The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 1, 1930, Page 3

RSP oP ls. DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY _ 1, 1936 wage Three | LAYING OFF WORKERS OF PHILA. AND VICINITY BY THOUSANDS NEARLY QUARTER MILLION ARE OUT OF WORK THERE Worker Calls Them to Demonstrate Feb. 26 (By a Worker Correspondent) PHILADELPHIA, Pa.—This January finds all prospects of jobs gone. Even the workers employed at present are worried, fearing im- mediate lay-offs. The textile industry is particular- ly hard hit. Tapestry and carpet weavers have been laid off within the past two months by the thou- sands. Other carpet and rug weav- ers have gone out on strike in vari- ous smaller factories. In the Alle- gheny Ave. section approximately 1,200 workers have been striking for two weeks, due to wage cuts made three weeks ago. Hosiery workers report they expect to be laid off in the very near future, as nearly all orders have been filled and new ord- ers are coming in slowly. Wage cuts amounting in some cases to 50 per cent are the order of the day, and there have been many strikes as a result. Tie Atwater Kent, Philco and Victor (R.C.A.) Radio Corporations are virtually shut down. Atwater Kent and Philco completely, except for a few scores of workers needed to maintain plants in shape. Atwater Kent employed 8,000 workers only three months ago, Philco employed 5,000 workers nor- mally. Campbell Soup Company of Cam- den, N. J., across the river from Philadelphia is now employing only 1,000. workers, where normally 5,000 are employed. | The Irving Mill, Chester, Pa., is shut down. “Normally” here means work for 4,000 workers. The Aber- foyle Manufacturing Co., Chester, Pa., is using only 73 of the 1,700 looms of the plant. In the Kensington district of Philadelphia, unemployment is so serious that the physical condition of the workers is becoming acute. Of 93,000 workers employed in the northeastern districts of Philadel- phia, not more than 40,000, chiefly hosiery knitters are now working even on part time. Tool plants, such as Fayette R. Plumb closed completely down about four months ago. The Watson Stabilator Company found it neces- sary to completely cease all work as there was no demand for their product. The Baldwin Locomotive Works at Eddystone, just outside the city, are working about half of capacity. -The American Motor Body Corpo- ration employing in normal times as many as 8,000 workers has now only 48 men working on the floors and 200 office workers in the office. The chief topic of conversation in alleworking-class sections of Phila- delphia is jobs, “Where can we get a job?” ask over 200,000 workers naw out of work. Work, not charity, answer the Philadelphia workers. And, in the meantime, neither the city, state or national governments do anything to help them. They are powerless to do so and keep up the bluff of fake prosperity in glaring headlines daily in their kept press. Philadelphia unemployed organize under the Trade Union “Unity League. Come out and demonstrate February 26, when the unemployed of the whole world will demonstrate! —PHILADELPHIA WORKER. CAROLINA TENANT FARMERS STARVE. (By a Worker Correspondent) RALEIGH, N. C. (By Mail).— Tens of thousands of eastern North Carolina tenant farmers are starv- ing. Bitterest destitution prevails among them. Thousands are being driven to the mill cities and towns to swell unemployment there. Build the United Front of the Working Class From the Bottom Up—in the Industries! A COMMUNI Shoe Worker Learned Thru Struggle (By @ Worker Correspondent) T've been a shoe worker for the last ten years. I was a “loyal Amer- dean citizen” until recently. I really healieved in the stories I read in the Rewspapers against the Communists and was ready at any time to fight for the protection of “1g country.” For I believed that the government (of the bosses) was protecting all the people alike. Now, I learned through bitter ex- perience that it is this very same government that protects the inter- ests of the bosses against the -work- ers. For example: as soon as the shoe workers organized a real mili- tant union, Wood, the conciliator of the Department of Labor instructed the bosses who had contracts with the Independent Shoe Workers Union to fire all union workers, call- ing them Communists. Now the po- lice are sent to beat up and arrest UNEMPLOYED, DEMONS TR. 41E ON FEBRUARY 26, URGE JOBLESS WORKERS RAILWAYS N cH way of obtaining militant demands. employed and unemployed against rationalization. February 26, when the Communist Parties thruout the world will lead demonstrations of the unemployed. Photo at left shows unemployed workers on the breadline in New York, where they must take insults from the bosses’ “charity” fakers for the swill doled out. but work or wages! At right, hundreds waiting at a qyp agency for non-existant jobs. Unemployed worker correspondents write to the Daily Worker. on this page to tell of the increase of unemployment in their cities. employed orkers into fighting councils led by the Trade Union Unity League, as the only For it is the T.U.U.L. which leads the fight of both Unemployed workers, demonstr No “ch Demonstrate, led by the Communist Party, Feb. 26! U. S. Locomotive Engineer Replies to Soviet Worker About a month or so ago a Soviet railroad worker wrote to the American railroad workers, thru the Daily Worker, asking the Amer- ican workers to reply to him, telling of their conditions, etc. Several locomotive engineers have replied to the Soviet worker. The fol- lowing is one American locomotive engineer’s answer to his fellow worker in the Soviet Union: ver La- ‘Is how the American worke |generai and the railroad Sica | especially have been mislead, also of them had saved, not only by hard work for many years but by much deprivation. By the efforts of these hanks so “ably” managed b; 25,000 a year “labor leaders” we were betrayed at every turn and they are still at it. TUUL has done much towards showing the worker how they have been betrayed. The locomotive engineer in the U. S.A. or engine driver as you call them, are called the crats of labor.” | And that is so from their mouth up, but from the chin down its sure a different story. a look at some of their hardships. labor | EVANSVILLE, —Dear CARNEGIE STEEL | rades: In answer to engine c I will try and tell you something j bout how we railroad workers are iene cvafts or semi-crafts, 16 or more, (By a Worker Correspondent) | ith separate contracts, jured. The accident was caused by p organized on the rails the negligence of Bill Packer, gen-) "(ade Wm. Z..Foster has writ- as this one was. a bor Banks”, He had been warned that he was find who was responsible and a way to prevent a reoccurrence was and say nothing. This safety device has not beea time work, speed-up. « Let us line up with the Trade Akstafa Budechsky jn the Worker, Jan, 13. BOSSES MURDER. Also to I. Sakale-Popovsky’s let- | organized or should I say unor- Remove Safety Device] ganized, also void of working class 7 | cultur W r ‘ani: i s to Speed Production jeu tur We are organized into as HOMESTEAD, Pa.—At the) Also an army of high paid loaf-| Homestead Works of the Carnegie ors at the head of each outfit whose Steel Co. in the 110 inch mill on| chief duty is to work up jurisdic-| eral superintendent of the plate de- |ten a.bcok called “The Railroad partment, by having a safety device | Workers’ Next Step. This bool removed that was designed and in-/ explains the above in a mosé creating a death trap by removing the device. He said it was a hinder-| ance to production. a farce. Packer was present. None of the safety committee dared to accuse him, but did what | put back. These dangers are the penalty of the steei workers for being unor- Union Unity League, form mill committees and put such murderers us Bill Packer where they belong. | ter last June. |many cifferent unions as there is Jan, 16 4 worker was fataliy in-| tional disputes. Less than half the stalled for preventing accidents such jnanner. And “Wrecking hei A safety meeting and inquest to the bosses wanted them to, sit down | ganized. So are unemployment, part CARNEGIE STEEL WORKER. ous, one has to work on the extra- board or pool for years. workers that started running an engine in 1910 that are even not on the engineer extraboard but are Write About Your Conditions for The Daily Worker. Become a Worker Correspondent. ST IS MADE gether, This has been due to cutting down hills, bigger and better engines, longer trains... The hours that we work are not any longer than they used.to be, but there is this dif- ference, on a 16 hour trip 6 or 7 hours would be spent setting on siding waiting for trains. And now we do very little waiting for trains, it is all work. We have an 8-hour basic. day which gs a rule only applies to yard engines. In road service overtime all locked-out workers on the picket line. It is clear to me now why the bosses and the newspapers tell us such stories about the Communists. | It is because the Communists are the very ones who fight for our in- terests and not for the bosses. I was convinced of this since last Friday when a picket demonstration took place at the Elmore Shoe Shop, where some Communists who joined with us in sympathy, defending the workers who were attacked by the police. I therefore express my fullest re- spect for the Communist Party and disregard all lies published about it. I wish to apply for membershiv in the Party and hope to be accepted in your ranks which will enable me to be a better fighter for my class. —ELMORE SHOE WORKER. after eight hours, that is if make one hundred miles or less. But when the run is in excess of 100 short runs are a thing of the past, for the average run is 180 miles which means that you have to be cn duty 14 hours and 24 minutes before overtime would start. A goodly number of “best runs” are 290 and 200 miles which about elim- inates overtime The so: jmake is due to the fact that we ave allowed to make 3800 miles a Daily also by Comrade cee | our | “aristo- So we will take) To begin with the work is danger- | There are | Lack firing or are cut off all to-| starts, which is time and one halt,) you; miles overtime it is computed on jwill put a third more of us out of tavelve and one half hour base. And|a job. led high pay that we. |Betrayed By Union Mi ing Laid Off | OTe a Railroad workers are feeling respondent tells of them being laid the reply of a U. pene on this page. ® AMER. BRIDGE 60. AS A MURDERER: robbed cf what little money some) Speed System Crushes Two to Death (By a Worker Correspondent) AMBRIDGE, Pa.—Two workery at the American Bridge Co. plant were almost instaritly killed the other day when a five-ton piece of teel_ toppled over and crushed | them. They were hoth 21 years old. They were on the riveting gang. The workers were killed by. the | speed-up system at the plant. Phe bonus system is in operation at the American Bridge—under it you have to slave like a horse to make a few pennies. Of course, |when the Coroner came, it was the workers’ carelessness which was blamed—as usual, But the Ameri- jean Bridge Co. was the murderer. | Steel workers have to organize under the Trade Union Unity \League, the P ei Trades Workers’ Industrial L@ague affiliated to the |Trade Union Unity League. —aAmerican Bridge Worker. Threaten Shoe Wage Slash (By a Wor Correspondent) | LYNN, Mass. (By Mail). — |wage slash of 20 percent has been | threatened by the Lynn Shoe manu- facturers’ Association. i su | month on the equilavent to 38 days {or 304 hours seme “aristocrat.” The speed-up has only began, as it’s only matter of months until the many railroads wili be merged to a few hig systems, thus doing: | jaway with all competition, which The question has been asked what kind of washrooms we had. In most cases we have a place to wash with hot and cold water, in some casts a shower. But there is plenty of room for improvement. When we lose time from any cause whatso- cver, it’s just too bad. I hope the above will give some light on our working conditions. They urge organization of the un- ‘ate on arty,” desdore: They Are Be By Thousands “prosperity” too. A 1 off by the 1 also thousands. S. locomotive engineer to a Soviet locomotive en- L SLAVE IN AN ICE- BOX IN ILLINOIS STEEL (By a Worker Correspondent) cH AGO, Ill.—The Illinois Stecl ructural steel assembly shop on Wabansia Ave. is cold as an ice- house to work in. Ten cold, shi ing hours of misery we spend dai in this big shop because this wealthy company will not install a heating |plant. Instead, old fashioned fire |salamanders are used, and these are jnot able to radiate the heat fox more than ten feet. | Wherever there is any water in !the shop it quickly turns to ice un- |less it is running water. All the compressed air machines are con- |tinually stopping, the air fre in them, and they have to be thawed out with fire. We have to continually go over to the fires to warm up and if we are seen standing around the fire we run the risk of being disc We are compelled to wear |clothes in order to keep from freez- ing stiff. When it is zero weather outside it is zero weather plus inside, Por jciore than half the day large doors |are wide open to let traffic in and out, and the window kept open nearly all the time. Daily we have to go out in the snow and cold wind to get wheel barrows of coke for the fires. The fumes of these coke fires are poisonous, | The super said one day that he {had never seen a time in all his life before when so many workers car |to the employment office every da looking for jobs. “A hundred an two hundred come every day,” he said. The majority of workers in the structural steel shop receive only 46 cents an hour. The steel wo must organize into the Metal Work- ers’ Industrial League. —Illinois Steel Worker. Orleans Printers Strike (By a Worker Correspondent) NEW ORLEANS (By Mail).—A strike has been declared by printers of the Daily Racing Form, because worker. Fight the Right Danger. A Hundred Proletarians for Every Petty Bourgeois Rene- ~RAILROAD ENGINEER. gade! of the unwarranted discharge of a | Sovi f Peasants Proud of Deeds Under 5-Yr. Plan The following letter from a the Soviet Union tells of the | _ thrown themselves into the work ant w Wri rs and poor farmers of I ¥ comrade I wish to 1 ou achievement 1 con ork in the Kvasnokaksh: Toshkar Ola—in Max e) the Marian Aut no pro: vinee. The Ma n autonomous pr vi (the centre of which is th ob rentior Krasnokokshaisk) formed er the workers and nts took the power in !theix hands. Under Tz: me nistrative out twenty e, but after he autononiou 1 conneils than seven v ce versts from the formati province we nO. have Our village ha We had no i triet under the ° y Nicolas, but in 1928 a re aS constructed which leads to the cen ter of the Marian province. Being a soldier du the imperialistic | and civil w ad full opportun- - to see for myself how the cap-| \i government “tr to im rare the life of the peasantry and communication. Owing to the ub sence of railroads, we had some- times to go on foot about 120-150 The capitalist government »ppressed the population, ty to poison them with religions ri hich now seem to be quite We are inte o the § many of us, in other th government he erected al station which provides for the whole of the tow neighboring villages and mill, Cer nly we should all this under the an tric ene’ . for the Tzarist regime. Collective farms are growing in Soviet Union very rapidly. We now possess tractars, vee machines and thrashing hines of which} we could not even dream before. Our peasan pays very low For example: my family of three members. We have hectares of land, one horse, two s and do not pay any taxe fulfilling the five We are now ‘ar plan of the development of our onal economy. After this plan achieved, tractors and combine will be largely a We recon- ed idle es and wo erected new factories. The cap- italists of the whole world wish to handica constructive work, 'wish to y. Let them | try to do it! p rv to know about tween you and the owners of fac- tories and works. as well as about the relationship between the land- and the p to know y iou ionshin be- conntr the intent:on of capitalists to provoke war. ith the greatest re to hear most Soviet he sincer¢ from the | LEONTT SOLOVIRV, poor pe ville Piesle Abaanus! of the’ Avasnne foshkar Ola, the canton of the | Marian people, way in w as possible, I} in the Marian Province of ythe poor peasants have struction under the ants to hear from American poor - to him thru the Daily Worker. ae OUSTON \mong the pe Seamen Are A Greatest, Sufferers (By a Seaman Correspondent.) PORT HOUSTON, Tex.—I now nt distress among t Houston. There are of unemployed sea- s port at nt. As re- ed at the Seamen's Ins- horse of another color. Many ask for meal and are re- used. We believe that about 20 favored men receive help, some of iwhich ¢ up, make beds, etc. So they are not giving much. —HOUSTON SEAMAN. Fire Mili Hands Read “Labor” Paper (By « Worker Correspondent) BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (By Mail) Because they had been seen read- ing a “labor” paper, many mill | nds at the Avondale Cotton Mill re fired, useless | Workers! This Is Your Paper. Write It. Distribute It Among Your Fellow Workers! for AREA LAYING OFF BY THOUSANDS “Prosperity” Samples for Workers (By a Worker Correspondent) icago (By Mail)—Some_ hap- penings under Hoover prosperity: One hundred fifty-four men per- manently laid off at Morrow rail- road shops in Lafayette, Ind. Burnside shops of Illinois Central | closed—many laid off. Engine-men, switchmen, train- men, “cut-off” on Wabash Railroad Decatur, Ill. lvery railroad in Chicago has re~ duced its working force by large per cent. ears Roebuck lays off thousands old empl hiring others at reduced wag Steel mills in South Chicago | working only part time—labor re- cents an hour. mont’s (member Hoover American Steel foundries ceives Mr. I net) at Indiana Harbor, Ind., retaining part of normal force and pays them Hoover prosperity wages of 37% cents an hour. These are samples of “prosperity” for the workers in the Chicago area. Unemployed workers must or- ganize and work together with em- ployed workers—for their interests are common—against the capitalist system which exploits them both. MINERS DO MUCH WORK, NO PAY ‘Bosses Endanger Lives of Men, No Safety (By « Worker Correspondent) ELDORADO, Tl.—In some of the | nines of Saline County the men v k overtime and receive no pay for it. Wasson Mine at Wasson, Til., has its top men do work about the tipple 15 minutes and more, sometimes without pa; Wasson is unfair to labor. The boss tells the men that no actual time will be paid for moving draw rock. If a loader makes a k, he is sent to the pe nitentiary or as the men call it “low works. At the air shafts there are no | hoists to bring the men to the sur- | face, which is on the average of four hundred feet, in Saline County jand 708 feet deep in other counties. st steps on which you jist have |enough room to walk on is all'the way cut. Th | end stairways are wet and cold, since many the steps are yed it is dangerous to walk out. * the, air shafts are over of 2 0 half a mile back of the wash house. A man comes out almost exhausted and most of the time when the |M™ines are runnirg as in the winter, he clothes then freeze on our lio dies. Miners that have been seriously ‘injured when the hoist broke down, | must be carried thru the old works and then up the stairs. There shoyld be a cage in each and every shaft for men to be hoisted to the surface, The N.M.U. will see that. these rot. ten conditions erd. —ELDORADO MINER. PAPER MILL CLOSES; 450 JOB- LESS. (By a Worker Correspondent) BILOXI, (By Mail) —The International Paper Mill at Laine has closed its plants, throwing 450 | workers out of work. Slave wages ‘were paid in the plants, SCARING THE SKIPPER Red Literature on Board the SS Momus | (By-a Seaman Corr Just a half ship Mom pier 48 Orleans, spondent,) hour before the coffin- of the S.P.S.E. Co. left R. New York for New the chief whip cracker (chief mate) came dashing down in the crews quarters and said “Where the bos’n, wher esa bos’ n was right behind him. “Bos’n” he said, “I have orders to earch your room for pamphlets and some literature.” He searched and found what he was looking for, “Carry that bag up to the cap- tain’s room,” he said. “Carry it up yourself. It’s too heavy for me.” t is pretty heavy. What's in it?” I refused to tell him so he looked in it. It was a bunch of Labor De- fenders. “Come along to the captain’s room.” Up in the Slave Master's captain says to me. “Bos'n what's |this?” He gets -0 answer, know,” he says, “It’s LW.W.” I denied that. i “It's not LW.W. at all. |. With that the mate starts to look |into a Labor Defender and happens to open a picture of the Soviet con- ditions with part of the title in bold |print. “No, captain,” he “It’s says. den, the | | Communist literature.” “T knew it. I knew it,” the old |skipper shouts. “Now, bos’n, I think you're very foolish to be connected up with something like this. Don’t you know you’re jeopardizing your job and future position with the company by this? A man of your calibre and abili ouldn’t mix up with this sort of thing.” In walks the god of the Morgan line himself. “Mr. Cooper” says Captain Boyd, j“here’s the bos’n and some of the stuff I sent down for the rest of it |to be brought up here.” “We don’t want it up here, get it off the ship and the decks, Throw it in the street.” Then to the bos’n “Where did you get this stuff?” “New York.” “Where are you taking it?” “TI don’t care what you do with it, get it off this ship immediately and off the company’s property. Why you'll be having the Ship seized by the government by such doings.” And with that they dismissed the bos’n in the mate’s custody with ot- ders to see that he gets that “junk” off the company’s property. The bos’n was blacklisted as soon as Memus arrived at N. Y. ey : ( BOS'N,