me. “There’s Bessie,” shouted someone down in front. “Hello, Rosie!” some- * “(Continued from: sage .1) 2 a reassurance to organized society and civilization.” a Rat Open Shop Praises Green-Woll Administr: % This “American Plan” Free Press lauds the Green-Woll administration in the A. F. of L: for having taken “its attitude of uncompromising op- position to Communism, its works and its agencies, as a result of clear think- ing,” when not’ one, delegate showed in any discussion on this subject that he had done any thinking on the queg tion at all. The Detroit News, heralded as a municipal ownership sheet, also’ ap- plauds the Green regime, claiming that “the federation was exercising only common sénse” when it attacked the Soviet Union, Here is its argu- ment: : . Well, Why Doesn't It Grow Then? “Suppose these delegates assembled in Detroit did endorse thé Russian government? What would. happen then? Nothing ‘but the loss of so great a proportion of the membership of the labor unions of the United States that the American Federation ‘of Labor would pass out of existence as naturally and ineyital ag. any other structure falls when its founda- tions give way.” | re Of course, the Detroit News. makes no mention of the many .countries where not organized labor, but the governments as well, have recognized the Soviet Union, and where the trade unions continue to flourish instead of decline, as the American Federation of Labor has declined, according to its own statistics, eh Approves Endorsement of Militarism. The approval of the convention's resolution on the Citizens’ Military Training Camps was no less laudatory, commending the patriotism of the dele- gates antl their Joyalty to the govern- ment. be ws 7 Members of the executive. council have left here, not to assenible again until dn January, without outlining any plans to be carried into, effect during the present congressional campaign, It 14 declared that the campaigns have boon left exclusively in the hands of the various state federations of labor, President Green eral of the other members of the A. F, of L.'s oxo- png oe pe few speeches 4 g wooks dorsement of various candiiates will, no doubt, be extended to other fervent of warioun cantioens ‘oa as {ae OPEN SHOPPERS PRAISE GREEN to technical historical details, but much greater accuracy in the spirit of the strike—in other words, instead of a@ news-reel, we have a movie. The fact that it held the interest of very uncomfortably standing audience thru seven long reels, and would, I think, hold the interest of any, is a tribute to the intelligence with which it was arranged. The camera work was good, but not always perfect—it was the only place where technical specialists were employed. The titles were excellent, pointed, colloquial, full of propaganda, and with excellent com- prehension of what ® movie title should be. A Promising Contribution, Altogether, the Passaic Strike pic- ture is a promising contribution to American’ history, to working-class propaganda, to the methods of con- ducting strike relief, and to the crea- tive development of the newest and most American of the arts. also be written, but that will probably be all. Thus President. Green, who is also chairman of the so-called National Non-Partisan Political Campaign Com- mittee of the American Federation of Labor, in’a letter just made public after being sent to J. M. O'Hanlon, secretary of the New York State Fed- erdtion of Labor, denounces James W, Wadsworth, Jr, United States senator trom ‘New “York, who is a candidate tor re-election, It‘i# declared that Senator Wads- worth has a“practically unbroken ree- ord of opposition to forward-looking legislation. He has been persistently antagonistic to legislation for women and children, for labor, for the farm- ers and for the people generally, He voted «three times against woman suffrage... _ «What Did the Demands Do? “On October 13, 1918, he showed his opposition to legislation that would protect’ women and minors by voting against'a minimum wage law for the District of Columbia. “His opposition to the protection of the nation’s children from industrial exploitation was registered June 2, 1924, when he cast his vote against the proposed anti-child labor amentt- ment, mo ‘Did He Vote for the Watson-Parker igh Bilt “The attitude of Senator Wadsworth toward al iraiiroad bills in the in- terest of railroad employes was de- cidedly hostile. He voted against the railroad eight-hour bill; he voted three times in favor of the Esch-Cummins railroad bill, the la®or sections of bt were most objectionable to Ja “He voted twice to Merease the daily working hours of government employes and the same number of times in favor of introducing the stop- watch and other time measuring de- vices in the navy yards and arsenals,” Green Supports Enemies of Unions, Thus the letter goes on enumerat- ing Wadsworth's crimes, but recom: mends the support of the democratic candidate, while the democratic party in the New York City, for instance, daily carries ou its war against the striking members of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, Candidates of the Workers (Con unist) Party In New York state aro William F, Dunne, for senator, antl Ben Gitlow, for governor, «