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; STRIKING ILLINOIS ( MINERS’ PAGES OF : THE DAILY WORKER WORKERS! MOBILIZE ALL FORCES TO THE SUPPORT OF THIS STRIKE ADRES Baily DAILY WORKER, , NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1929 "MINERS MARCH UNDE NAL MINERS UNION R FLAG OF NATIO Fishwick-Farrington Misleaders Where UMWA Fakers Live in Luxury on Graft from Their Treacheries While Miners Live in Shacks and Starve Under Wage Cuts | Down with Lewis and & Miners Strike for Chance to Live; Can’t Stand Conditions Six Hr. Day and Five Day Week Vital to Them; Save Unemployed and Prevent Accidents | - : . Alhes and Gratters, Boss MINERS GIVE FIRST ANSWER TO HOOVER'S FASGIST COUNCIL PLAN © Shows Workers Militancy Rising; Won’t Stand Quietly Under Increased Exploitation Oppose Discrimination Against Negroes; Ask | for Rest Periods, Bigger Crews, Safety Devices, Find All Misleaders from A. F. L. President “Sweeping ahead under stimulus of the wage agreement negotiated is now, these men do have to speed up or be fired. There are plenty last Fall, October coal production | hungry outside to take their places. in Illinois struck an encouraging | Why? Because the three men on a note for the state mining industry.” | machine can do the work of six on Thus speaks the Illinois miner, of-| the old plan. ficial organ of the Fishwick gang in Illinois. That wage scale agreed on by President Fishwick of the THi- nois district of the United Mine} Workers of America is on the face | of it about three-quarters of what | the miners were getting before | Lewis and Fishwick sold them out }000 in the country as a whole. Use | last year, and was placed on the jof machines in Illinois increased 50 | miners of Illinois against thei overwhelming vote, but read about | the crimes of Lewis and Fishwick | in ancther article in this paper, and | think for a moment of what the) bosses and their agent, Fishwick, . call “encouraging notes.” These are, as stated in Fishwick’s paper, that 175 mines are working in October of this year in Illinois, producing an increase of nearly a million tons of coal over the month | before, and more coal than was put | out five years ago. This October \(yey are doing it with 51,037 men. | “Only” 13 of them were killed in October,” says the Fish, and “only” | / 1,318 were injured enough to lose work in that month. That was be- fore the Old Ben company sent a crew down into gas-filled old No. 14 at West Frankfort and got seven of them killed at one blast. These 13 were murdered in just the ordinary course of a miner’s work, mostly hit by rocks falling from the roof, or smashed in the underground rail- way systems. The Pace that Kills. Now the miners of Illinois want to live, they don’t like to be slaugh- tered underground so the boss can live gorgeously above ground. One of their demands, to stop the rapid increase of accidents is for decent working conditions. “No speed-up,” they say, for speed-up means acci- dents. It means machines run fast- [= with men forced to be careless in the most dangerous of all trades. It means hurry to drive the face back and get out the coal, without regard for timbering or for lurking pockets of explosive gas or for mines full of suffocating fumes. It means that mine ears run recklessly, killing those who work with them. The miners veto the dim “bug jamps,” some of which are supposed to be “safety,” and give the com- pany an excuse to send men into places where there is “only a little gas.” The miners demand bigger crews on the machines, fifteen-min- ute rest periods in every hour, prop- er lighting. If they win this strike nd build a single big, strong, Na- tional Miners Union, they will see to it that all other safety provisions are carried out, and that will be the only way that such safety meas- ures ever will be enforced. The way things are now the company does what it pleases, and it is well known among the mine owners that it is cheaper to kill a few men every |, |about three dollars And where the con- veyor or the Jay Loader is working well, mines that used to employ four hundred get out as much coal now with one hundred. The mining ma- chine has put 35,000 workers out of a job, according to government fig- ures, in Illinois alone, and over 200,- er cent from 1926 to 1928. Illinois leads the world in machine mining. Other workers got the gate be- cause of the speed-up and the ma- chines and those at work do not work full time. Fishwick himself admits, and his figures are from the U, S. labor department, that in this magnificent month of October, the average number of days an em- What Miners Strike For—Gal. 2— ployed miner worked was 18, The month before it was 15, That means a day for a miner at the present wage scale, providing he isnt docked, fined, and | penalized beeause some boss claims lot of it doesn’t fall off the cars that run at break-neck speed; for if coal does fall off, the miner doesn’t get paid for it, but the com- pany has it scooped up later and sells it. So the miners when they strike for more men on the machine crews, and for rest periods, are thinking not only of their own jobs, but of saving the lives of some of these crowded out of the industry, and for whom Fishwick and International President Lewis.of the U. M. W. A. never lift a hand. When they de- mand $35 a week minimum wage in this strike, they are fighting for a real wage increase. When one reads in the paper that the miners used to get $7.50 a day, and even with the Fishwick wage cut put through last year, are supposed to get about $6 (most work is piece work, and the rates are figured on a basic day wage they are supposed to equal, but with no union to compel correct figures, never do equal) he is likely to think of them as artistocracy of labor. But that continuous partial unemployment has to be considered, also the cheating in the wages by the company. Robbed by Check-off. And there’s another way the miners’ wages are cut. Not only does the Fishwick company union betray them, but it makes them pay. for being betrayed. The miners wouldn’t object in paying dues to their own union, but the Fishwick and Lewis gangs know that no miner would actually pay them for their dirty work. They don’t ask them for dues, They just make an agreement with the boss to take the dues out of the miners’ |wages, by what is known as the check-off. According to Fishwick’s Harry Fishwiek, president of bosses. district of the U.M.W. lives here and calls for scabs to help his coal operator Illinois International President in Springfield, Ill. Comfortable residence of John Lewis, Where Frank of the U.M.W.A. cceds of his $. Negro Leader of NMU | William Boyce, a Negro miner, | is national vice-president of the National Miners Union. At pres- | ent he is aeting president. NEGRO MINERS IN ILLINOIS STRIKE Support Union That Is Against Jim Crow By JAMES FORD. (National Organizer Negro Dept., TUUL) The southern Illinois strike must be spread. ery available for fields must be thrown into the fray against the police, gunmen and thugs and the state militia forces of the capitalist coal barons in order \to win the struggle for better wages |and working conditions, for a short- er working week and against the speed-up and rationalization; for the building of a militant miners’ union that stands for the complete miners’ against racial discrimination, that turns the fighting capacities of the Negro workers into one solid pha- —— Jagainst his color by his Negro and white fellow workers, because they thought he was the right man for the place. Six-Hour Day; Five-Day Week. in the mine | equality of Negro workers, that is | jlanx against the capitalist oppres- |sors. Illinois has long been the scene jof bloody class battles of the coal |miners. It is upon the clear cut is- sue of class struggle and class solid- jarity that the Negro miners must |face the present situation in Illinois. | American capitalists face the sever- lest crisis in the history of the coun- ltry. The stock ‘market crash has jset all industry trembling, class | battles are raging in all sections of |the country. Rationalization is dis- | organizing the Illinois coal industry, | speeding up the workers and throw- ling thousands out of work: The | bosses are meeting the workers with wage cuts and more rationalization. |Black and white workers must meet |them with a united front } ‘Shoulder to Shoulder. The full interest of the working class struggle demands that the | white workers stand shoulder to shoulder with the Negro workers, that those who hold any vestige of | race hatred throw it overboard, that \they break down all barriers that | keep black and white workers apart, \that they put one solid front to the ‘bosses, struggling not only for equal |conditions and equal wages but for | still better conditions and still high- jer wages. | The labor fakers—the Lewises, |the Fishwicks and the Farringtons, | ete.—in line with President Green of the A.F.L. agree with the program j announced by Hoover of class peacé | between the workers and the bosses, |for peace in industry. They ask the workers not to strike for higher | wages, nor to struggle against wage lreductions. They go further with lregards to Negro workers, they fail jto promise them, they discrimnate |against them, they deny them equal conditions and opportunities. In this struggle in Illinois all is- s of the class struggle stand out lin bold relief. The,whole apparatus jof the capitalist system is mobilized |against the workers, the police, the {stat emilitia and the courts. The class issues are particularly sharp at the present stage of capitalist rationalization and market crashes. They pass in review from |the smallest working class demand |to the capitalist state militia mobil- ized against the workers. All Class Issues. | In the state legislature of Illinois |are several Negro legislators who have been placed there by the votes of poor Negro workers. Now these workers find themselves deceived. These Negro legislators are agents jof the capitalists. They have not contract with the mine owners last year, the boss is to hire only U.M.W.A. members, and is to check-off of their wages the amount of the U.M.W.A. dues, The month, cheaper even to run the risk of an explosion that may damage | the mine a little, than to make the mine as safe as it can be made, or even as safe as the law provides. The miners have other demands |Taised,one finger to prevent the use besides those mentioned above, so- |0f state troops against the black and cial insurance to be paid for by | White miners. It is clear that the the companies or the state for all | Negro legislators as well as white, unemployed, recognition for the Na- | Under the democratic and republican tional Miners Union, abolition of the | Parties, are nothing but agents and The War Against Hunger. But the miners are not just fight- ing to keep from being killed in the mines. They are fighting now | §to keep from dying of starvation =| “outside of the mines. This same . article, giving the conditions the bosses and Fishwick think are so “encouraging,” mentions increased eoal production with 51,087 men at | wozx. Now, a half dozen years ago, there were 96,000 men at work in ; the Illinois mines. Three years ago, } | there were 75,000. What has happened? In Illinois, as in many other parts of the coal | particularly West Virginia, _ the coal cutting machines, the ,coal loading machines, a species of con- yeyor, have been introduced. The means that miners no longer werk as they used to, one or two in & room, which they had practically vented from the company, and could pus in as much or as little time as they wished, working in their own oe hand, and looking out for ves, The machine means what has leome to be called the factory sys- tem; it means gangs of men from B to 25, working under a boss, who tell them to “step on it, boys,” “get busy or get out,” and watches to |] see that they do it. With no union but the company : qnion, which is all the U. M. W. A. miners are striking to end this check-off swindle. They will pay their own dues te their own union, the National Miners Union, They don’t need the boss to collect dues. Only the U.M.W.A, does that. No Discrimination. Young miners have always been abused by the boss and by the U.M.W.A. They get jobs as dan- gerous and dirty as any, and much lower pay. Equal pay for young and older miners is demanded in this strike, Negro miners have fought side by side with the white miners in every strike. But in the U.M.W.A. they were deprived the chance to partici- pate in union work, and the boss tried always to use them as a means to cut wages. He gave them the worst working places, kept them from making any money, and then in strikes offered them good jobs. The Illinois strikers demand no discrimination against Negro work- ers, equal treatment for them un- derground, equal pay, and gives them every right in the union that any white miner has—and the min- ers run this union. The national vice president (now acting national president) of the N.M.U., William Boyce, is a Negro miner, elected in the convention last year in Pitts- burgh where the union was formed, and elected without regard for or fine and penalty system, but the most important demand is for the six-hour day and the five-day week. When we say the average worked by a miner is about half time, that means that some miners are getting six days a week and some one day, and ‘the fellow with one day is just slowly starving out. The fight is on for a general five-day week, so more can work, and unemployment pay if the boss won’t give you work. |The actual working time of the coal miner has been around seven hours, but the boss has lately found -ways to run it up to eight or nine. Every man who changes from eight hours some unemployed fellow worker two full, six-hour days of work, Every- thing will be improved by the six- hour, five-day week, at a minimum | wage of $35; the unemplyed will be somewhat taken care of; the num- ber of accidents will decrease be- cause men don’t gt so tired; there will be more to eat, better food and a chance to enjoy life; there will be time to get to work without the in- (many miners live miles from the job)—and the miners are deter. mined to have these things. The six-hour day and five-day week is a central demand, which the Nation- jal Miners Unon will never stop bat- tling for until it gets it. to six, and to a five-day week, gives | fernal rush that exists at present | tools of tKese capitalist machines, The National Miners Union, the leader in the Illinois strike, is com- mitted to the principle of equality and equal conditions for Negro workers, of struggle against racial discrimination. It stands for joint struggle and working class unity, it fights wage cuts and the speed- up, it fights to better the conditions of all workers in the mining in- dustry. The Trade Union Unity League of which the National Miners’ Union is a section, fights assidiously and relentlessly against lynching jim- crowism, discrimination and race prejudice. It stands for the com- plete and full racial, social, econ- omic and political equality of the Negro race, for class solidarity of all workers against the capitalist | bosses, their agents, and against the | whole capitalist’ system. Negroes In the Fight. The T.U.U%: vecogtiizes in the |Communist Party the only political |Party of the working class. The Communist Party is always in the \forefront, giving political leadership and guidance to the working cl: It is a political weapon of the o Ns as working class, ~And here in | Illinois the Communist Party is the main organizer and leader of the workers, Peabody Coal Co. Farrington lived on the pro- 00 a year bribe fromthe ] COAL MINERS JOIN THE COMMUNISTS Recent years have seen the work- | ers engaged in one historic strug- gle after the other with the bosses. April, 1927, saw the beginning of | the coal miners’ last great national struggle, betrayed by Lewis. Im- | mediately after that came the Colo- rado strike, In quick succession | followed the New Bedford textile | struggle, the needle trades struggle in New York City, and then the wave of struggle in the South— | Elizabethtown, Gastonia, Marion, | Marion, New Orleans and now, Leaksville. In all of these struggles the work- ers fought not only against the coal barons, the textile magnates and the bosses, but also faced the mili- tia, the national guards and the courts. An additional enemy of the workers in their struggles have been the A. F. L. fakers—the Lewis’, | the Greens, the Fishwicks, the! Schlesingers, McMahons, etc. Then came the famous “Hoover ; Conferences” with the participation of Green & Co., pledging to the bosses and their man, Hoover, that | the workers will not strike against | the increased speed-up of the bosses | —will be loyal and work hard for} the bosses, regardless of how much their wages are cut and their living | standards lowered. The miners’ | strike in Illinois is the answer of the | workers of the entire United States to Hoover, Green and Co. | Where Communists Stand. | In all of these struggles the | bosses and their “labor” flunkey: raise the hue and ery of “Commu- nism.” By this they think they will scare the workers. But the workers | of the mining, textile, automobile and needle industry know that the Communists are not their enemies, but, on the contrary, that it is the | Communists who are the best fight- ers with them against the bosses, the militia, the courts and the A. F. L. betrayals. They know that the Communist Party is the only work- ers’ party. In Gastonia the Com- munists gave leadership in the struggles and fought the murder- ous attack of the police, and went to trial together with the other workers and face 20 years in jail together with them, But in Marion, |N. C., Hoffman, the A. F. L. organ- lizer, deserts the other textile work- | ers and has himself released, while | the rank and file workers go to trial | separately. Such examples are well | known in all strike battles' today. The workers in all these struggles see in the Communist Party a fight- ing leader and organizer, the party of the working class. | The Unifying Force. | Mlinois Coal Miner: You must | build a powerful National Miners’ | Union, You must also have a strong, powerful political party, |which organizes and unites ‘forces of all workers of the whole | |working class. The Communist | |Party is the unifying force of all) workers’ organizations—unions, co-, operatives, relief organizations, de-| fense organizations, etc. Because the Communist Party is | the fighting leader of the working | class, the bosses and the govern-| ment are constantly attacking the | Communist Party. The coal miners | of Illinois in their present struggle can fight more effectively if they | will at the same time byild up aj strong Communist Party in South- | ern Illinois. Illinois Coal Miners! Workers! |Comrades! Your place is in the| jranks of the Communist Party. At} |the present time the Communist |Party is conducting a _ national ;}RECRUITING DRIVE for new |members--for workers from the | |shop, for miners from the pit.| young miners, abolition of check-off| first time. Your place is in the ranks of the the | ; | ganizer shows that the union Militant Young Miner) Tony Minerich, member of the National Executive Board of the National Miners Union. He has been many times arrested for vio- lation of injunctions against pick- eting, breaking the gag rule of the mayor of Pittston, Pa., and strike activities. This is a type of young miner leader, = YOUNG MINERS ON THE FRONT LINE Among the thousands of miners in outhern Illinois, now in open revolt gaint the unbearable working con- ditions in the industry as well as against the corrupt Lewis and Fish- wick leadership of the United Mine Workers, a large section of young miners is to be found. The young} miners are playing a most important role in the present strike, as they constitute the most exploited sec- tion of the workers in the mining industry. The introduction of machinery, the conveyor system, mechanical loaders, entry drivers, etc., in the mining in- dustry, has resulted in an increase f the number of young workers, who are replacing the older miners Conditions for the young miners are extremely bad and the fakers of the United Mine Workers made no ef- forts to win better working condi- tions for the youth in the industry. Discrimination in every respect was the lot of the young miners in; the Southern Illinois coal fields. This fact can be seen from the figures on: accidents in the mining industry, which shows that while the young miners constitute only 25 per cent of the total number of miners, ac- cidents among young miners reach 50 per cent and in some instances| as high as 75. N.M.U. Gives Youth Voice The National Miners Union from its very inception has shown that it is the staunch defender fo the rights and interests of the young miners. At the National Convention of the M.U. in Pittsburgh, where it was organized, it was decided to build special youth sections of the Na- tional Miners Union, which would orga the young miners for strug-| gle against the miserable conditions in industry, for social, educational and sports activities. It was also \to Hoover's fi By BILL DUNNE The Illinois miners have struck| the first blow against the Hoover conspiracy intended to place the en- tire burden of the industrial crisi upon the backs of the working The miners, led by the National Miners Union are giving the first reply of the American proletariat ist council and its| program of in sed robbery of the} workers and open suppression of} working class resistance. | The Illinois coal miners, with the Communist Party playing a leading} part, have taken the offens | The struggle in Illinois furnishes | a perfect example of fact, stressed| by the Communist International, that in this period when the moun-| tain of commodities, produced by a working class forced to labor at the| highest speed on the most modern) of machines (capitalist rationaliza- tion), while increasing unemploy-| ment sharpening the competition for} jobs gives added force to the shouts | markets and whets the edge of all} imperialist enmities, struggles over} wages and working conditions be-| come political struggles practically from their inception. | In Illinois the extensive military mobilization by the capitalists and their government against the strik- ing miners and the N.M.U. reveals} the collapse of their former policy| of corruption and betrayal carried| out by their agents—Lewis, Fish-| wick and Farrington, assisted by the | officialdom of the state Federation of Labor and the socialist party leadership. These gentry have lost their grip. They maintained themselves for sev- eral years because they were still able to influence considerable sec-| tions of the miners. The old United) Mine Workers is now split from stem to stern as a result of the rapid decay under their leadership and the Down Helping Boss of the slave-drivers, gluts the world| ? s’ Strikebreaking workers and our party were in an open struggle with southern fascism. Our reply is the reply that Lenin made to the renegade Kautsky: “Capitalism of the pre-monopol- istic era, of which the seventies of the last century were just the high- est point, w: virtue of its fun- damental ECONOMIC traits (which were most typical in England and America), distinguished by, compar- atively speaking, greatest attach- ment to peace and freedom, against this, Imperialism, that is, capitalism of the monopolistic era, which has finally matured in the twentieth century, in virtue of its fundamental ECONOMIC traits, dis- inguished by least attachment to peace and freedom, and by the great- est development of militarism every- where. Especially In the field of the class struggle is suppression of the mas- ses by' military means the main method of American imperialism, is the meaning of the sharp- ss of the class struggle in the Illinois coal fields. The presence of our Party in the front ranks is proof of the rapid radicalization of the workers. The greater its in- fluence the greater the guarantees of victory for the struggle. . Our Party has not underestimated the will of the masses to struggle or the ripeness of the situation as a whole. But it has shown certain weaknesses in agitational and or- ganizational preparation which we must admit to the workers and which must be corrected speedily, To our critics of all shades, who may take some comfort from our admission of these errors. we can again quote Lenin: _ The real test of a serious work- ing class party is its ability to recognize its own errors, admit them, seek to analyze the causes and correct them. In Illinois we have not taken suf- resulting struggle to . determine which set of crooks could best re-| present the interests of the coal barons in what remains of it. The U.M.W.A, officialdom of both factions has lined up with governor Emmerson and his militia, with the coal barons, the professional strike- breakers and gunmen. There is in the Illinois coal fields a typical dev-| elopment of social-fascism. The As-| sociated Press attempts to disguise} the real character of this develop- ment as in the following dispatch: SPRINGFIELD, Ill, Dec. 11— More than 600 miners, members of the United Mine Workers of America, late today resolved to march in a body to work to- morrow at the Auburn mines of the Panther Creek Coal Com- pany, taking “any steps neces- sary to get through the picket line” which was formed there by the members of the National Miners Union. Their action was taken at a meeting held here. ity. ficiently energetic measures to over- come passivity and pessimism, to actually prepare for the struggle we knew was developiig. We have been too tender with vacillating ele- ments inside and outside of our par- Almost six months ago we adopted a correct program of action but we did not stay on the job until it was carried out. Instead of having a week to pre- pare for the strike after the call was issued, we should have issued the call, as was planned, at least three months ago. It can not be denied that in the Illinois coal fields our Party came very near to being behind the miners—in other words, jour organizational and agitational work was so weak that the rank and file, unacquainted with and con- sequently unable to understand our strategy, was developing a move- ment practically independent of our 'party and the national leadership of the NMU. The militancy of the miners was outrunning our organi- \ x a‘ ____/zational preparations although our Teenie fren ie rae theoretical understandings ee the . Wl so valiantly | dey ras’ enti i the Geakrell Arierieaa ight toiwcrel| Ore ee one are simply foremen, U.M.W.A. oii-| Some Lessons, cials, deputy sheriffs, businessmen| The Illinois struggle should be a with a sprinkling of professional!¢anger signal for the entire Party. gunmen. As in the needle trades | It illustrates in the most striking in New York City, Chicago and else-| manner the fact which Lenin never where, the old union officialdom has|tired of stressing: That in such joined in true fascist style with the|Pperiods as this, when class antogan- bosses and their state government|isms are sharpened to the utmost, to smash by armed force the militant struggles and organization of the mass of the workers. The miners have broken the grip of the social-traitors and to our par- ty must go much of the credit for this in view of the years of struggle we have carried on in the mining in- dustry. The extensive suppressive measures and the solid front of re- action which the N.M.U. faces in Il- linois shows that the coal barons at least do not underestimate the depth of the discontent and the fighting temper of the miners, There will be loud cries from the decided to have a. youth representa- tive on all committees of the union fro mthe local executive to the na- | tional executive board. The action] of the national executive board in electing a special national youth or-| is seri- ous in its attempt to organize the| young miners and fight for their in-| terests At present the young miners are active organizers and leaders in the | fight against the coal operators for| the demands of equal wages for| system, for social insurance for ola de be liberals, the socialists, the Musteites, the Lores and the Lovestones and Cannons that the widespread and open supressive measur used against the miners are caused by the open entry of our Party in this mass conflict and to the leading role we are taking in the N.M.U, | These gentry will say that our Party is sacrificing the interests of the miners for its own, These same ac- cusations were hurled at our Party when it entered the South for the Such statements were made by this gentry right at the “-y the Southern textile and when Communist Parties are faced with the joint task of organ- izing the struggles of the masses for elementary demands, and, tak- ling their basis the inherent po- jlitical character of these struggles, the raising of the political level of | these struggles to the point where at least the most advanced section jof the masses CONSCIOUSLY en- gages in struggle for political de- |mands, effective organization itself becomes a major political question. | It is necessary now to bring into the struggle in the sharpest manner the question of the fight against Wall Stre fascist program as put forth by Hoover t is nece |possible way of the government the concrete experienc ers (Extraordinary tion, the fase: Jold union off y to stress in every n the basis of of the min- t united front of the 1s and their hang- jers-on with the government and the |coal harons, ete.) | Withdraw Troops! The demand for the withdrawal Continued on Page Four