The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 9, 1929, Page 4

5 B24 4 HEAT IN ENGINE College-Bred ‘Sas Bosses--No ias--io Dhive Sleues of Alas tae ee Miagara Falls SCABS MUST PAY . ae _ the foreman comes around and yells Page Four “DAILY WORKER, NEW YOR K, FRIDAY, AUGUST 9, 1929 ROOMS OF BOATS MAKES MEN FAINT Slave Overtime Or You| Are Fired (By a Worker Correspondent) CHESTER, Pa. (By Mail).—I am | a worker in the Sun Shipyard. The | conditions here are going from bad to worse. We work anywhere from | eight to 24 hours at a stretch and | we are forced to work these long} hours or else get fired. They get | a ship in and the shipyard workers | are sent to slave on it. | The bosses, when they want you| to work overtime, don’t ask you if| you feel like working overtime, but | you are told you must work over-| time whether you want to or not.| These are the rules in the Sun Ship- | yard. The w are rotten. Machini: helpers are paid 46 cents an hour Handymen get 52 cents an hour.| Second class machinists get 60 cents | per hour and first class machinists | 68 cents an hour. | When you come into the yard you| are hired as a helper, and you have | to slave several years as a helper| hefore you even have a chance to| get a raise. They want you to go} with the tools and work with the} tools for at least three or four) months before they even think of} giving you 52 cents an hour. You have to work with the tools at 46 | cents an hour and meanwhile you} are doing first class machinists} work. They think no more of a man| than they do of a horse or a dog! here. There are very few horses | that I see working after quitting | time. They at least are taken to| the barn and are fed, and rest for| the next day. The men in the yard work all day till 11 or 12 o’clock at! night, sometimes all week it’s that | way. And let me tell you, some of the ships that come in are regular hell- | holes. The two or three boilers that | there are in the ship are going full} blast and it’s so hot in the engine room that you hardly can stand it. _ A few days ago a ship came in on which it was so hot in the engine room that five men had to be carried out of the engine room because the heat got the best of them. In order to make $35-$40 a week you have to live in the shipyard where you slave day and night to make that miser- able wage. —SHIPYARD WORKER. MIDLAND STEEL A BUTCHER SHOP Fingers Chopped Off { Every Day (By a Worker Correspondent) ‘CLEVELAND (By Meil).—Mid- | land Steel is a real butcher shop es- pecially when you work on a press. Almost every day some one goes out with his finger chopped off. Last Tuesday one worker hed two fing- ers, one from each hand, mashed off when the press repeated. The presses are never inspected or checked up. It is no wonder that they repeat. All of these “accidents” are due to the bosses’ speed-up and the lack of safety devices on the machines. The bosses want to get out the big- gest possible production, at the lowest possible wage. Overtime and Piecework. There are a couple of soap-bubbles floating around Midland that got to be busted, One of them is this non- sense about piece work. On the line they pay us so much per hun- dred frames and tell us that the * more we put out the more we get. | * That’s a straight lie. In the first | place, Midland does this in order to make us work like hell and push the | fellow workers up along the line.) When they see that we are putting out more frames, then they cut hands, as they did 2 months ago, and let us kill ourselves twice for the same money. And if you still keep on doing it then they cut your pay. That’s how Midland piles up profits—at the expense of us workers. The other cloudy soap-bubble is | overtime. They try to tell us that we make more money by working! overtime. Yes, that day or week we | _ make more by killing ourselves, But _ what it really means is that by all| this overtime and speedy piecework we are really working ourselves out of a job. _ For next week, or next month, | after Midland has its order out, | there will be no work for us, and) we will lose everything and more | than we made. Overtime and piece- work also mean that other men are | shrown out of a job. So everytime “we are working overtime today” or “we got to get our 500 frames out voday’ remember that Midland is making more profits at our expense, and that we will soon find ourselves yustling for another job. By organ- | jing we can demand a 7-hour| flay, decent wages, safety on the| no speed-up or piecework, and sp our job. Hours at a Stretch Not. Uncommon tor Workers in Sun Shipyard, Chester, Pa. All of these men are unorgan- ized, for the A. F, of L. never gave these workers a_ thought, They all work nine and ten hours a day, and are speeded up to the limit, causing many accidents. They have a system of making superintendents out of men from | college—college-bred slaye drivers WITH THE SHOP PAPERS ARDON ithe slight, d Department this we Yr corres c (By a Worker Correspondent) NIAGARA FALL N. Y. (By Mail). here are from 500 to 600 workers employed in the two plants of the Aluminum Trust in Niagara Falls, the U, 8. Aluminum Corporation and the Aluminum Company of America. ay in the appearance of the Shop Paper Due to the fact that we had two special » the dock workers and the southern we were forced to hold this column out a bit. wor! ex workers The shop papers are coming in fine now, and that insures the appearance of the shop paper column regularly, Keep sending in those shop papers, and let all the workers bear about them. Getting Ready to Blow the Bosses Up. ONNECTICUT is the location of some of the largest munitions and | 4 arms: plans in the United States, the plants that will soon be run- ning full blast making the stuff with which the bosses hope to blow the the workers to pieces. The workers in the plants Twelve hours a day is their lot. They haven't been able to do anything about it for a long while, being completely unorganized. But they are waking up. Shop nuelei of the Communist Party have been formed in three of the biggest plants in Connecticut—in the Remington Arms in Bridgeport, the Colt Repeating Arms in Hartford, and the Winchester Arms in New Haven. In each one the shop nucleus is putting out a fighting shop paper, | which is what we were leading up to. »The fighting three are the Win- chester Worker, The Workers’ Gun (in Colt's), and the Workers’ Shot, in Winchester’s. These three shop papers have started off with a bang (this is sup- posed to be a pun). The Winchestez, Colt, and Remington bosses won't feel like punning after a few more issues of the Winchester Worker, the Workers’ Shot and the Workers’ Gun. . * ‘ Gunning for Big, Fat Game—the Bosses. ET’S look the Winchester Worker over first. The workers in the / Winchester Arms attended their first big anti-war demonstration in New Haven on August First. And who called them to the demonstra- tion? The Winchester Worker. Many of them had their eyes opened at the International Red Day mass meeting, realizing for what purpose the bosses will try to use them when war comes. We wager that the shop nucleus, which is bound to develop into | part of a big, militant union, will have something to say to how the munitions they turn out will be used. And if the response of the Winchester Worker to their shop paper is any criterion, they’ll make no munitions for use against other workers. It is chockfull of correspondence from workers in the shop. That shows that the Winchester workers have adopted the Winchester Work- er as their own paper, -. 6 * The $5,000,000 Winchester Mystery House. (From the Winchester Worker) yyw we workers in the Winchester plant sweat blood for meager wages, and while hundreds of us are slaughtered by the criminal speed-up of the company, one of the Mrs. Winchesters squandered five million dollars to satisfy her insane fantasy. For thirteen years this female parasite gave her orders to build an empire for the spirits. Perhaps the bloody shadow of the Winchester workers haunted her, Soon after the San Francisco earthquake, Mrs. Winehester an- nounced her plans. “The spirits told me that as long as the hammers ring on my house, I would live.” From that day on for thirteen years the Winchester estate in sunny California was noisy day and night. Mrs. Winchester had daily con- ferences with her “spirits” and followed “the instructions.” Stairs running up to doors opening on blank walls, blind windows, mysterious secret chambers in gold, dozens of them, were built to satisfy her ghosts. Six golden dining rooms, somewhat different from our lunchrooms and benches in the plant, comforted the “spirits.” No cock- roaches in the brilliant Winchester palace. A dance hall and bar for the ghosts cost $300,000. And when the jazzing spirits got tired, thirty bathrooms and ten conservatories awaited them. A dozen towers in so many colors, beautiful gardens surrounding the palace, make this mad fantasy complete. How long are we going to let these sane afd insane parasites make their orgies at our sweat and blood? Let us organize, and to hell with the spirits and the bosses! ia ae Another Bosses’ Dream Shot to Hell. (ewe of the pet dreams of the bosses of the Remington Arms in Bridgeport, Conn., was of a permanent paradise—for the bosses— in which the workers at Remington would continue to be docile, and unorganized. And their friends, the A. F. of L. fakers, were out to see that the Remington bosses’ dreams remained unpunctured. But, along comes the Workers’ Shot, the shop paper put out by the Communist shop nucleus in Remington—and blooey—another bosses’ dream shot to hell (another punk attempt at a pun). Organize, organize, organize, ammunition workers. That’s the watchword on every page of the Workers’ Shot. And with the lead of this fighting shop nucleus and the shop paper, the Workers’ Shot, they will organize. Then, Remington bosses, watch your necks. , ae hee The Workers’ Gun Is in Action. HE third of the fighting three shop papers we mentioned above is the Workers’ Gun, published by the Communist Nucleus in the Colt Repeating Arms plant at Hartford, Conn. The very first page of the Workers’ Gun is worth a million bucks— because of a drawing by Fred Ellis, that great one of a worker, gun in hand, ready to defend the Soviet Union. There isn’t enough worker correspondence in the Colt shop paper, and we hope to see it crammed with workers’ letters next issue. The Workers’ Gun features the following demands on behalf of the Colt workers: Organize and fight for a forty-hour week; living wage; no speed-up; no piece work; two weeks vacation with pay. ane iti The Farmalll Worker Appears. HE FARMALL WORKER, Volume One, Number One, issued by the Farmall Works nucleus of the Communist Party at the Inter- national Harvester Company of Rock Island, IIL, made its “august” appearance at the factory gates with a half inch streamer titled “We Need a Union!” Fifteen hundred copies were distributed to over 2,500 workers, many of whom upon reading the headline came back to shake hands with the distributors. The leading article called upon the men to organize plant committees and send delegates to Cleveland on August 31. Their in- tention to do so was manifested by the presence of about fifty Har- you workers at the very successful IRD meeting just held in Rock Island. Rock Island and Moline, Ill, and Davenport, Iowa, make up the Tri-Cities. This territory for miles around is a very strategic war and heavy industry center. Besides the tractor plant of the I. H. C., there is the great plow and farm implement works of the John Deere Co, in Moline, and the town of Silvis, five miles away, housing one of the biggest arsenals which makes ammunition, is located on an island in the Mississippi River between Rock Ivland and Davenport. The Tri-Cities have long been known as a cheap labor area. Wages are at least 20 per cent lower and hours 20 per cent longer than in Chi- cago, while the cost of living isonly slightly less, rent being the only item that is cheaper here than in Chicago. The Farmall Worker (you can farm everything with a tractor!) fills a long felt need for all the workers in the Tri-Cities as well as for the Harvester workers. The second number in September promises to be even more successful than the first in awakening the workers of the Be el to the necessity for organization into revolutionary ‘indn-trial unions, e in real unadulterated murder mills. | Who look about to see where they | can lop so many men off the pay- roll here and there every little while, and make the remaining part of the aluminum trust slaves do the work of those who were laid off besides their own work— at the same wages, of course. In the pot room there used to BRICK WORKERS | “HAVE NO FAITH "INTHE AF, OFL \Pig Pen Homes for Negro Slaves | This is the concluding part of | | a letter from a worker on the brickmaking plants along the Hudson. Ce eee A representative of the American Federation of Labor by the name of | H. C. Lowrie, who also conducts a church in Brooklyn, New York, ap- proached the workers in Dutchess-! Junetion brickyards. After a few preliminary meetings a committee was organized to draw up plans for a local.. The men all expressed their willingness to join, and within a few {weeks a charter was issued by the |Brick and Clay Workers of the} | A. F. of L. But no sooner had this | been done, when Lowrie appeared |before a meeting of the local and |told the men that it was necessary to have more money to supply Wil- liam H. Tracy, Secretary of the Na-| tinal Union in Chicago. The men! voted to give the amount, express- | |ing great confidence in Lowrie, who jimpressed them as a “holy man of | god” and as one who would never! think of robbing poor workers. Since then neither Lowrie nor Tracy has | been seen or heard of, No Faith in A F. of L. G. P. Roberts, familiarly known to the workers as Pearlie, was the} president of the local. In a recent | interview he said, “that as a result of Lowrie’s conduct the workers have no more faith in the A. F. of L. The industry, however, is in| such a bad state at present that the | men can hardly feed themselves for | more than two or three days a week, | |and are drifting away from the yards in search of other forms of employment throughout the state.” Pig-Pen’ Houses. The houses occupied by the work- fers are nothing less than filthy, disease-breeding outfits. Clustered | together on the outskirts of the brick-yards are rows of rotten, un- | painted tumble-down shanties un-) fit for pigs, much less for human beings. Nevertheless, these poor, mercilessly-exploited Negroes are compelled to occupy them and “thank” god and the capitalists for such tender mercies. | The best house, rather shack, is reserved by the compatiy for religi ous purposes, On Sundays a well- fed, dandy lookingéNegro preacher, driving a new Buick car, appears in the yard to talk to the workers about “pie in the sky by and by.” The men despite their illiterate con- | dition, resent this brand of capi-| talist poison, and on the last occa- sion when the preacher was in the |brick-yards, he was wailing and lamenting how godless the men were. He threatened to give up the | church, for not only did the workers ' not attend, but they also refused to permit their children to be dosed by the preacher. This is one of the ways in which the brickyard bosses attempted to keep the workers satisfied by giving the “men of god” full scope to ply their religious opiate. Rotten Food. Exclusive of the disgraceful hous- ing conditions, the food is rotten and controlled by company stores oper- ated by Syrians. The workers buy jon the credit system and are per- petually indebted to the bosses. In this way they never have any money; all they work for goes back | to the companies through the) grocery stores, As for sanitary water and toilet conditions, the only thing to com- pare with what prevails in these | hell-holes is perhaps what actually \obtains in hell itself. The workers ‘drink from wells and a stream | which flows through adjoining lands where it is used for bathing pur- poses. Thus these unfortunate | downtrodden black slaves are com- pelled to quench their thirst from the polluted waters of their over-| lords, The toilets—to grace them with a respectable name—are the filth- iest dug-outs to be found in any civilized community. They are noth- ing else but fly-breeding, typhus infected receptacles, It is the greatest mystery how epidemics have not swept over these workers’ colonies, Amidst this squalor, misery, ex- ploitation and degradation Negro workers eke out a mere existence while the capitalists who own the brickyards grow fatter and fatter on their backs, | the middh refore not revolutionar! comservative—Karl Marx 4 tendent was transferred to an- other plant, to slave drive the workers there. The white collar slayes took up a collection of $125 for him, which he did not need. be three men of the pot, now there is only one man on every two pots —a man to do the work that six men formerly did. The wages of the laborers thru- out the t plants are 40 cents Many slaves not able to buy even per hour. is the average wage | an Ingersoll for themselves had to the aluminum slaves get. chip in for this “gift” to the slave Two years ago the superin- | driver, Southern Mill Workers Page Tomorrow Tomorrow's worker correspondence page will be one written by Gastonia strikers and workers in other mills of North Carolina. Photo shows Gastonia strikers on the steps of Gastonia court houe, awaiting the release of the three women held on murder charges, Amy Schechter, Vera Bush and Sophie Melvia, John Galsworthy’s New Play To Be Staged Here by Selwyn SELWYN has added John|Miss Florance is also associated r s new play, “Ex-| With W. P. Farnsworth and H. R. iled,” to his, list of importations| Hayman in the production of this season. The production is now) ‘Tirst Mortgage,” a play by Louis current in London and is doing | Weitzenkorn. well. ie ie : . The other importations include! Norman Bol Geddes will design “Many Waters,” in which Evnest |2? original scheme for the produc- Truex will play the lead. This is|tion of “Hamlet,” to be done by the the work of Moncton Hoffe. Noel| Lakewood Players at Skowhegan, Coward’s new operetta, “Bitter | Maine, on Aug. 26. This is Geddes’ Sweet,” will have Peasy Wood as/fitst theatrical production in two i years. star. : , | FEATURED AT THE PALACE. Greenwich Village boasts of a| new theatre. The playhouse is sit-/ uated on Grove St., near Bedford, | and is named Gansevoort Theatre. The first play of the season, “A/ Noble Rogue,” by Kenyon Scott, | will open on Aug. 15. It is a mu-} sical melodrama set in around New) Orleans of 1812. “Remote Control,” the new Jones- | Green mystery melodrama, will} open at Great Neck Aug. 10, then} play Werbas’s, Jamaica, and Wer-| bas’s, Flatbush. The play is due} here on Aug. 26, William B. Mack} heads the cast. Morganstern and Short’s modern- | ized version of “A Temperance} Town” is playing in, Jamaica this week, prior to its showing on Broad-| John Charles Thomas, who is ap- way. The play is taken from|pearing at the Palace Theatre this Charles H. Hoyt’s well-known sa-| week as one of the headliners. His tire. |Program includes both classic and modern songs. “Hold Everything” will be given for the 350th time tonight at the Broadhurst Theatre. The musical show has been hereabout since Oct. 10. Soviet Government | Sends an Expedition to Wrangel Island Lulu Vollmer has just completed | an adaptation of Imre Frazckas’| LENINGRAD (By Mail)—The iprovka” and hes turned the script | Polar explorer Krassinsky has left over to Laura D, Wilck, who will|£0" Wrangel Island at the head of present the play here sometime in|®" aerial expedition. the fall. The object of the expedition is to | bring food and medicines to the colony of Soviet citizens at present residing on the island. An attempt made last year to fly to the Wrangel Island with a similar mission failed owing to the unusually difficult weather conditions then prevailing in the Arctic Ocean, In_ addition to relieving the colony on the island the expedition will also carry out various scientific investigations and ascertain the possibilities of transporting fur from the Arctic by air. From Vladivostok to the Cape of Dejnev the expedition will go by sea. The Cape of Pejnev will serve as the main base of the expedition which will start from the Cape in a hydroplane, piloted by the airman Kalvitz, for the Wrangel Island, whence the plane will proceed to Yakutak with a load of valuable furs. Marian Forance has acquired “The Whip Hand,” a melodrama by George S. Brooks and Margarery Chase, and will place it in rehear- sal next month for fall showing. Silesian Communists Clash with the Police BERLIN (By Mail)—A great) demonstration took place in connec- tion with the second Silesian Red Women’s Rally at Breslau. A num- ber of workmen were arrested for wearing the uniform of the Red Front Fighters League, though they wore no badge of the prohibited league. Later the police pressed into the demonstration and struck women and children with their rub- ber cudgels, There was a third col. lision in the evening, when the police raided a small meeting of the demon- strators and arrested ten persons, DO NOT FORGET FRIDAY AUG. 9th. “AMUSEMENTS: CamEO IN OLD SIBERIA NEWEST RUSSIAN MASTERPIECE (KATORGA) “Powerful suspense elim- ux and acting.”—Tribune “= « NINA TARASOVA 3rd Big Week “3 STAR FILM” Daily News “Very interesting, uni “In Old Siberia’ a fine camera touches.” —' chological study,” ig ee Dally Worker AND RUSSIAN CHOIR ON THE MOVIETONE The rollers in the plants are averaging about $28 a week, and they have no organization to pro- tect ghem against wage cuts, The slaves of the Andrew Mellon con- trolled Aluminum Trust must be organized into a fighting union. —wW. F. COMPANY UNION ON NEW HAVEN RAILWAY SHOPS Officials ‘Get Graft; Live on Workers (By a Worker Correspondent) BOSTON, Mass. (By Mail).—The shoperaft workers on the New York, |New Haven and Hartford Railroad jare forced to join a company union. | The Federated Shoperafts of the A. |F. of L. are pretending to make a |big drive to get them away from \the company union, but it seems only a pretense, | The New Haven R. R. company union was started by a notorious |detective and stoolpigeon agency, |and the operators of the agency |placed in such positions that they Jcould run the “union” as they |wanted and maneuver it as they | pleased. The road paid the agency $250,000 a year to run the company agency union and thus keep the shopmen| jin a position where every demand |for better wages and conditions was | sabotaged. ;who grumbled were fired. | The New Haven a while ago de- |cided to form its own secret se: vice and put its own men in the key | positions in the company union. The |railroad found out that the agency | was grafting to the limit, it is said. In some shops the shopmen are forced to “buy” baseball pool tickets |from a company union official or | get meaner work or get fired. *The foremen get big splits out of this. The shopmen have been forced to |pay one officer of the company |union a salary of $415 a month. The jcompany recently sent this official on a vacation trip to California, and the men had to pay. | The New Haven shopmen have to listen to long talks by the leading company union officials, denouncing |real unions, calling for more pro- duction, ete. | With the A. F. of L. not seeming jto care much of a damn for the shopmen, the only way out is for a real industrial railway union to amalgamate all the railway crafts. —SHOPMAN, Big Increase in Export of Fur Skins From Soviet Union MOSCOW, (By Mail). — The |“Tzvestia” publishes the data con- jcerning the export of furs for the llast few years, Last year the export of furs amounted: to 120 million roubles, which forms 15.4 per cent of the i whole of the export of USSR abroad {and is seven times greater than the export of furs in 1913. jof furs is r= |greatest items of Soviet export. At the present time there are 6 farms in the USSR, where most valuable fur animals are bred, such as the silver fox, the mink, the skunk, the raccoon and the arctic OX. Apart from the export of valuable furs, Gostorg since last year started to export cheap furs dressed at the Soviet factories, USSR ECONOMIC INSTITUTE. MOSCOW (By Mail).—An Insti- tute of Economic Research is to be opened under the State Planning Commission of the U. S, S, R., ac- cording to a decision adopted by the Soviet Government. The militant shopmen| The export | lly overtaking the | BACK TO ORLEANS STREET GAR 0, If They Are Fired for | Various Reasons | (By a@ Worker Correspondent) |. NEW ORLEANS (By Mail).— Strikebreakers imported to break the strike of the carmen of the New |Orleans Public Service Co., Inc., are {being forced to sign a long contract in which the scabs have to promise various things, including reimburs- ing the company for transportation |and food supplied by the Public Ser- |vice, if they are fired for “agita- tion.” The contract reads as fol- |lows: Contract and Agreement. I understand that I am the em- ploye of the company to which I am assigned to work, | That I will accept workmen’s com- |pensation in th State and through the company to which I am assigned |to work. I understand that I am to jtake the place of former employes |now on strike or to guard the prop- jerty of a corporation or the company ; where the employes are on strike. | I claim and represent myself to be a sober and reliable workman at the jtrade or duties for which I have been employed. I promise to con- duct myself in a sober and reliable | manner, both on and off duty during |the life of this contract, and in the }event of my discharge for any of the following reasons — incompe- tency, drinking liquor, or agitation —I will reimburse my employer or his agent for all. transportation ad- | vanced me and subsistence enroute, Transportation is free after 30 days and a ten-day notice of my intention to quit, or at the termina- tion of the contract. If I remain until the termination of this con- tract or until a settlement has been made between the employer and the | striking employes and my services |are no longer required, I am to re- ceive transportation back to my point of shipment via the shortest route (No Pullman Allowed). I understand that I am to be fur- nished board and lodging by my employer during the continuation of the strike or until I receive notice from any representative of the com- pany that board has been dis- continued. I fully understand that if I am discharged for any of the above mentioned reasons or for any reason on the part of the officers of the company or their representatives, I forfeit all claim to free transporta- tion to or from ‘the work and will reimburse my employer (by deduc- tion from my wages) for any trans- portation advanced me, I certify that I am free from all contagious and infectious diseases |to the best of my knowledge and be- lief and that it is found upon physi- jcal examination that I have any said |disease, I am to forfeit transporta- tion advanced me by the company. I certify that I am a citizen of the United States and a voter and that IT have never been convicted of any crime and that there is no charge now pending against me in any court, which, if prosecuted, would result in a conviction of any kind. | I certify that I have read the above and understand its contents fully before signing. Witness my hand and seal Address as Date Signature of witness Connecticut Assembly Validating 1500 Laws HARTFORD, Conn,, Aug. 8.—The Connecticut General Assembly un- dertook by six measures today to validate more than 1500 questioned laws at a special session here today. When the session opened the gover- nor denounced the supreme court. DON’T FORGET THE MOON- LITE CRUISE FOR THE DAILY WORKER AUG. 9th. off the with Sixth 10c. DISCOUNTS OFFERED On The Road To Bolshevization an Introduction Orth, Central Committee, C! pn éSS I, handbook for every ‘American Communist (1) Important excerpts from the C. I, Congress (2) The Open Letter to the Sixth | Convention (3) The Address to the Membership WORKERS LIBRARY PUBLISHERS, 43 East 125th St. ‘ NEW YORK CITY ON QUANTITY ORDERS!