The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 17, 1929, Page 4

Page Four Mill Workers in Texas, MILL, GASTONIA Strikers Pulling for National Union | BEC | N.C. ( 3 i have been working in Loray one year and I have found that it} is very hard to make a living for a| $9 a week. I have| some hard times during } the winter months making ends| meet. With wood, coal, rent, lights and | groceries you can see how it is not| easy to get by with such a week’s| wages. I have had a real hard time. | I want to see a union here and I am going to stick to it for I believe it| will be a great help and I sure want to see the eight hour day. We work 11 hours a cay here and conditions are not good. We have no bath tubs | and the houses are not good. I make| an earnest appeal to every worker | in Loray mill and the South to join| the National Textile Workers Union| living conditions, more money, and shorter hours. I am julling for more money, shorter hours and recognition of the National Textile Workers Union. N. M. PLUSH WEAVERS STRIKE IN RL Fight Wage Reduction | of 10 Percent (By a Worker Correspondent) PROVIDENCE, R. I, May 16.— The night weavers at the Pilgrim Plush Company, located on Allens Ave, Providence, are on_ strike. | They were getting a bonus of 20 per cent for night work and the Super- intendent Cooper cut them down 10 cent, This brought on the ke. There are many other levances, such as heavy fining for | ght imperfections. Mr. Cooper | elso has a fancy method of cutting | dewn. He changes the style num- | ber, takes a few ends out of the warp and cuts the price per yard, votwithstanding the fact that the | same number of picks are in the| work as before and it takes just as long to weave. On a number of | jebs he has done this, and it looks | as if he is developing a “progressive, | permanent reduction system.” | The day shift has not joined the | strike yet, but Mr. Cooper is asking | them te work overtime untii nine | o'clock, and this is scabbing on their | fellow night workers and they will be called to a meeting to take ac- tion in solidarity with the night workers, A mill local of the National Tex- | tile Workers Union is being formed | and hopes for a full union shop are | strong. Union members in Philadelphia | end other plush centers are asked to tell plush workers of this strike, | so they will not be lured by agents’ | per Toussaint Meeting In) Phila. Monday; Inter- | Racial Dance Success | PHILADELPHIA, May 16.—The first inter-racial concert and dance to be given in this city by the newly organized lacol of the American Ne- gro Labor Congress, showed that workers of all races are willing to cooperate in the task of organizing. Arranged on small scale, the hall was crowded. Atout $25 was raised for the “Negro Champion.” A Toussaint L’Overture memorial | meeting has been arranged for| Monday evening, May 20, at O’Neill’s Hall, 1852 Lombard St., at which the speakers will be Richard B. Moore, president of the Harlem Ten- ants League of New York, and Her- bert Benjamin, district organizer of | the Communist Party. Our own age, the bourgeois age, is distinguished by this—that it bas simplified class antagonisms. More and more, society is splitting up in two great hostile camps, int wo rent and directly con’ posed classes: bourgeoisie and letariat —Marx. VLL STICK TILL I DIE Gastonia Worker (By a Worker Correspondent) GASTONIA, N. C. (By Mail).— We are fighting through our union ‘or shorter hours and better wages in the textile mills here. I have been vorking in the mills here for about 17 years and in the Manville Jenckes Loray mill most of the time, and never did I make more than $9 a week, I had to work 11 hours a night for this. My husband worked in coray for $8 and $9 a week, I pay 48.50 for house rent a week and have wood and coal to pay for, and +hat did not leave much to buy food a +, ~¢h Ten nessee an 17, 1929 DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, FRIDAY, MAY d Worker correspondents from the textile mills, especially in the southern mills, describe the slave conditions imposed on the workers in this industry, on this page. The plans of the United Textile Workers to betray the Tennessee rayon strikers, the.stretchout system in the Carolina mulls, the low wages in the Texas mills are described. Photos above were taken in the southern milf centers. The photo at the left shows some of the young, fighting mill strikers in Gastonia, N. €. In the center photo is shown a picket demonstration of rayon Carolina Write of Exploi RPE. FOR FIGHT” strikers in Elizabethton, Tennessee. Bemberg mill in Johnson City, Tennessee, where the workers are strik- ing, is shown in the photo on the ri; HOUSTON (By a Worker Correspondent) HOUSTON, Tex. (By Mail).— There are | commerce of Houston advertised all over the country that wages were low and the workers willing to slave here. The fact that there are so many workers unemployed down here, especially Mexican workers, made it easy to fill the mills now down here with cheap labor, | The workers range in age from | 2 big cotton mills in this section, and mostly Mexican All of these mills have moved down to Texas because the chamber of workers are the slaves there. . and stick to it so we can have better | — Soviet Textile Worker Tells of Advantages A worker in the Kalinin Mill, in the large Soviet textile center of Orekhovo-Zuevo, writes the letter below because he wishes to corre- spond with American textile workers. Write to him. er ae Dear Comrades: I live in one of the big textile centers of the U. S. S. R., the ci of Orekhovo-Zuevo, and would very much like to know how the Ameri- can textile workers live, in what conditions they work, how much they are paid, what is the minimum cost of living, in what houses they live, how much rent they pay, etc. And I in my turn will write about how we live, how we work and how we are improving our conditions of life, struggling against all difficulties, which are still numerous in our path, I am acquainted with the life and conditions of a big undertaking in our city, the Kalinin Weaving Mill No. in which there are em- ployed about 3000 workers. We are working 8 hours a day in four- hour shifts. But this method of work has become antiquated, and now the worke: are widely di ng the question of changing it and working the full eight ho at a stretch, without dividing them into four-hour shifts. The advantages of such a change are: (1) Some workers live far from the mill and therefore the walking takes a lot of their time, which time will be saved with the change; (2) the women, when they come home for four hours cannot do anyhing about their housekeeping—it | is necessary to have dinner, to feed the children, and before you look around the time has passed and they have to go back to the mill without a rest, so the women workers particularly insist upon changing to a whole eight-hour shift. In order to raise the productivity of labor and increase the wages | and reduce the cost of production, the workers, or nieve correctly, the | women werkers, who nuniher 70 per cent of all the mill workers, have decided to change from 2 looms to 3 and and the results have been favorable. Before the change a weaver working on 2 looms (there are some «working on 2 even now) earned on an everage from 50 to 55 roubles, but on 3 he or she earns 65 or 70 roubles and on 4 up to 80 roubles. That is the extent of increase in wages following after the change to more intensive work with the same weavers and the same assortment of the goods. The assistant foremen have also adopted the new method and are now getting on an average of 135 to 140 roubles. It means that an average worker’s family, consisting of husband wife and two children and earning 210 roubles, can when rationally making up their budget, save up toward the end of the month a round sum, for which they can buy clothes, shoes end other household articles. A worker mainly ti to have a sufficient and inexpensive table. The workers’ cooperatives, which include about 80 per cent of the population, have a sufficient quantity of all kinds of food at their store- houses, as bread, meat, potatoes, butter and other foodstuffs. We also have a cooperative dining-room which cannot satisfy the requirements of the entire mass of textile workers, because it is comparatively small and its capacity is not more than 1000 dinners a day, while the popula- tion of our city is 00 people. This year the foundation has been laid of a large public kitchen which will be completely mechanized ac- cording to the best technical st ds and will meet all the require- ments of sanitation and hygiene. The capacity of this kitchen is pro- posed to be brought up to 10,000 dinners a day and besides that it is planned to deliver dinners to the workers’ homes. The kitchen will be completed next year. Please write what particularly interests you at this time, and 1 shall try to answer your questions exactly. With fraternal greetings, —M. GORBATOV. In the next letter from a worker correspondent of the U.S. S. R., a Jewish worker will tell of the benefits won by the racial minorities since the Revolution. “STEEL WORKERS izing an active local of the W. I. R. here. He spoke at the southern tex- tile strike relief conference held here Sunday. Hundreds of delegates heard Dewey Martin tell the story of the Southern Textile strike. Delegates attended from mond, Indiana Harbor, Gary and South Chicago. An executive com- mittee of 16 was elected to take up the work of organizing W. I. Ham- Organize W. I. R. at Gary Conference branches in every city in Lake d., 14 (By Mail) — county. GARY, Ind., May 14 (By } In the resolution unanimously “The steel workers here are getting donted workers from the Standard yveady to struggle, and the Workers Ojl, railroads, steel and other in- International Relief must be pre-| dustries condemned the “horrible pared to come into this struggle as conditions existing in the south.” it did in the south and in other The statement denounced the 12- strikes,” a steel worker declared in | hour day, the low wages, the speed- pointing out the necessity of organ- up system, the employment of | women on the night shift and the widespread exploitation of child la- bor as “one of the mot bitter attacks upon the working class by the * master class that kas ever been . brought to our attention.” Grateful to Union the workers pledged themselves (e stand solid with the Negro and 7 white workers of the south and aid ae se for a children, MY | them in resisting the “treachery of 1 Sees bartit ede) the A. F’, of L.” and the terrorism of The conditions in the mills are tho millowners and their hired gun- \sure bad. The hends are speeded | jen, up, and they can’t make anything | for a week’s work. There is no such * a a aba thing as a good boss.there. When 2 WORKERS INJURED we go to get a drink of water the| LOS ANGELES (By Mail). boss men cnrse at us. I am going |Frank Murietta and Fedor Ruiz, to fight for my tights and I am|Mexican workers, were injured, pos- \going to stick to the National Tex- |Sibly fatally, when a ditch-digging tile Workers Union till I die. machine fell on them whiie they. ‘And, tell me, how do you think | were working. we live on such wages? I sure do |¢rushed. thank the union for coming to the south to help the poor workers. RS. R, K. For a Four Weeks’ Holiday for Young Workers! | 14 years up. | Their skulls were) The hours are from | 55 hours a week to 84 hours a | week. The wages for child mill | workers are around $8 a week, and the average for the men is $14.41 a week. The female workers get prac- workers. About 60 per cent of the workers in the mills here are | tically the same wages as the child A view of the interior of the giant ght. tation by Bosses LORAY DOUBLED WORK IN MILLS Children 14 to 16 Had | to Slave 9% | (By a Worker Correspondent) | GASTONIA, N. C, (By Mail).— Fellow-workers, I would like to tell every worker how I have struggled in Loray Mill to make a living for |my family on $9.80 a week, a 60- hour week. Can you imagine how a man can take care of a family on that amount? I worked in the spin- MAGNATES BOAST OF “DOCILITY” OF MEXICAN MILL SLAVE women, and most of these are Mex- 1 ican. Here is a letter mailed to hun- dreds of mill owners in New Eng- land, which the chamber of ¢com- merce of Houston sent out. Being a Mexican textile mill worker, you can imagine how like a real slave I felt when a copy fell into my hands. It says: “Unorganizable Mexican labor in inexhaustible numbers can be secured in Texas for new’ textile mills. Houston also has available for textile mills over 7,000 native female workers, ranging in age from 18 to 44, who retain enough of the democracy of the great epen country to give a day’s work | for a day’s pay.” U.T.W.HINTS AT | NEW SELL-OUT IN ELIZABETHTON Seab Co. Union Calls for More Troops (By « Worker Correspondent) ELIZABETHTON, Tenn. (By Mail)—The “Loyal Workers League,” formed by the bosses of the Bemberg and Glanzstoff rayon corporations here and in Johnson City, out of a few hundred scabs, bas endorsed the sending of troops here against the strikers. The “Loyal Workers League” is a com- pany union, and the head of it is a chemist for the Glanzstoff Co. He makes all the decisions for it. This scab outfit has urged Gov- ernor Horton to send more troops here, The league will be made the basis of a permanent company union, which, it is said, may be al- | ,iowed to remain as the only union } here after the sell-out by the United Textile Workers and Aymon, head of | the State Federation of Labor. | Governor Horton, who sent the | troops here, is being advised by Ma- | |jor Berry, president of the Printers’ Union, who is acting as Horton’s | representative in the negotiations with the bosses between the U. T. W. and the company. Therefore, it seems that Horton may have sent | the troops on Berry’s advice, for Berry is advising him. The strikers continue to picket, on their own initiative, while the | A. F. of L. officials “negotiate.” Over 200 were arrested Tuesday, | and a couple of lads beaten up by the police. William J. Kelley, vice- president of the U. T. W., made a ;peculiar statement, which indicates io us here that the sell-out is com- ing. He said that the union had been recognized in the plants and that those who have returned have | returned under the old scale, This | seems to hint that some have been | sent back by the U. T. W. on these | terms. MANY CITIES TO "SEE SOVIET FLM Will Aid Strikers and | Workers Relief \ (Continued from Page One) Soviets, many performances have been arranged. ly In San Francisco two showings | have been arranged, both for the | ‘same night. One begins at 7 p, m. and the other at 9:15. They will ‘take place at California Hall, Polk | and Turk Sts., on Friday, May 31. | Oakland will present continuous | \performances of the screen master- | piece throughout the afternoon and | ‘evening of Sunday, May 26. These | (will be given at the Franklin The- | ater, Franklin near 15th St. On Tuesday evening, May 28, the | film will be shown in Richmond, at \the Lincoln Auditorium, Tenth St. | Showings in other cities, both in | California and in other states throughcut the country, will be an- nounced later. | * i | Rigid Censorships. When “A Visit to Soviet Russia” was shown at the Arcadia Theatre, | Philadelphia, last Sunday, the cen- | sors. demanded several changes in| the film before it would be approved, They eliminated the sub-title, “The Soviet Workers’ and Peasants’ Par- liament, the Most Democratic in the World,” and substituted “The Soviet | Workers’ and Peasants’ Parliament.” | Other sub-titles had to be changed and portions of the film cut. The Workers International Relicf nounces that in spite of the offi- cial suppression showings of the film will be given in as many cities Fa possible during the next month. Spring Time in Gastonia By WILL TRUETT | (Secretary Manville-Jenckes Local, Gastonia.) | It is spring time in Gastonia It is spring time for the robin ning room for a long time, but later went. to the card room, hoping to lbetter my cordition, but found that \if anything, I had made matters The American Federation of La- | worse. | hor is weak in this state, and any- | Where we formerly ran 25 cards way they refuse to organize Mex- |in Cardroom No. 2 we now have to iean workers, but on the contrary |yyn 40 and over. That shows you are fighting to keep Mexicans out |what the stretch-out plan has done of the country and to send us all |for us. | back to Mexico who are here now. | we also have in the spinning room 1 am hoping for the day when the | yi1dren from 14 to 16 years old, Nationai Textile Workers Union is |\¥¢1king to help make a living for an here Oe JUAN. | their families. Their parents are me ‘ -|compelled to swear to lies to get these children into the mills to |work. Why? Because it is impos- be sible for a man to make a living on the present wages that are paid in \the Loray mill, | SYSTEM KILLING Housing conditions ate so bad |that when it rains your bed is too Sanitary conditions wet to sieep in. striking for mone money, better ‘are bad, no bath tubs and no way It is spring time by the mill fof bathing except in a washtub. We And it’s spring time for the bee It is spring time for the bosses In the playground on the hill And its spring time for the police But it’s work time for tiose in the mill Where the child is forced to labor Thru the long and loathsome day While the bosses out on the playground May plot and plan and play But the time is soon approaching When the workers will realize That their only hope for freedom Is to fight and organize Then we'll eliminate the piece work And we'll ventilate the mill And we'll free the child from labor And be content on Loray Hill. 2046 E. Fourth St. the convention inciudes the sending of a delegation of workers children to the Soviet Union. campaign “against the militariza- tion of the workers’ children by the capitalists” and our fight against Ohio Pioneers Develop Anti- Militarist Fight In May 25 Convention The first District Convention of | the Young Pioneers in Ohio will take Headquarters of the Young Pioneers, | will also be taken up. —Just Off the Press! RED CARTOONS 1929 A BOOK OF 64 PAGES SHOWING THE BEST CARTOONS OF THE YEAR OF THE STAFF CARTOONISTS OF THE DAILY WORKER [ Fred Ellis Jacob Burck With An Introduction By the Brilliant Revolutionary Journalist Joseph Freeman Edited by SENDER GARLIN $ 1.0 0 Soldat all Party Bookshgps or Daily Worker, 26 Union Sq. | PRICE | | WITH A YEAR’S SUBSCRIPTION TO THE COM- MUNIST YOU HAVE YOUR CHOICE OF EITHER OF THE FOLLOWING TWO SETS Reminiscences of Lenin by Zetkin Program of Communist International Paris on the Barricades by George Spiro OR Revolutionary Movement in Colonies Marxism by Lenin Building Up Socialism by N. Bukharin This special offer will hold good dur- ing the months of April and May only $2.00 Mail your sub to WORKERS LIBRARY PUBLISHERS 43 East 125th Street New York City The agenda of The Pioneer’s living conditions and recognition of the National Textile Workers Union. One of Worst Evils In : | J.P. | Gastonia | | (by a Worker Correspondent) ESL Kluxers Brutally | GASTONIA, N. C. (By Mail)—| Whip Negro Prisoner I would like to give every worker a Unconscious in Mo. |truthful statement of how the stretch-out system has been put in RICHMOND, Mo. (By Floyd Allen, 20-year-old Negro pris cner, was taken from the Ray County jail last week by a gang of : white hoodiums and whipped uncon- |shop. There were twelve looms to scious with a black snake-whip, The | the alley, three weavers, three in- | hoodlums, said to be Klansmen, sur- spectors, one loom fixer, so they took {rounded the prison in automobiles, jone weaver from the center alley,|rut Allen into a gunny sack, while |giving the other two weavers six hundreds stood around laughing. more looms. They also took 2 in- The white men wore stocking caps spectors away, leaving one inspector, |pulled over their faces. two weavers, and giving every loom | Allen’s back was cut from his | fixer 18 looms, jneck to his waist from the blows Age of the whip, When he was taken During this time the pay was cut? Ye Od not walk. |down from $1.28 per 100,000 picks to 87 cents per 100,000 picks. Every | | weaver who lets a tabby or cut mark go by is docked $1. The inspector the Loray mill in Gastonia. Beginning in 1927, the stretch-out tem was introduced in the weave The Amsterdam International is Connected With the Capitalist gets one cent for every spool he| League. of .Nations. Struggle takes out of creel. Against All Forms of Class Col- | —LORAY STRIKER. | laboration! place May 25-26 at the District | Teanizations like the Boy Scouts *AMUSEMENTS> | = THEODORE DREISER Hails— VILLAGE ¢ SIN A Woman rst Sévkino Film Directed by “An excel film; with the best cinema photograph I have ever seen; among the best so far achieved by the motion picture ad- ventures anywhere.’—(Dreiser Looks at Ru ) Opening Tomorrow at LITTLE CARNEGIE PLAYHOUSE Last Day: LOVES OF CASANOVA. (146 W. 57th St, Cirele 7 Theatre Guild Productions i 'H AMEL Through the GABRIEL D'ANNUNZIO'S ates|| CA BIRIA By FRANTISEK LANGNER | | 4 super-Spectacle of 15 Years Ago MARTIN BECK THEA. ]\J —rhe Forerunner of “The Birth of A Nation”, 5th Ave. Playhouse 66 FIFTH AVENUE, Corner 12th St. Continuous 2 p.m, to Midnight Daily 45th W. of Sth Ave, Evs. Mats., Thuts. & Sat. AST WEEK! Man’s Estate by Beatrice Blackmar and Bruce Gould BILTMORE Theatre, str | THEA, W. 45th St. By: MOROSCO 8.50. Mats. Wed.&Sat.2:3 JOHN DRINKWATER’S Comedy Hi BIRD N HAND yO WEDKS! CAPRIC A Comedy by Sil-Vara Chanin’s MAJESTIC Theatre 44th St, West of Broadway GUE) ee ees St} pves. 8:30: Mats: Wed. & Sat. 2:20 f AM gat el JACK PHARL, PHIL BAKER. Mats, ‘Thurs. and Sat, 2:49 ]) sipeN STANLEY, SHAW & LEE LAST WEEKS! In the Revue’ Sensation PLEASURE BOUN NEW PROGRAM | SIXTH JUBILEE BC CONCERT ; of the FRETHEIT GESANG VEREIN (over 300 Voices) Saturday Eve., May 18 at 8:30 at | CARNEGIE HALL 57th Street and 7th Agenue. Strange Interlude By EUGENE O'NEILL John GOLDEN thet, 8th . of Bway EVENINGS ONLY AT 5:30 | National Thea. 41st, W. of | n | Matinees, Wed, & Sat., 2:30. y MIT NOVELTY COMEDY \CONGRATULATIONS with HENRY HULL | GrandSt.Follies. with Albert Car: & Dorothy Sands, J Thea, W, 45th St, By: BOOTH ‘ists, “Wed. & Sat Horiba Comedy Hit by PHILIP BARRY YMOUTH Thea. W. 45 St. Bv. 8.50| PLYMOUTH Mats. Thurs, & Sat. 2.35 8.31 2.30 In an exclusive new program 0! songs and excerpts from “TWELVE” Alexander Block—Music by | J. Schaefer and “Walpurgis Night” By MENDELSSOHN, No Wavering, no Hesitancy, no Deviation From the Policy Laid Down by the Red International of Labor Unions, Which Will Lead the Workers in the Coming Class Struggles, Will Lead Them to Vic- tory! - Ne eae JACOB SCHAEFER, Conductor. TICKETS at the Frethet 0 Union square, not Mee