The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 23, 1926, Page 9

By JOSEPH ZACK. : would take an Anatole France or _Emile Zola to poftray the ex- ceedingly interesting rapid develop- ments in the needle trades industry— the rapid turns-in policy, the most insidious political and economic ma- neuvers of the various factors; par ties and groups involved; a cauldron of nationalities, group interésts, big capital, small bourgeoisie, Tammany Hall, graft and corruption; socialist party and socialistic. union. bureau- cracy, anarchist syndicalist groups and the big new force which at pres- ent influences the politics of all groups—the organized left wing, led by the Communists—laboratory of pol- itics, played in the midst of the politi- cally most advanced section of the American labor movement with the shrewdest political machines of the “middle and petty bourgeoisie (Tam- many Hall) and the best in the work- ing class, the Workers’ Party, with the socialist or rather the Jewish Daily: Forward sandwiched in be. tween. If any one politician looks for @ ‘kickin life the needle trades wis the’ 'place for it, as Wm. Green, president ofthe A. F. of L., can tes tify from his recent experiencés. Characteristics of the Needle Industry. eg is an industry composed mainly of small shops, except in the men’s garments and millinery, where big plants made their appearance. The workers are predominantly skilled me- chanics, Jewish and Italian, they are sentimental, temperamental, excitable, philosophical, fidgety and what not. There are other nationalities, Poles, Lithuanians, Finns, Germans, all the national cities of Europe. With the simplification of the processes of pro- duction, semi-skilled native elements have been entering the industry in numbers in recent years, The wages vary from $600 a year to $1,100 on the average up to $1,800. All in all there are about 600,000 workers in the needle industry, of whom about 400,000 are in the east, the rest spread all over the rest of the U. S. A, Needle Trades Bureaucracy Does a Little Expelling. LD Sam Gompers originally started with some Irishmen and Germans to organize the vast army of needle workers. These people thought 4 union job would be ag good as being a grocer or shining shoes politically to Murphy, of Tammany Hall, and that’s where, historically speaking, the trouble started. The _ socialist party in its heyday, with its big Jew- ish daily, the Forward, got after Gom- pers and his crowd and got control of the unions. Old Sammy was sore at the socialist party for years on ac- count of this. Only in his last days did he try to forgive and forget in’ order not to play into the hands of the left wing. Sidney Hillman, at _ Present president of the A. C. W., and J. Schlosberg, now secretary-t urer, had the courage in those days to tell Sam’s bosom friend, T. Rickert, pres ident of the United Garment Workers, to go plumb to hell when the latter railroaded the convention in Ten- nessee and made a sell-out in the set, tlement of a New York clothing work- ers’ strike, Hillman and Schlosberg formed a union outside the A. F. of L., and this so-called dual union grew in power and strength and crowded the ‘ (Decorations A. F, of L. union out of the picture. Here you meet the first case “of ex- pulsion, a Then when the socialist bureau- eracy got into control they became very practical, so much so that some members thought there was no dit- ference between old Sam’s friends and them, Thereupon the anarchists, who were then in their prime, picked up the discontent and captured some offices, and there we had a little more expelling. But the real “trouble” started when the Trade Union Edica- tional League got into the picture. First the bureaucracy tried to ignore it, then some of. them tried to play politics with it, then they got the hysterics and started to expel. But this time the opposing side, organized and led by the T. U. E. L., learned something about tactics from past ex- periences. After a few months most of the expellers were kicked out of office by those they sought to expel in the most spectacular fight of its kind the American labor movement has yet seen, But it was not the expulsions that really broke the neck of the old bu- reaucracy; the expulsions were merely the match applied to a powder magazine, The real cause was that for years the earnings of the needle workers were going down, due to the shortening of seasons. The employers got away with their tricks of moving their factories out of the organized centers into small unorganized towns, The big employers. gave up their fac- tories and transformed themselves- into- merchants (jobbers) that had their garments made per bundle or- ders from small sweatshops (con- tractors), thru whom they escaped re- sponsibility, for union conditions, and sold the garments .thus produced in retail stores. Garments, Unions and Strikes by Jerger) The old bureaucracy, partly be- cause {it was corrupt and partly be- cause of stupidity and laziness, did not do. anything to remedy this situa- tion. As this bad situation came to a head the bureaucracy grew more des- potic and indifferent to the interests of the members, The left wing had a sensible nd constructive program, and knew how to utilize the bureau- cracy’s backwardness and mistakes, ind finally won. The above only applies to the la- lies’ garment and fur workers. The Amalgamated Clothing Workers’ of- ficials, once considered amongst the most progressive, but who also grew stale in their offices since their’ suc- cessful rebellion against old Sam Gompers, fit first refused to join in the expulsion policy. Theiy claimed to have a cleverer way of beating the left wing. The success of the left wing in the other trades and its pow- erful reflex upon the members of the Amalgamated got the officials scared out of their wits and they also got the hysterics, and like an ugly pros- titude dropping its camouflage and embellishments, they_threw off their masks of progressivism overnight, and‘ here we had some more expelling, of which good use has been made by the lefts in the preliminary skirmishes that took place as a result of it. First Round of Battle with the Employers. Considerablefof the old bureaucracy were crowded @ff the picture. The left wing was determined to make good against the employers and get improved conditions for the workers. Agreements were expiring all around and we had not even the time to get thru any of the reforms that would change the old, creaking union plow into a modern tractor. After some preliminaries, the employers hit us at our strongest point, the furriers. Bhe old bureaucracy played on open strike-breaking tactics, in which they were supported by Wm, Green, presi- dent of the A. F. of L.; H. C. Frayne, New York state representative of the A. F. of L., and the entire official so- cialist party crowd, the @eceased Meyer London included. -The left wing, leading the union, utilized the situation to-cement the strikers into a militant army and got all sorts of support from unexpected sources as @ result of it. It was a hard-fought Struggle, with plenty of big, shrewd maneuvers, to which Wm. Green can testify to his sorrow. A struggle in which they were all laid over the table and got their fill at the hands of the young union leaders of the left Someone.js aways taking the joy out of life. wing. The result of thé fight was that the furriers achieved the first notable victory of organized labor in recent years by getting the 40-hour five-day week and substantial wage increases, which makes them the best-paid work- ers in the needle trades, ‘The victory could have been incterSempletaitnd } quicker if not for the” e-breaking interference of Wwehtren. buréau- cracy. Wm. Green got so sore as a result of what he got that he is now trying to kick up some more trouble for himself by uniting with the dis credited old furriers’ bureaucracy try- ing to stage a probe of the conduct of the furriers’ strike, probably as a pre- liminary to new wholesale persecu- tions of the left wing, § The Cloakmakers’ Strike. 3 yee defeat the right wing got in the Furriers’ Union ag a result of its strike-breaking tacties was so shat- tering that it almost created an open rupture amongst themselves, Hence in the cloakmakers’ strike they camow flaged their tactics carefully. In pub lic they talk militantly, their press writes militantly, but their sabotage is quite apparent from their covered maneuvers with the governor of New York and from the uragenient! they give to scabbing and to shifting production outside of New York, as illustrated in Philadelphia, two hours from New York, where the agreement expired during the strike and not even the demands for 40 hours, etc, was put up, the agreement having been renewed with a slight wage in- crease, practically on the old condi- tions, thus enceuraging the New York employers to shift some of their pro- duction outside, The leopard may travel a different road, but he has not changed hig na- ture. We know what our enemies are. The employers are thoroughly scared of us and will support the old~bureau- cracy more than ever. The outstand- ing fact is that it took the left wing to lead the workers on to an offensive against the employers for the 40-hour week, higher wages, job control, etc., while the rest of the unions under reactionary leadership are meekly sur- rendering or accepting crumbs from the table of the industrial overlords and kings of American capitalism, Let us hope that this offensive will spread to all the exploited, organized and unorganized, for the 40-hour five- day week, higher wages, job control and a strengthening of the working class, everywhere,