The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 25, 1930, Page 3

— MINERS ON MICH. COPPER RANGE ORGANIZE TO SUBWAY REPAIR WORKERS TELL OF SPEEDUP, CUTS AFL UNION CLASS P ‘TLROAD, COLLABOR? TION TIES. , TOILERS Men On Spokane Rail- way Find Tha’ Out (By a worker correspondent). PORTLAND, ORE. (By mail).--) Tam employed by the Spokane, Port- land and Seattle Railroad Co. as freight handler around the freight house. This company is controlled | by the Great Northern Co., but it} runs under the above name. | There are about 60 men working | , herein the freight house, including | checkers and receivers. And the only men on the job who can not give orders to anybody, are the mea who are known as truckers. They must obey and not talk back to thei “superiors.” If they did, they wouk take the risk of going down th “ine” and talking to themselves as they are told by “superiors.” id this is so because of lack of organ ization. i That ig the right kind of organiz: tion I am speaking about, not organization such as they al: is have one here. The majority of th men working here, do belong to a organization known as the Brothe: hood of Railway and Steamsh.. Clerks, Express and Station Ey ployees and Freight Handlers. B due to the fact that this organizativ is based on class collaboration, can not represent the interests ¢ the workers, especially those cf ti most exploited ones. The railroad companies have d vised all kinds of schemes in ord to intensify the exploitation: of the workers. “Under the ‘pretense of the competition of the truck lines, which «i DALY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 1930 fage Three = —= —=s FIGHT WAGE CUT speedup in the basic is leading to rapidly rising industries. STEEL, industries, accompanied by wage militancy of the workers of these Worker correspondents write on this page of the speed- up and wage reductions in the steel mills, in the subway repair shops, and other industries. At left, an explosion in a steel mill near Pittsburgh which took many workers’ lives. Maximum production, with the fewest men and | | damn the steel workers’ lives—this is the motto of the steel bosses. Second photo, when the strike of workers on the Peoria Railroad tied up freight trains recently. The A. the rising militancy of these workers, but they finally forced the call- ing of a strike. An injunction has been granted the bosses against . of L, tried for years to stem HANGING ROCK, "LACK OF SAFETY ~ KILL MANY MEX | Contract System Makes Speed-Up Worse (By a Worker Correspondent) AHMEEK, Mich. (By Mail). —I want to tell of conditions in Ahmeek | No. 2 mine of the Calumet and Hecla |Copper Mining Co. There is supposed to be an 8-hour | day, bat you actually put in 11 hours a day. To come from home }to the mine, change your clothes, and then wait for the cage to take you down the mine, that takes an # et them. A worker on the Tacoma Railroad writes from Portland, Ore., of the sell-out tactics of the A. F. of L. on the railroads. Right, subway repair workers at work on the I. R. T. They, too, have been betrayed again and again by the A. F. of L. Organize into militant unions affiliated with the Trade Union Unity League—this is the call of the worker correspondents to their fellow-workers. Ravon Workers Will Ficht Under N. T. W. Is Co. Right Hand in Rationalization (By a Worker Correspondent) WARREN, OHIO. (By mail).— Rationalization is hitting the Liberty | plant of the Republic Iron and Steel Company of Warren, Last week the boss called all the tin openers together and told them \the following story. There are COMPANY IN OHIO ne ue 6 Workers ao i ‘OKLA. FARMER hour and a half. And then when you knock off, you wait for the cage again, change clothes, etc., and that another hour and a half. en | ‘are so greedy to get the copper out _ PERPETUAL DEBT jmake $4.40 a day and bonus, on the | gang, $4, timber gang, $4, trammers to Enslave Them |drive is on. The bosses fire men. few words about the agricultural! The contract system is a way 0° an important part in connection with | sweaf at each other, to make a litt! + | This extra three hours could he I$ ? L A C E D IN jcut to 1% hours if the miners were ‘let down right away, but the bosses that they make the men wait. | Wages are rotten. The minert | | ; | contract system. Drill boys get $3.20 |\KeptThatWay in Order |s day, dirt scrapers, $3.75, truck | (load cars), $4, and bonus, according |to amount loaded. A wage slashing (By a Farmer Correspondent.) EUFAULA, Okla. (By Mail).—A \hire them back at lower wages. workers of the South, The land-| making workers speed themselves workers of the United States play | up. It has the effect of making ther) the struggle of the workers, espe-|more money, This is one of th: cially in the South. In the South,|things the miners will fight to en:, ter speedup is grow rea t in Chester, Pas s worker co Wl. organize these workers. The rayon workers have shown great tancy in their strikes, as witness the Elizabethton, Tenn., strike, a are operating now all over the coun- | try ,the railroad companies are now | making part of their slaves go to/ work early in the morning, as early as 6:30 so that,they can get certain | freight unloaded, which they "SL AVE RY ig ASK FORD hich was sold out by the U. T, W., and the strike of the rayon work- ust year in-the Industrial Fibre Company, Cleveland. Photo shows pickets in latter strike. it’s getting worse and And more than that, the stretchout overtime in most cases from 1 to 2) count of the early crews working| “Jn this department they shut off the steam and hermetically clossed all this. S$. P. 8. SLAVE. | “hot” stuff. And, of course t! early crews have Worked 8 hour wo Er S I KEA PLANT WHAT IT’S LIKE hours every day during the summer | months. While on the other hand, | overtime, This is one of the | the department all around. As a result of this the workers get sick more schemes to swell the ranks of the quickly. Because with the spray of ?—--~——— — | worse day by day. Where there used | | to work five men next day you find | they are not through’ working for the day, if there is plenty of w to be done. They are held to wo there are bunches of men who have} In the body shop at Ford’s in Kearney, N. J.. been on the job for 4 or 5 years,| dangerous for the workers’ health, and they-are sent home just on ac-| gyctem is fully appiled. unemployed. fhe railway workers | painters, the alcohol and paint in it | must organize into an industrial | spread all over the place. nfs be union, led by the T.UUL. to end) ii. sneed-up system is becoming | pe ene ene ao eS MUST BUCK CO, YOUNG A out that there are four, and. they | | got to do the job of the five, and! \there is no why, no explanation, no a ches SPEEDED IN STEEL =~ there is only one thing— —— Pittsburgh Steel Pays) Them Least (By a Worker Correspondent) MONESSEN, Pa.—The bosses dis- charge any man they hear mention | strikes or unions, in the Pittsburgh | Steel Company. Most of the young workers work | in a group, and the older worke work in another section by ther selves. This way the company ge more work out of the young work-| ers than they do out of the adult! workers, and the young workers are | paid less than the older’ ones. From September until March is a) dull season here and when they start up again in full force in March, | the workers are speeded up to the | limit. We will have to work over- | time and Sundays. If you want a day off you will have to go through all kinds of red tape to get it. We have never had any kind of organi-| zation or union in. the Pittsburgh The workers are “taught” safety, | but what good is safety with all this speeding up. We-do not have any | safety devices whatsoever. York American am artic fire. | We are compelled to go into the| plant half an hour before the time| to start and prepare everything so} when the bell rings we are already | jon the job. During the time we work lao we have no time to go to drink} some water or go to the toilet, so at whch time we have to wait in line) i to use the toilet. Some time ago I read in the New| le by Bris bane in which he compares the con- ditions of the Russian workers with | the American workers. He says the/| Soviet government has given to the} Soviet workers the seyen-hour work day, but he says the American work- ers had more than that and he con-| cludes the American workers have | got the five day week, good pay,| radio in the house, pleasure car,| and bank accounts too. First I would | lask this gentleman about the -five| million unemployed—whereabout is their five day week, whereabout is their pleasure car and push bank. Last week a father of four children unable to get a job committed sui- cide. Second: I would say .to him to come right here to Kearney, N. | Both Organizations! Keep Men. Divided (By a Worker Correspondent) The workers in the I. R, T. shops know something of what it means to be in the mercy of bosses and a real bosses’ company union. Why is it that the I. R. T. com- pany is so much pleased by this Brotherhood organization that we re checked off from our miserable wages in order to upkeep this so- called union? It is because this company union helps the company to make us to slave for a miserable wage of from $21 to $30 a week, a wage that is not enough even to maintain a family. But it is not only a company un- ion that the I. R. T. workers have to fight. The I. R. T. workers have also to fight the misleading policy of the labor fakers from the A, F. of L. The misleaders of the A. F. of L. want the I. R. T. workers to be organizationally divided into dif- ferent craft unions. It means to keep—for instance—motormen into a separate union, shop workers into a separate union, etc. About the J, with overalls and ask for a job| Wake up, steel workers, and join) in the Ford plant and if he is for- | twenty tin openers working in this plant and six stick pullers. They open and pull all the tin and sheets that are turned out by the ten mills in the place. _ The boss, Bill Clark, who previ- ously was the president of the Amal- gamated Association of Tin, Sheet and Iron Workers Union (note col- laborating schemes) that betrays the steel workers, told the openers that they will have to do the work of the stick pullers besides their own. For this work, on which they Steel workers tell on this frequent wage cuts in the steel plants. in the past against their slavery they'll do so again. Photo shi strikers in Niles, Ohio, several militantly in a spontaneous sti m is produced, which supplies he United States with cotton cloth jfor the market, also in the South \we find vegetable farms where the workers are compelled to work at |the most terrific speed for $1.00 | all the time. | page of the growing speedup and of These workers have rebelled and have put up splendid fights—and ows the riot act being read to steel | years ago—when the workers fought | rike, would have to work about twelve hours a day, they would receive from 75c to $1.50 a piece extra, for which the pullers for the same work made $4.00 a day. The tin openers walked out against the scheme and a half hour later the boss had to accept them back at the old way. : The action of Bill Clark, who calls himself 2 “union man,” shows clear- ly the role of the A. A. T. S. W. U. It is nothing else than a company union and works for the interests of the bosses. The only way that we will be able to improve our conditions and fight for our demands, is by joining the militant fighting Metal Workers In- dustrial League. — Steel Worker. LAY OFF 2 VISCOSE have always been rotten. fresh air all the time suffering SHIPYARD CUTS porters: They discriminate against them as Negroes and do not want to make any attempt to organize them. Only the labor fakers from the A. F. of L. can support such a policy that weakens our ranks and works | against our interests, | One Shop—One Union. Let us elect committees. Let us get organized into one union, to in- clude all the employees of the I. R. T. Let us affiliate with the Trade | Union Unity League, fight for bet-| ter conditions and raise the demands | snout 509% for its workers. for them for our shop workers.— } I. R. T. Worker. Lower-Paid Men (By a Worker Correspondent) SAN FRANCISCO (By Mail). The Moore had been earning about $5.00 p L. is calling a New York district convention. In order to bring for- ward your grievances, it is im- portant for the I. R. T. workers to have delegates at this conven- tion. Elect delegates to the Trade Union Unity Convention, which will take place Jan. 25-26, at Irv- ing Plaza Hall, Irving Place, 15th St, N.Y. counting on the serious unemplo; drastic wage-slash on the work —s. HATTERS LOCKED OUT. (By a Worker, Correspondent) CLEVELAND (By Mail).—!': Middle West Hat Company. ‘ TOILERS IN CHESTER (By a Worker Correspondent.) CHESTER, Pa. (By Mail).—Conditions in the Viscose Silk Mill In the spinning room, workers are forced to! work eight hours at a stretch without a chance to catch a breath of | from the acids tha are used in prepairing the rayon. 000 MORE RAYON CO. from the effects of the poison fumes —® Men who work in the Viscose for |more than a year find it impossible | to get a job anywhere else where | they have to pass a doctor’s exam- | | | ination. |cause I have done this myself. |gets enough to pay off what he day, and this is no exaggeration, be Of course, if you become a “good boy,” the bosses give you $1.50 a day, for which you must work like hell. You must compete with other workers and drag the life out of | yourself and your fellow-workers. .The family works all year on the farm. When gathering time comes, the bosses have figured out how, much to pay him for what he pro- duced and that is very much if he owes, but not all. This is done in order to hold the farmer on the farms another year, so the bosses can get another year of profit from the farmers, When the farm products are gath- ered, the farmers see that they have nothing and no more credit from the boss until January 15—the farm- ers are compelled to get jobs around the small cities until January 15, and then it is time to go back to the farm. The farmers here made no clearance so they got to ship out to Arizona to pick cotton until farm- WAGE ALMOST 50. PERCENT IN GALL Lays_Men Off; Gets Shipyards, near Oak- land, is proceeding to cut wages Some | of the workers in the shipyards, who *_ * © day, v laid off, and the company | EDITOR’S NOTE: The T. U. U. |‘alled on _a_ scab _empjoyment agency to furnish them other work- ers at the rate of $2.95 per day, ment situation to put over this ters have been locked out by ‘he ing begins again in Oklahoma.— L. W. BUFFALO PAPERS LIE ON JOBLESS American Radiator Makes Big Cut (By a Worker Correspondent) BUFFALO, N. Y. (By Mail). — The Black Rock newspapers publish misleading reports that the Bond Plant of the American Radiator Co. has increased its labor forces by 2 percent. Now let us look at the facts of the case. In the Thursday issue, the Riverside Herald, admits that there is a 10 percent reduction of forces with a 2 percent increase, —— leaving 8 percent reduction in the 15,000 HOMELESS IN SHANGHAI. | total amount of workers on the job. SHANGHAI, Jan. 23 (UP).—| Now can explain why the Stan-| More than 1,500 were made home-| ard Plant on Roseville Street was less today when fire swept the |Shut down some time ago and why closely grouped huts of Shanghai’s, the plant in Titusville, Pa., was dis- | poor section. Loss of life was not|™antled two years ago and many timated. other branches were closed down thruout the country. The workers in the face of these Their stomachs are coated with black scum from the acids. We suf- fer all sorts of stomach complaints. ' Only a few weeks ago the girls |in the spoiling room were shocked by the introduction of new machinery | that will do more than twice the | work of the former machines and |the rayon company is laying off 2,000 workers, The Viscose Shop Committee of the National Textile Workers Un- ion, called a meeting and the watch- dogs of the Viscose, the company | police, were all excited over trying | to chase away the distributors of the leaflets. The workers are now organizing |to resist the wage-cuts that are coming and to fight the vicious} speed-up conditions of the Viscose | |Corporation.—Viscose Worker. er >| when the National Miners Unicu leads them in the fight. Conditions are bad. On the nort'# side water drips down from the roc” Loose rock is hangin : round and several times the cag « jcouldn’t descent due to loose roc : plugging the shaft. Lack of safe\’ devices means workers get hurt ve.. often. Many are killed. There are no wash rooms; y can’t wash your hands to eat a mi - decently. The National Miners Union is « - ;ganizing the Copper Range mine ‘and will also organize all the i miners in the same union, —COPPER MINET, ‘MEXICAN FRUIT PIGKERS SLA’ $1 for 11 Hour Day -. Lower Rio Grande (By a Worker Correspondent} McALLEN, TEX. (By Mai! The worst exploited workers are slaves in this “wonderful” valle the lower Rio Grande. There very slim possibilities of a whit’ Negro working man or woman g to work here, except under one dition, that he or she try to « on the wages paid the poor Mex’...s slaves. But that is impossible. The J ican worker has a shack of on two rooms which is his “home.” outside man would have to ee restaurants which are higher those of the north or east, rooms at $1 a night The local Chamber of Comn: takes care of that part very * At the beginning I should | stated that the basic industry is truck farming, the raising oranges and grapefruit princi and also cabbage and carrots «.. 4 considerable scale. The wages paid the underr ished Mexican workers is $1 to‘ a day for a 10 to 11 hour dar. saw three Mexican boys gathe ‘»7 wild cactus one day and asked { for what they used it. “Soup,” ..+ told me. The Mexicans are kept very s: stitious and illiterate and very of them can speak any Eng’ altho they are supposed to go t» ti: the Metal Trades Industrial League, affiliated to the T. U. U. L., which is a real and true fighting union for all steel workers.—Steel Worker. "atter Not Wanted (By 4 Worker Correspondent) BIRMINGHAM, ALA. (By mail), | —Bowed by matty wrongs and ema- ciated by starvation as have been the toilers of the South it is neces- sary for the real champions of the lowly to take a hand in the fight. And especially so now, that the class collaborators and traitoreous mis- leaders of the A. F. of L. have registered at the Bankhead-Leland Hotel and are faring ever so sump- | tuously while pitiable thousands starve and freeze a few blocks away. The writer of this letter battled single handed for eight months to organize 1500 workers in a certain industry of this district, and a Vice President of the U. T. W. sold us tunate enough to get a job I’m sure that he would have changed his mind. —Ford Slave. ” JHTERS, NOT A. F. L. by Workers in Ala. out in 80 minutes after reaching the place, Alabama City. We need brothers for the heipless beaten slaves of the south. But we want fearless agitators. yes labor agitators, either foreign or other- wise, who for the inspiring principle of justice for the downtrodden will face prison and death. ~ This writer offers to openly and loudly expouse the cause of Com- munism as a counter-movement against the cautious, pussy-footing, driveling efforts of the puny strad- dlers of A. F. of L. Pamphlets, leaflets, copies of the Daily worker, and a little adveriis- ing would go a long way towards making a red-hot campaign here, — Southern Slave. Unemployed Workers ! Organize! Don’t Be Fooled by “Prosperity” Lies! jfacts, which are duplicated in the|same school with white chik various industries, prove that the|The fact is that they are too ; messages brought to us by speakers |to clothe their children. of the Communist Party last sum-| The Mexican workers must be © mer explaining capitalist rationali-| ganized in militant union. And; >? zation, and speed-up, must be taken | honest fighting Spanish spee seriously by the employed and un-| organizers must be sent to { employed workers, not only of Black | We know William Green and th Rock and Buffalo but all thru the! boys will never worry about country. BLACK ROCK WORKER. workers. — J. E. K. SPEED FREIGHT HAND 7, a ane Fo ists Bosses Ave Frien.’s (By a Worker Correspondent) much as the non-union men. PORTLAND, Ore. (By Mail)—-| But, in spite of fhe treache While the Spokane, Portland and|role played by the capitalist ' Seattle Railway speeds up the| tenants within the ranks of } freight handlers, the leadership of | the radicalization of the worke the Brotherhood mentioned above | already evident, and they will ’ are boosting of the class cooperation | settle with these betrayers of } that exists between the unions andj; But in order that the wo the company, and urging the mem-| should be able to successfully « bers of their union to be more ef-| out the tasks of ridding thems ficient than the non-union men, so|of this corrupt leadership, that they can prove themselves to| must organize themselves inte ‘)- the company as deserving to be! dustrial unions, of which the 17 given a few pennies raise in their) Union Unity League is the cc wages if they can produce twice as —Freight Work. . It " '