The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 28, 1929, Page 4

NEW YORK, THURSDAY, RY 22,1 929 " Sentiment for a Genera Strike yearn nek Moonee sstcdecovinuade 07. Spit WALKOUTS IN LESS BREATHING SPACE FOR SEAMEN ON SLAVE SHIPS THAN IN JAIL MORE LOOMS, DEPARTMENTS | ARE FREQUENT Wage Cuts Continue Speedup Grows as (By a Worker Cor B HAMTON, N. Y. (By Mail). ~Wage cuts and speed-up the | der of the di the Ei Johnson Shoe her day wage cuts take place in var ous dep: espondent ) s have t cuts in} these wage cuts have | one time the com-| ble to keep the} department at work | while the workers of another de- nartmert have had wage siashes. This lack of si y is being over- come by a growing sentimert for struggle voiced by thousands in the } Endicott-Johnson fa The recent s ypen encou TS ‘nother though unorganized, promised to join in a sympathetic strike. The company intimidation and lack of leader: nents who, were largely responsible for the | workers’ return under the wage| cuts, Wage Cuts Continue. That the Endicott-Johnson Co. has embarked on a wage-cutting campaign, and will not stop unless overpowered by the organized might | of the 17.000 workers, is borne out | hy the following facts: Recently the stakers in the upper leather tannery received two cuts in wages. The Stark machine workers also received a lerge cut in their wages. The color machine workers and the press machine workers received ware cuts. Many individual workers and “gangs” in various parts of the En- dieott-Johnson factories have been getting wage cuts continuously. Fake “Industrial Democracy.” For many years the Endicott- Johnson Corporation has been cover- ing up its exploitation system by fake schemes of profit-sharing and bonuses, free medical care, and so on, This was when all workers re- ceived two weeks’ vacation with vay; when pregnant women work- ers received three months vacation with pay, and when all workers re- ceived pay for holidays. Thea, too, re higher than today here. | 5 tes back previous to 1919. Then the company began a sys- ‘3 tematic attempt to wipe out all these conditions, the substance of | which was embodied in the terms, *Jndustrial Democracy” and “We” | propaganda slogans, intended to! blirdfold the workers. | Wage cuts cannot be soothed over by propaganda. There is a} marked timent for a strike and the bu up of a shoe workers | mni-r | en the company several | years to remove the above privileges | vf the workers, The two weeks’ va- | re with pay snd the pay for} holidays have been taken away. | _Fregnant women workers no longer | “pet paid for time out. | 3 Speed-up Grows. “The speed-up is now in full swing in every department at the Endicott- Johnson plants. The workers have | j been forced to increase their pro- , auction manifold, and wages, in- stead of increasing with increased | i (production, according to promises ‘made by Endicott-Johnson, have been reduced. As the above privi- leges were being systematically wiped out the company made a 20 per cent reduction in the pay of all its 17,000 workers. Unorganized, divided against each other (Ameri- cans against foreigners), the work- rs-were unprepared to fight against the lowering of their living wages and conditions. "The annual bonus paid out by the Endicott-Johnson Corporation as a q ki {By a Worker Correspondent) READING, Pa. (By Mai!).—A general reduction of wages in the knitting mills of Reading, which has a . “socialist” administration, has “been made. The girls in the Iris Hosiery Mills at 737 North Tenth St. were invited recently to return to work after a 10-day lay-off at orices ranging up to 8 cents a dozen less than was previously paid. | The former prices for black work | were 30 cents a dozen for knitters. The price now offered is 22 cents a | dozen, a reduction of over 26 per| cent. This wiil amount for the girls to @ reduction of about $1.20 a day. loopers at this plant also suf- ing a cut of two cents a day. The other mills in this city are also reducing the workers’ wages ie gy right and left. At the Guenther if Mill at Court ard Tenth Sts., a cut 28 cents to 22 cents has been i gird to get 22 cents even, be- ‘ down south they are doing the bone to average 12 to 14/ mm per day. in the girls’ wages. One girl same work for 12 to 18 cents.” was told she “ought to be girls have to work themselves | (By a Seaman Correspondent) While the owners of the British passenger ships continue altho they claim they are “penniless,” for to spend fortunes. gorgeous “de luxe” and first class passenger accommodations, the quarters of the crews of the s filthy, verminous and unsanitary every day perience on both American and British boa and freight ships. It is hard to decide which are worse, those lying the “‘stars and stripes” or those sailing under the “union jack,” as these imperialist banners are called. In the American lines, those of the Dollar Line are about ips continue to grow more I have had ex- , both passenger Grows Among the Endicolt-Johnson Shoe Workers )the worst. But the other lines also provide pig-sties. Dollar Liners President Harrison, President Garfield and Presi- ters for the seamen are bug and rat-ridden; the bed-clothes are composed of thin rags, under which you freeze in the cold weather; the food is composed of salt-pork and hard bread for about 120 cubic feet. than that for a prisoner in jail, who gets about 500 cubic feet. On board the British ships which I have sailed on, such as the Union Castle Line, there is only 100 cubic feet for a seaman. On the, dent Polk, on all of which I have slaved as a seaman, the quar-| the most part; and the average space allotted to a seaman is| This is even a smaller breathing space) Two seaman have to seat, sleep, and store their clothes in a) space less than half that contained in an ordinary British third) class carriage compartment. This also applies to such well-| known passenger lines I have worked on as the Cunard, Dom- inion, and White Star. The seamen on the British Workers Union, who help th | ships are practically helpless to improve their conditions; on account of the dishonesty of the Z officials of the Marine section of the Transport and General| Make from $3 to $10 in e shippers, especially the big owners, by knifing every effort of the men to improve them- | selves. —J. BROUGHTON. Rain Floods Workers Distr cee ict in Brooklyn: MILL WORKER | Forced to Run from 12 to 16 Looms (By a Worker Correspondent) |. NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (By AN unborn baby is the cause of all the rumpus in “Flight” by Susan | Meriwether and Victor Victor now playing at the Longacre Theatre. A |comedy of life among the idle rich, \it is very amusing at times, also |having its full quota of dull mo- ments. Cynthia Larrimore, {daughter of an | couple the flapper unhappy married has affairs with several Pee ie a Lesa Nn SE | NAOUM BLINDER | jobs. | workers, CUT WAGES IN READING Slash Over 25 Percent for Mill Slaves Heavy rains turned streets into streams end f Picture shows school-children carry deep rivulets. 3 a |from twelve to sixteen looms each. | her. | Mail).—I will write of conditions in, bright young men in her social set. \the Sharpe Mill. In this mill the| Richard Scofield, weavers do not have much of a, “Scoofy” is outclassed by Terry chance to rest for a moment during | Hamilton, who likes Cynthia to the working hours. They have to run/extent that he is willing to marry The girl does not know her After the strike was over I was of-| own mind and is on the verge of ac- also knowi as! ger brothers and si: fered a chance to run twenty-four looms. And you have to clean and joil them yourself. The cleaners here, they just do nd their families to wade through Bulge with Stolen Money Sates of Employment Sharks (By a Worker Correspondent) PHILADELPHIA, Pa. (By Mail). |—The gyp slave-markets are deriv- ing a rip-roaring trade in gold-brick As “prosperity” (meaning un- employment) increases and the want ad columns gradually shrivel jtern-makers, are listed in their newspaper ads, which sometimes run to half a column each. The bulk of their sweg, however, is taken from young clerical workers, bookkeep- jers, stenographers, muitigraph op- up, jerators, junior clerks and the like. | serfs out of work hoof it to the la-| One and all, the mythical “situa- es the cleaning of eight to twelve find about a hundred hungry-eyed stiffs, hat in hand, fanaa tate | looms. Over these looms you are \long, cosy room, and at one side ou[e to do your own clean- equal number of girls, although the | "8. remit is half Ba The PB. x.| There are about forty-five young operator at the door shoves an ap- | Workers here. The rest are all plication form and a filing card to- % i | ward you and you elbow through the Worker, hee 40 do, the-dirty: work, inob to a directorial table. [such as cleaning looms and run- | " : |ning from twelve to sixteen looms Following a dreary wait you get|in addition to a lot of overtime. |a seat, fill out your blanks and join | While I was working here I had to |the workers around one of the half- | run 16 looms from six in the morn- {dozen glass-partitioned “consulta- | ing till six at night and only mak- jUon rooms,” all going lickety-split. |ing (for such hours) about twenty- bor-shark in greater and greater |tions” offered psy fabulous wages | hen your turn comes the shylock five dollars a week, droves. His office is the last stand this side of the soup kitchen—or |fore a sucker is so much as given |°? his starvation. Locally, there are seven whole- sale “employment agencies” and any number of fiy-by-night joints, their safes fairly bursting with boodle swindled out of needy and credulous If the victims got a run for their money the racket would be vicious enough. But in most cases a $10 or $20 banknote is swopped for the smooth promise of a job, and that is the end of the matter. The big slave-traders occupying the white-collar workers. “Open- ings” for all sorts of workers, from office boys to mechanics and pat- |Gin print). There’s a reason. Be- |the address of a “prospect” he or she has to fork over 50 per cent of the “fee’—the larger the salary, the bigger the rake-off. One week’s wages is charged for any job worth $25 or less. The fee for work in the $25 to $50 class is one-third of |one month’s earnings. Thus, a $50 job, if there was any such thing, | would be knocked down to the lucky {slave for a paltry $70. f ii | | “Vocational' engineers,” as these istick-up artists like to call them- jeostly suites of cffices in the down- |selves, always talk in big figures. town skyscrapers prey especially on/| Say you are a stenographer who has worn his soles to a tine brown lace stalking work. At last you wind up in the den of a labor-shark. You general bribe and smoke screen now been reduced to a bare pitt: Having reached a height of $2 in 1922, last ‘year’s bonus $23.92. This apy employes. inating employ Jess than two is the stnallest bonus ten years, and all indications point to it soon being wiped out. “Better Times Ahead.” From his vacation home in Fler- ida, free from care an! worries, | George F. Johnson, one of the own- | ers, in a message published in the company - controlled Binghamton Sun, spreads the soothing oil by promising “better times” to the En- dicott-Jobuson slaves, whcse wages axe beings; cut every day. “We are going to Lave better days, and, I hope, better work and wages. And so let’s pull together, and express loyalty and confidence in harder work,” he says. This hypocrisy is being answered by many workers who are taking the lead in fighting wage cuts and worsening of conditions. The werk- ers have answered this bunk by re- fusing to accept wage cuts and or-| ganizing department strikes which will develop into a genera! strike in the near future, in which ah of the A cut has been made at the Kitz- miller plant, at Fourth and Elm Sts., from 28 cents to 23 cents per dozen. When the Iris Mill bosses called | on the girls to come back after the ten-day lay-off «at the reduced wages, but one girl responded, on Monday, and Tuesday afternoon there were but three girls back. The Losses’ statement that poor business was responsible for the cuts was a lie. Not counting noon lunch hours, the girls at the Iris Mills work 10 hours a day. However, in order to make a day's wages, many of the girls snatch a hasty lunch and then spend their time getting extra tops ready and mending stockings which are defective. The work in the mills is nerve- racking. Everything is piece-work and in the mills where the machines are of an old type the tasls are straining and exhausting. The fore- men are paid bonuses for pushing the work hardest and making the speed-up greatest. Most of the girls and women in the Reading mills can last only a couple of years before they sre worn out and have to quit. | 17,000 slaves of Endicott-Johnson . | will take part. Vonununists “ead Workers. True to the tradition as the leader of tke working class against the op- |=ressors, the Workers (Communist! |Party here is leading the fight against wage cuts and rotten con- ditions and is making every effort |to organize the Endicott-Johnson jworkers into an Industrial Shoe Workers Union. The shop paper, the “Endicott- Johnson Workers’ Voice,” organ of jthe Workers (Communist) Party | Nuclei in the E.-J. factories, is very enthusiastically received by all the orkers. This paper urges the kers to fight wage ents by strikes, and sympathetic action by other departments when a depart- ment strikes. It also calls on the workers to organize into a powerful Shoe Workers Industrial Union which will unite all the 17,000 workezs in- to one organization and unitedly struggle against wage cuts and for the improvement of conditions. |runs through the little filing cabinet Many times the bosses were seen desk and tells you he is very|tampering with the clock, which sorry, the stenographic vacancies |used to tell us what we make a have been taken. No, wait. Here’s | week. If you dare look at the clock, the very thing—secretary to private | you have to fight a boss who not |secretary, $150 per month. Butyoujonly fines you but tells you that |haven’t the experience for a secre- jyou are a damn Portuguese and that |tary, you object. A $25 job is what | you ought to be shipped back to the jolder men and women. The young) |cepting the proposal when John Hill, a vest pocket edition of Char- lie Lindbergh appears on the scene. | t+ seems that his airplane is wrecked |near the Larrimore country home. Cynthia goes for a ride in the airplane with Hill and on their |landing Cynthia gives herself to the | |bashful boy. “It was as though we | were husband and wife” is the way |Hill puts it, He then proposes to |Cynthia, and when she tells him that there had been other men be- fore him, goes away broken-hearted. The flapper is also broken-hearted and for six weeks lives in a trance. She then receives a letter from the airman stating that he realizes that he was foolish and will be with her jagain shortly. Cynthia then discov-| jers that she is to become a mother, |but does not know whether the |father of the child is Hamilton or Hill. She determines to test the aviator’s love for her, using the \fact that she is pregnant as the | basis for her test. She invited both | Hamilton and Hill to her house and |you’re after. Nonsense! The slave- | |trader ought to know ability when |Staver does not need you,” he says, | the sees it. Just plank down $20 and | |you can dust right around to nail |this golden opportunity. Whether you are a crackpot or} simply desperate you fall for his line. Of course you discover that the “job” has already been filled by one of the other six agencies hand- ling it. Or else the chief crimp does not think as highly of your qualifica- tions as the slave-dealer. Perhaps you were sent out to a “client” who wanted a plain typist—you have too much experience. Maybe you part | with your last few fish on the gyp’s | promise that you will get the first | call for the next place that turns up, provided you leave a deposit as | a “guarantee of good faith.” Good faith is right. In any event the result fs the same. But try and get your money back. You have signed a contract. Then morning after morning you haunt the slave-market for weeks on end. Now and then you are rushed out on a wild-goose chase. While |stenographic jobs are thicker than | flies in summer, according to the | jads the labor-sharks continue to run | |in the papers, somehow or other he | never seems to have the exact place | for you. FRED MILLER. ST. LOUIS DYERS STRIKE ST. LOUIS, Mo. (By Mail).— Thirty-four dyers of the Star Dyers and Cleaning Co. struck to protest the discharge of two workers. of COMM cow. 3§ EAST 125TH STREET THE PROGRAMME the UNIST | INTERNATIONAL The first World Programme of the Communist International in its final form. Unanimously adopted by the Sixth World Congress of the Com- munist International held in -Mos- ‘The most important formulation of revolutionary policy and social-eco- nomic analysis since the Communist Manifesto. 10 CENTS PER COPY ————————— WORKERS LIBRARY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK CITY i—t courtry you came from. “The United then announces that she is going to \have a baby. In a dramatic speech “2 |she states that she has doubts as START “WAR” ON GAMBLING. | to who is the father, her old lover, ATLANTIC CITY, N. J., Feb. 27| Terry, or the bashful aviator. Hill (UP). Warfare was declared is again shocked and leaves the against gambling in Atlantic City | house, but returns in a few moments today when S, Cameron Hinkle, as-|and the play ends with everything) sistant county prosecutor, assigned | happening as expected. gambling | hi a detective squad to close While the play is well written and establishments. as several odd twists, it is not dif- CARNEGIE HALL SATURDAY at 8:30 RECITAL OF MUSIC LEON THEREMIN RUSSIAN SCIENTIST AND INVENTOR Ether-Wave Music Instruments AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT DURING 1928 IN AMBRICA 5 BACH, BEETHOVEN, TSCHAIKOVSKY, IN PROGRAM: CHOPIN, PROKOFIEFF, RAVEL, ETC, ie is produced solely by delicate and plastic movements of d fingers in the air without contact with the instruments! OW ON SALE PRICE 50, $2.00, $1.50, $1.00, 75¢ DEMATERIALIZED MUSIC NEW TONAL AND ARTISTIC POSSIBILITIES ARTHUR JUDSON, Concert Management. Mass Opening of the 6TH NATIONAL CONVENTION of the WORKERS. (Communist) PARTY OF AMERICA — Friday Eve., March 1 NEW STAR CASINO East 107th St., near Park Ave, SECOND MEMORIAL OF THE DEATH OF C, E, RUTHENBERG (July 9, 1882—Mareh 2, 1927) First Showing of New Russian Film “RUSSIA IN 1928” Nationally Known Communist Leaders Will Speak —ADMISSION 60 Buy Your Tickets at Diatrict Office; Workers Center, or at National Office, 48 EH. 125th St. DOCTORED TIME Miriam Hopkins Gives Fine | CLOCK ROBBING’ PrtormanNce te Klay. “ane Noted Russian violinist, who will appear as soloist with the Conduc- | torless Symphony Orchestra at Car- jnegie Hall this evening, | 1 |ficult to guess what is going to hap- |pen next, most of the time, Also, on occasions, the play drags and be- comes very dull. The end of the | Second act is the best of the play| and makes up to a great extent for the ‘nferior sections of the produe-| tion ‘Tae cast is much better than the play. Miriam Hopkins plays the part of the flapper and gives a won- | derful performance. Whenever she is on the stage, the play radiates around her. She is unusually con- vineing and should be congratulated | on her superior performance. The other members of the cast are equally fine. John D. Seymour as Hamilton and Donald Dillaway as John Hill are adequate. Ernest | Glendinning, as Stephen Fairbanks, |is remarkably true to life, and next | to Miss Hopkins, is the outstanding |member of the cast. It is only a MEN MUST DO OWN CLEANING Week’s Work (By a Worker Correspondent) NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (By Mail).—In the weaving room of the Acushne* Mill the weavers do not get much money for their work, Some of the weavers are running from two to ten looms and making from $3 tc $10 a week, while a speed- up is in force. Many of the weavers are in the mill not because they want to be, but because the bosses want them in the mill so as to make profits for themselves. How much can‘a weaver make with only two looms to run, with the wages they pay and with a speed-up in addition? Especially when he has a family of five and six to support? “Get the Ax.” Not enough cleaning of the looms is being done. Most of the weavers ure forced to clean their own looms or they get a “call-down” from the boss, or “get the ax,” which means that you are fired—and no back talk, either. The bosses swear at you every time you go to look at the cloth, To end such slavery every fellow- worker, young or old, must join the National Textile Workers Union. Every young worker should join the Young Workers League British Imperialist Labor Commission to Follow Simon in India LONDON, (By Mail).—The an- nouncement of the Viceroy of India that a Royal Commission will be ap- pointed to study Indian industrial relations is regarded here as a clever bourgeois move to entrap the labor leaders into ‘still further co- operation with the process of im- perialist exploitation . The ex-speaker of the House of Commons, Whitley, the father of the Whitley Councils, is to be chairman of the new commission. The Whit- ley Council scheme is for industrial conciliation and has the approval of all reformist trade union leaders. + pity that his part does not give him a broader outlet. Eleanor Wood- ruft, Gertrude Bryan and Henry Wadsworth are also in the cast. ‘Theatre Guild Productions EUGENE O'NEILL'S DY NAMO MARTIN BECK THEA. 45th W. of 8th Ave. Eys. §:40 Mats., Thurs. & Sat, 2 SIL-VARA’S COMEDY CAPRICE XUILD Thea. W. dena st. GU Eves. 8:50 Mats,, Wed., Thurs., Sat., 2:40 Wings Over Europe By Robert Nichols and Maurice Browne ALVIN THEATRE Sand St., W. of Broadway, Eves, 8:50; Mats., Wed.& Sat. ete EUGENE O'NEILL'S Strange Interlude John GOLDEN Thea., 58th B. of B'way EVENINGS ONLY }. of AT 5:30 ‘The proletarian movement’ ix the self-conscious, independent movement of th mense majority. L Marx int Manifeate). a) AIRWAYS, INC, John Dos Passos O M ‘ DANO, CIVIC To All Labor and Fraternal Organizations, Workers Party” Sections and Affiliated Organizations! 3CHEDULH A PERFORMANCE AT ONCE OF— @ Airways, Inc. Now Playing at the Grove Street Theatre Make $275 for the Daily Worker and the Needle ‘ Trades Strikers " 1 Call Paiiton or Napoli at SPRING 2772 for Arrangements. attacks boldly the major | gered our Age and our America—namely, the class a is of the American workers ‘awakening to ‘clans cuales New Playwrights Theatre, 22 Grove St., New York City “STAGE AND BACK STAGE” staged and directed by NADIR ONE-ACT PLAYS—ACROBATICS Hane ath sercet New Yor cle | REPERTORY THEATRE, 105 W. 14th Street Y .Tiekets nt Box Of 03 fice, Fretheit WS CAMEO 3 40M | Germany’s Side of the Great War “BEHIND THE GERMAN LINES” Actually Photographed on the Battlefields Most Remarkable Official Warfilm ARTHUR HOPKINS presents OLIDAY Comedy Hit by PHILIP BARRY PLYMOUTH Thea, W, 45 St. Ev. 8.50 Mats, ‘Thu: Sat, 2.35 Chanin’s MAJESTIC Theatre of Broad Wed. & ‘Sat. The Greatest and Funniest Revue Pleasure Bound (VIC REPERTORY 145 Eves. 8 50c: $1.00: $1.50, Mats, Wed.&Sat. EVA LE GALLIENNE, Director Tonight, “Lady from Alfaqueque,” and “On the High Read.” Fri. Eve, “Katerina.” GOLD. A UNIQUE REVIEW! ISH Es” AND MUSIC SUN. EVE, MARCH 10 4