The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 8, 1929, Page 4

crate ——s ve _late. <=the train was delayed, he said, “Go Four DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, FRIDAY, MA Great § Speed-Up » tor Girl Slaves in Department HOR Says Woman Corresponden WORK HOURS OVERTIME FOR LESS THAN *1 Prizes Part of Scheme of Companies By a Woman Worker Correspondent I work as a maid for the last 10 years, and I haven't got $20 to my name. The conditions for the hotel and apartment heuse slaves are unbearable. We work all week without a day off, for $30 to $50 a month. We clean all kinds of dirt. We get nothing to eat ex- (By a Wi ndent) women in the de- | big city; | of them are exploited y under the cial lights of S are worth ences of other for n the spe e department we only utes. The n fore the sale we have to stay in late as 9 and 10{ you are not ry nights when | we have to stay in sometimes as | many as five nights a week that we get a ham sandwich which | left over from the fountain counter. T nea paid This tv ive extra hours. r for inventory. Prises for Speed-up. The speed-up ganized. You make your of women wi The tho textile work of the big tem is well or- on Copan eo aac | | rire S cept in some places we are allowed | do not, the only prospect is a life } the house and you lose your job, to have a cup of tea and a piece of bread. We have to stand all kinds of abuse, because we are «fired if we don't. Every one, from the big boss, to the customer and.the unthink- ing bell hops even, drive us to | death. | Many of us fall, | “easy money road.” and take the For if they | Se ho took part in the heroic sion at the expense of your £ If during the da b sales from your fellow- v the t r is after you. Prizes are o i for the biggest sales. The girls are afraid to go off the floor for a moment, because they may lose some sales and ooaal their job. they even hold all kinds of | meetings, either in the morning be- fore you start fixing and dusting the counters, or in the evening. Here the buyers tell us that we must By SARAH VICTOR. During the last world war when production of all kinds of munition and killing devices prospered, the woman was “talked into” the big fac- tories in the name of “God,” of pa- triotism, of democracy and, most of preale " 2 y , _ Soa genera year ae age a all, in the name of mother-love and hea: eed Th bpp aeias sell, sel] Mother-sacrifice. The woman proved éven if you have to talk your lungs {herself very valuable even in the out. When the me are hel liked t S in the mornings, every employe has |&F liked to see the woman emancipa- to sign a slip to the effect that she ted not only in casting votes, but must be in the store a half hour #80 in casting iron, earlier than usual. But if you are | late for some reason or other you | are lucky to be allowed to work that | day, and, of course, money is de- ducted even for 15 minutes’ late- ness. Many Women Auto Slaves. The woman worker is now an or- dinary occurrence in the auto in- dustry. But at “Briggs” and at “Hudsons” the woman worker has I remember one day when I was really reached the apex of the Wo- sent home for coming in 10 miriutes | man’s Party conception of “equality” When I told the manager that | With the man worker. There the wo- man worker is given “full opportun- home and sleen and come back early ity” to prove herself worthy to be the next day.” jon the same footing with the male Ta such fr ” places work- |worker. The speed-up system, the ~ HST aa remy toble”™ clothes. |@@ng-work, that latest invention of You are not allowed to wear color-|Converting sweat and blood of the and navy | Werker into profits and gold for the PESeS, 01 b) sitiea, a6 ist oa fae a dark |boss without showing the whip held background the goods you sell. | by him over the heads of his slaves. You must smile to the customers. | This devilish device is generously ap- | You must be “civil.” You know we |plied to the woman worker as well have a spectable and selected |and as successfully as to the male clientele.” worker, The House Organ. | Gang Work. The minds of the workers are| A group of women are doing a “well taken care of.” They put out jseries of operations which complete a heavy industries. The captains rath- ee |put in instead. This “operation” !made by the “straw-boss,” of course, EO ae in her task of auto making. The slave-driver is invisible. Further- more, the woman worker, herself a slave, is becoming a slave-driver at the same time, without being aware of the fact. And when one of the| “gang” remains “obstinate” in be- ing slow even after a “fair” warn- ing from the next worker (He there! Speed-up! Falling asleep -), the “dangerous” member is removed, cut out from the body of the gang ruthlessly, and a new one| is; |and such. “operations” are very fre- /quent, as the woman worker is still as a woman apt to undergo certain) “periods” in life. As a woman, the woman worker continues to have her| “whims” of not feeling well once a month and other “foolishness” of | motherhood and womanhood. . But! what has all this got to do with the} iron heal of the great god mammon? | And Big Business is a great devotee | to the “Almighty,” for ever and! ever. This is how the capitalists and} their lackies such as the Women’s | Party understand “equality.” | In the USSR. Only the “Reds,” the “Bolsheviks” | in a “barbaric” country like the} six-months’ s e among the most militant fighters in that great s rike parades in New Bedford in which women strikers a paves a mrpnent role, = Gang Work Makes Life of Women Auto Slaves Hell \Health of. Workers of slavery, and then when they get old, they are worn Out, and can get no more work. In old age, we have no money saved up. So you ean understand why so many are driven on the streets, | Often, if we go in to clean a | | room, somebody is w iting inside to grab you, and if you holler, he poiha aia to the management of Women Workers Played Prominent Role in Big New Bedford Strike 4 ve of the ruggle. New Bedford Photo shows one MAKE GOWNS OF RICH IN CELLARS. Is Ruined |By a Woman Worker Correspondent | I wish to call your attention to! the conditions of the women who slave in some of the Fifth Ave. and Madison Ave. shops where I have} worked, I mean the shops where they | sell high class, ready made gowns. | | We have to slave from fifty to sixty | |hours a week in these hell-holes, | |and work in dark cellars, which are |So unsanitary that the health of the girl slaves is soon affected, The wages are miserable. The girls in these shops should be organized, the same as the dressmaker, because they are dressmakers, and I know that a fighting, progressive union would take the lead in getting bet- ter conditions for these slaves. +E. S. Unemployment Grows for British Workers LONDON, March 7.—The minis- | into effect, thereby precipitating the | |try of labor has announced that the USSR have time and patience to | tral number of persons on the! and you have to tramp in the streets again. what we have to stand for the few cents we get. Yet the boss class talks about “decency,” although they are to blame when we go wrong | We wotten ate damned fools to | allow them to do these things to MAKE IT SNAPPY" 1S COMMAND TO NABISCO SLAVES [Production Is Ts Doubled, | Wages Miserable By a Woman Worker Correspondent For several years I have heen |working in the packing department of the National Biscuit Co., where the majority of the workers are wo- | men: We have to stand on our feet eight long hours, in one square foot ‘of space, without moving at all. Behind us stands the foreman, or the forelady, yelling most of the time at us to “make it snappy.” Bes two or three months, as soon} jas they see that more can be pro- duced with the same amount of workers, they speed us up. I re- member that two years ago the highest production was 30 barrels ja day for each conveyor. Now, with the same girls, and sometimes less, they produce 45 to 50 barrels. No girl ean complain without getting! “jumped on” by the foreman. He — «st says, “Well, if you don’t like it, you| ‘know where you can go.” If we only had a union, then we’d know! where we could go! Comparing the wages with what work we do, they are miserable— from $14 to $24 a week. Women who ‘have spent their lives here may get} $80, but they are wrecks. And no one here ever heard of any sort of |pension, or leave of absence during pregnancy—not even a paid holiday for a week. Tn the summer time it is. worst of all. It’s like an oven. The tempera- ture goes up as high as a hundred. Hot pans of crackers are spread all jover the room, From the sweat, our jelothes look as if we had just come jout of a swimming pool. Many girls ‘faint during the summer days. MARY H. British - Mill Paralyzed by Strike When Cut in Wages Is Announced MANCHESTER, England, March 7.—The Alma Mill in Seotfield, Old- | jham, is today paralyzed by a strike | of its workers, who walked out Wed- |nesday. announcement Tuesday that a wage {reduction would immediately be put | strike. Numerous mills have been af- it is awful when you think of | | final The mill owners had made the | as| |registers of employment exchanges, | fected hy strikes when they tried to |which are the bureaux of unemploy- cut wages and increase the speed ment registration in Great Britain, |of production. Many of these ended on Feb. 4 was 1,369,500. This was | victoriously for the workers. | 24.578 less than a week before, but| The reactionary leaders of the \“bother” with such “trifles” special security for the woman work- er while in certain conditions as wo- man and mother. What do you, women auto work- ers, think? If you don’t, it is to| your sole benefit to start to think of your present situation ag. workers, a monthly magazine for which you |® part of the auto. The production have to pay. You read how to be-|for the day, or the week is set for have to the bosses; how the bosses Fe es group te 2 “bonny £ their vacations; how to be a/ (generally a mere fraction o e | ee in your department by Work- actual value produced) for over-| ee think of Sp eocd. and hard, aul ing hard, They have dentists who |production. The “gang” never pee ad a ae te ee aa nee fix your teeth at reduced rates—/|how much their pay envelope will Men surely come g but not saying how. They have |contain, and in order to get bigger |9CHOM rest rooms and music. All this to|pay individually, every member of| The first and most fundamental make you feel that they are taking |the “gang” is trying her utmost to|step to better your conditions is care of you and have your interest | squeeze out the last drop of energy|ORGANIZE! ORGANIZE! OR- at heart. jnot only of her own body, but also| GANIZE! Stool-Pigeons. jof her neighbor worker, simply be- But their interests are always cause any slackening down of the first and foremost. They make sure |CO- worker means a loss to the | 4 eusley stk -pessseanint css opiate | that they have an efficient spy sys-|“gang.” No foreman is needed to ‘aud eomebtial comet tae tem. The old faithful slaves are annoy the worker, or to “interrupt”’ (co.menist Mansfeato). given two dollars a week extra for | writing a little report each week | about their fellow-workers. Besides these spies they have regular detec- | tives watching the girls, And when | | you leave the store at night you | have to show an open pocketbook. ‘They take more of your pay than | they give you. By giving the em- vloyes a 10 per cent discount they | fnduce them to buy things in the classes decay and finally | the face of modern in- 207,347 more than a year ago. Of all the classes that stand face lutionary class.—Karl munist Manifesto). Marx (Com: |textile workers union still refuse to | organize eoncerted action against | the widespread drive of the textile to face with the bourgeoisie today |employers to worsen the already ning”; Robert Beyers, Mary Alice the proletariat alone is # really revo- | miserable conditions’ existing in this| Collins, J. S. Boatman and Slim industry. store. There is also a convenient charge account if you have no cash | on hand. This means that one’s salary reduces itself sometimes as low as $5 a week. Ai “When you go on the vacation, | why go to a strange place where you can get different psychology. Join | our camp and enjoy the canned | products. It is cheaper, too, only $16 a week.” So they tell us. | In this way the store again gets | back the salary paid you. Because you have not much time to eat, you are compelled to eat at the store’s | lunchroom. The food is rotten and wy is purposely made to cover ie color of the meat and potatoes. There will be no change for you ves, unless you organize into one union to fight the damned And join the only workers’ , the Communist Party, whieh for you, F. M. Barricades == ae ie: ra by M. J. OLGIN 50c An eyewitness’ own story of the heroic struggle of the Parisian proletariat’ in defense of their dictatorship (1871), o WORKERS LIBRARY PUBLISHERS 43 EAST 125TH STREET n movement in the Independent movement rh anil FOR RUTHENBERG MEMORIAL (July 9, 1882—March 2, 1927) | and Anti-War MEETINGS To Be Arranged by All Districts and Many Party Units All Over the Country, the National Office Can Supply RUTHENBERG MEMORIAL BUTTONS With Comrade Ruthenberg’s Picture on a Red Background and with the Slogans:— BUILD -THE PARTY The Price of These Buttons will be: 7c per Button on Orders up to 100; 5c on Orders of 100-500, and 4c on Orders Over 500. All Party Units Are Urged to Send in at Once Their Orders Together With Remittances Direct to WORKERS (Communist) PARTY, National Office 43 E. 125th St., N. Y.C. FIGHT AGAINST IMPERIALIST WAR | and | ws; we are fools because we don’t | wake up and organize. If we were organized we could at least stop this abuse by defending our- selves through our union. The city and the officials don’t give a damn about us, if we com- plain about the treatment we get. “Oh, she’s a maid! That means street-walker.” So they say. I cas a friend who is a wait- ‘HOTEL MAID’S LIFE OF SLAVERY IS HELL; ABUSED BY CUSTOMER AND BOSS GREAT STRAIN Of ress and because she did not sub- mit te a customer's rotten wish, he waited outside with a detective, and they Jocked her up, because he claimed she is a “bad woman.” So that is our lot. Anything that happens, the working woman is the guilty one, in the eyes of the capitalist laws. If we now do not wake up and organize we will al- we be like Sons. MARY B. EYES FOR GIRL: IN LAMP PLANT Speed-up, "Wage Cu for Slaves ‘USSR Women Active. Worker Correspondents By a Woman Worker Corresponds | ‘At the International Confere tant role. Photo shows, left to peasant paper. NEW play by Hardwick Nevin, titled “Young Alexander, is an- | |mounced for next Monday night at} jthe Biltmore Theatre. The play) deals with the early life of “Alex- ander the Great.” The principal | jroles will be played by Henry Hull and A. E. Hanson. “Wings Over Europe,” the The- jatre Guild play now in its twelfth |week a tthe Alvin Theatre is in its ALYCE DERA Playing a leading role in “Brothers” lat the Forty-eighth Street Theatre. | Moscow last December, the women Correspondents played an impor- Leniny, Brileva, Village Correspondent, and A, I, Elisarova (sister of | Lenin). Brileva was beaten up and severely wounded by a kulak (rich peasant) whom she had exposed as an exploiter in a local ‘Young Alexander’ Opens at the. Biltmore Theatre, | the self-conscious, independent Have you every tried to thre \a very fine needle? | How would you like to repeat t {at top speed day ih, day out, 9 @ }10 hours a day? How would you f if you had to thread about 1,( |such needles every day, at the rm jof about three every two minutes, eluding time to pick up the nee and thread, and put it in place wt threaded ? This is the kind of work the gi and women do who help to ma jelectric lamps, at feverish spe and under terrific eye strain. jdeseribe it more exactly, “The gi samer-like tungsten filament, whi ean hardly be seen by the untrain eye, must be inserted in a tiny hi punched in the end of a copper wi no thicker than the finest need | where it is kept in place by pinchi: the sides of the wire together.” The factories manufacturing i eandeseent electric lamps have ¢ veloped a speed-up system to a ¢ ,gree that has almost no comparis |in any other industry. All kinds methods are usedthe bonus, ev in piece rates, establishment of minimum output below which t workers dare not go if they wa |to keep their jobs, ete. This occupation is almost entire in the hands of women and gir | They must build factory circles, ¢ |ganize to fight against this territ | speed-up. The coming Satutday matinee will LIQUOR KILLS 15 mark the 200th performance of “The| PEORIA, Ill, March 6.—On t New Moon” at the Imperial The- | very day Herbert Hoover was ca nee of Worker Correspondents in right, M. I. Ulyanova (sister of ywill present the comedy at the Er- | langer Theatre on March 14, jatre, ing for more prohibition in his i augural speech, prohibition liquc The proletarian movement is jmade from U. S. government pi soned alcohol, was killing fifteen jthis city and blinding four. Two of the victims were wome movement of the immense major- ity—Karl Marx (Communist Mani festo). Best Film Show In Town A SOVKINO FILM CLASSIC CZARIVAN THE TERRIBLE with LEONIDOFF of Moscow Art Theatre A POWERFUL MAD | RE-CREATION OF THE | | | | MONARCH AND HIS TIMES week here. The production | vill close on Saturday night. Next | season the play will go on tour. | Another closing announced for | |Satutday is the Maxwell Anderson | \play, “Gypsy,” now current at the | Klaw Theatre. Beginning Monday, | |the production will be seen on the | subway circuit prior to the showing | in Philadelphia and Boston, | | The latest additions to the cast | of “Buckaroo” are Dell Cleveland, | who played in “Gods of the Light- Cavanaugh. Hamilton McFadden Theatre Guild Productions EUGENE O'NEILL'S DY NAMO} MARTIN BECK THEA. 45th W. of 8th Ate. Evs. 8:50 Mats., Thurs. & Sat. 2:40 ARTHUR HOPKINS Hotrit IDAY Comedy Hit by PHILIP BARRY | PLYMOUTH Thea, W, 45 St. Ev. 8, Mats. Thurs, & Sat, 2.: | Chanin’s MAJESTIC Theat: West of Broadway Mats.: Wed. & Sat. 2:1 The Greatest and Funniest Revi Pleasure Bounc Theatre, dist St. HB. + COMEDY Broadway. Eves., inc Sun, at 8: oe . — Co a & Sa Draper fIVIC REP REPERTORY ! ese es 500; $1.00; $1.50, Mats. Wed.@Sa BVA LW GALLIENNE, Director Tonight, “Katerina.” Sat. Mat., “Peter Pan Sat. Eve. «The Manier Builder” A UNIQUE REVIEW! | “STAGE AND BACK STAGE” | staged and directed by SIL-VARA’S COMEDY CAPRICE) GUILD ‘hea.. w. dena st Hives. 8:50 Mats., Wed., Thurs,, Sat., 2:40 Wings Over Europe Over Europe By Robert Nichols and Maurice Browne ALVIN THEATRE 52nd St. W. of B'way. Eves. 8:50; Mats. Wed. & Sat., 2:40 EUGENE O'NEILL'S Strange Interlude John GOLDEN, Then. 58th . of B’way INGS ONLY’ AT 5:30 | | | OISH NADIR Original—New—Different Tickets at Box Office, Fretheit and Amber Concert Bureau, 108 East 14th Street, New York City “CIVIC REPERTORY THEATRE, 105 W. 14th Street To All Labor and Fraternal Organizations, Workers Party Sections and Affiliated Organizations! SCHEDULE 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 Call PAXTON at SPRING 2773 for Arrangements, “in AIRWAYS, INC. Joka Dos Passea attacks boldly the emailer problem Age and our Amintion Sear, Prot class war. ma the play workers awakenin; ‘conscious: : ‘iefiens cd aati GouD. New Playwrights Theatre, 22 Grove St., New York City SUN. EVE, MARCH 10.