The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 8, 1930, Page 4

govage Four DAILY, W ORKER, NEW YORK, TURD AY, _FEBRUARY 8, 1930 STANDARD OIL LAYS OFF BY HUNDREDS IN WHITING; SPEED. UP REST TH OSE WORKING STANDARD OIL WORKERS WILL FIGHT LAY- OFFS AND SPEED- UP SYSTEM WORK ONLY A PART OF DAY Sent Home; ‘Speed-Up Growing (By ¢ WHI months eral hun- ie men that are ‘ 1 to produce just | as much @ did with force workin, Refinery, he Btn of the:mbn va | The: 7:0. 0. 1b. and give them a c 2 By working men on t In the ba. to work and [: Sees is a bonu mpneded up A Real Un be, r duction s some of sent home at noon, As one man was saying who has worked there about 20 years in the tin shop, they have bonus and they work like greased lightning and do not make enough bonus to really pay for their increased production. | If you stop to breathe for aj| couple of minutes the 2 by 4 fore- | ¢ame to a t&t. man wants to know if the whistle Some supers who represent the co: has blown or makes some \ wise- | erack like that. And in the paint department the second painters go like they were | working piece-work pushed along | by small time pushers like Vernon | Perry and Pete Stomberg, men who | got their jobs by being suckers. | Seemingly not satisfied with one They are backed up by the weak-|¢ompany union outfit alone backboned foreman, Bill Whiting, | Standard starts athletic clubs, a and slaver-driver Myers, the super. !and benevolent outfits, etc. Then | (By a Worker BAYONNE, |he turned out to really be for the¢ workers would get fired right off. In the 1928 Tidewater Oil strike the Workers Council sold the men out. That’s what the company unions always do. Trade Union Unity League has formed a shop committee in the Standard Oil Works leadership of the T. U. U. L. the Standard Oi! workers will rebel against the lay-offs and speed-up described by worker correspondents on this | “No Phoney Outfits--But me Standard Slave - J—Here in the Standard Oil refineries we got the | old company on aWatkete Council, which always sold us out when it | We are supposed to elect the Workers Council—except | | picks all the men because they count the votes and the man we elect, if | in 1915, Standard refinery, Ind. n Whiting, Under the couldn’t stop them, organiz: i This time they'll know better. ton--Says A Correse>ndent) mpany—but as a fact the company | eo DLWAR, SLAVES — SEEING SHAM OF HOOVER COUNCIL the Siandard Oil slay rebelled and struck to a man. tantly that police, armed with rifles, and armed government troops and the oil workers won, and inva short time lost all their gair es in Bayonne, N. J., the largest They fought so mili- | strikers fought back. Photo at right illustrates haza: up. Two refinery workers were huge tank was hurled 100 feet at Mass. Company neglect and speed- But they remained un- They'll organize under the TUUL. | Photo at left shows police shooting at strikers in Bayonne, 1915. WILL LAY OFF P. 0, IN DEPT, OF STANDARD oll Men Growing Militant and Are for Strike (By « Worker Correspondent) WHITING, Ind.—Let’s look at production end of the Standard Oil \Co. refinery here in Whiting. What \is happening to the shift workers, such as firemen, stillmen and pump- lers? | In the past six years they have | built two rows of stills of 22 units | that have taken the place of several |old rows of stills. This has eut the number of shift workers needed, as they don’t need as many firemen on the new stills. rds of the oil workers under speed- |" Noither do they need the ash killed and three injured when this | pangs anymore as the new stills are the Rimount Oil Plant in Everett, | ¢jroq by oil instead of coal. And -up was to blame. now on the paraffine side they are building one unit of stills that will The |\No Fake Bos Bosses’ chat” ” But Work or Wa a °s Hellish Slavery for | N.C. Tobacco Slaves-- Negroes and Whites (By a Worker WINSTON-SALEM, N. C.—Hw | a job. They beg in vain. | bitter words. The agent told me the: TAX! BOSSES IN "SCHEMES, AVOID - PAYING THE MEN Correspondent ) Negroes and whites, may be seen every morning in front of the R. J.| Reynolds Tobacco Co. employment office awaiting their turn to beg for|haye heard the grumbling for some They are turned away, often, with harsh and |time among the workers, and it is |do away with a whole row of old stills. Now there will be some more still- men, firemen and helpers that will have to push a wheel barrow for 50 jeents per hour. They are also building an addition on the new boiler house which will shut down the other boiler house so |some more of the steam department, old timers, will be demoted or laid off. In the acid works, when the |new acid plant is done, it will eut the force about 40 per cent. We of the local TU.U.L. group indreds of workers, men and women, y were only employing Negro women. getting louder all the time. Some And only five or six of these each of the old timers are talking strike, | day to replace those who dropped and, so let us have one, an organized | out because they could not stand) strike to fight against the coming | the stretch-out. These Negro women | wage cuts which have been started are among the worst exploited|by the steel bosses and which will | workers in the South. They work | he in oil industry pretty soon. in the stemming department, among; Let us fight layoffs and unem- the filthy tobacco dust, for wages | ployment. Let us prepare to fight as low as five and six dollars a) for the seven-hour five-day week, week. for unemployment insurance, for Since 1927 the Reynolds Company |equal division of work, against | has built four of its largest cigar-|speed-up. Why should we producers The Trade Union Unity League | they feed us bull in the summer at) will organize us here and then the picnics they give us. things will change. Now the latest thing I want to} —S. 0. SLAVE. j|warn the Standard Oil workers SIMMONS PLANT A JOB FOR TUUL = the club would be of “great!controlled by the Van Sweringen | benefit to the men,” don’t that show | brothers who also control the Erie; Wages Cut There 15 to} 50 Per Cent (By « Worker Correspondent) | KENOSHA, Wis.—I work at the, “ Simmons Co. bed end furniture fac- | tory. The conditions here are getting | worse every day. They have cut} against is the new club formed by company men in the cracking coils | | department at Constable Hook Stan- | ; dard plant. Why, the fact that the slave driver foreman Frank Sher- wood at the dinner at the Y.M.C.A. | that the club is for the company. Then there’s that reception planned by that phony company outfit—the Social, Athletic and Beneficial As- | sociation of the Bayonne Standard Oil Plant. That’s part of Rockefel-| ler’s game too. Those are what makes the Rock- \efellers, Teagle and all the rest get away with the big lay-offs after speeding us up; get away with wage wages from 15 per cent to 50 per | cuts, long hours and no safety pro- cent in many departments. | tection, All the bosses seem to think of | is how to produce cheaper at the expense cf the workers. Last vear the Trade Union Unity League sent arvund a ‘eaflet and No company phony outfits, men, we want a real, fighting union, and jnot the A, F. of L. either, that got paid time and again by Rockefeller | to keep out of Constable Hook. had one meeting and then we never | —CASE & CAN SLAVE| Got Wage Cuts Despite| Bosses’ “Promise” | J.—The Delaware, | (By a Worker Correspondent) HOBOKEN, N. Lackawanna and Western R. R. is! |R. R., the Baltimore & Ohio, the | Chesapeake & Ohio, the Hocking Valley, the Nickel Plate lines, the Lehigh Valley R. R., etc. The Van Sweringens were leaders | at Hoover’s fascist business council where they “promised” Hoover “no wage cuts.” True the wage scale) was not altered but all tradesman’s | helpers had been getting over five} dollars a day were reduced to the | status of laborers which pays the | starvation wage of $3.50 per day. Other workers were gyped on | overtime work, electrification cons- |truction workers were fired “due to} | cold weather,” the bosses said; short | \ time clerical and engineering work- jers were laid off, ete. | Some of the unemployed workers who are forced to take insults with the miserable slops doled out by the bosses’ “charity” organiza- tions. No fake bosses’ charity—but work or wages—this demand, among other militant demands, will be shouted by millions of un- employed throughout the world when they demonstrate on Feb. 2 under the leadership of the Communist Parties. Greetings trom A Soviet Seaman to U.S. Marine Workers “Go into the mass organizations of the working class” is the mes- sage of a Soviet seaman to the exploited seamen of the U.S.A. Marine workers, the Marine Workers League is your fighting organization. Join it. Reply to this Soviet seaman thru the Daily Exploitation Is Worse |“ : factories, and their output = | day is larger than ever before. With New Year _| 1929 the dividends paid by the com- (By a Worker Correspondent) | | pany were over $32,000,000 or four | | The taxi drivers or as they are | |times the amount paid the wage slaves. Notwithstanding the great} |ealled “hack” drivers are more ex-| inerease in production they employ | \ploited in 1920 then they ever were | 3000 less hands than in 1927 due to | before, due to increase in taxicabs | rationalization. | by the fleet owners and more un-| Up to October, 1928, the cigarette | Staploned men who take a job for| machines in use made 36 packs of a day or two as hackman. | cigarettes per minute. In October- The Bon-Tor and Mayflower | November, 1928, they installed new | Texi Corporation which is located at | and improved machinery which pro- 1b0th St. and Gerard Ave. which | duced 72 packs of cigarettes per employs over 400 drivers is con- | minute, thus doubling the ‘output | | stantly scheming: ways and means of | with the same labor. And in January oiding hiring extra help which is| of 1930 these machines have been! | absolutely needed. For instance, the | speeded up to 88 packs per minute. night driver when he pulls in after| Two years ago five workers pro-| 14 hours labor cannot leave the car| duced 180 packs of cigarettes per before he gasses her up and some-| minute; today two workers produce times has to wait one hour or two}176 packs per minute, lin line before his turn. The very) same applies to our day men, a: before the company had three or | four men employed to gas the cars. | slaves slowly starving to death. The second scheme to avoid pay-| Twice the A. F. of L. has sold| ing their men is that the ears must} them out. Once in 1920 when the | These tobacco workers receive an erage wage of less than $11.00 |per week. They are merely servile heard from them again until last! of Rockefeller. week. They should not wait so long iwecause the time is about ripe for organization. You should have seen and heard the excitement over last s leaflet. The workers were ager to get hold of one and they passed it on to the next fellow. here Morday, Jan. The men came in and found a new price list with a good cut of course. They refused to go to work. Then the Super came and gave them a line which they would not take. About 31 o’clock the Super gave in and they went to work under the old y get all the departments to unite with them; elect a committee in each department and when one goes cut, all go out. Here’s a job for the Trade Union Unity League. —A S{MMONS WORKER. Build the United Front of the Working Class From the Bottom Up—in the Industries! FROM “! “RED » grainers had a little strike | ‘es. They did good but they must | Police Close Halls to Meetings Called for! ‘Fight on Mexico Terror, BUFFALO, N. Th, Feb. 6.—The Buffalo bosses and their city gov- ernment, which last week sentenced {11 workers to a month in jail be- cause they took part in an unem- ployed’ demonstration, are frantical- ly trying to break up or prevent meetings called to protest against | |the terror in Mexico and Wall Street | Ortiz Rubio attack on the Soviat | | Union, | Louis Fernandez, Latin-American organizer of the International La-| bor Defense, is being barred from | lone meeting after another he ar- |ranges. The police intimidate the ‘hall owners, and cause them to can/ |eel contracts made to use halls. The | meetings are being held, however, in private houses. q HENDRIX Workers Defend Knowille Org Organizer (By « Worker Correspondent) CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — I am sending in a few lines to let you ‘nd the workers of the country know about the struggles we are having down here in trying to organize the workers in the South, Of course, . you know all about what happened in Gastonia and you also know that seven of us are marked by the boss- es to spend a living death in the cells of the North Carolina peniten- tiary for our part in trying to or- ganize the textile workers of Gas- ” tonia. There the workers, like the work- ers all over the country, were not making enough to “live on, were ac- starving. And because we, un- leadership of the Trade ‘nity League and the Na- ile Workers Union, which onditions we were sen- tenced to long years in prison. | And today, as I see the workers | going around and begging the boss- es to let them slave in their sweat) shops, I look and wonder if they will be doing the same next year or/ if they will join hands in millions | strong and demand better wages and better living conditions, and that they may say to hell with the Carpenters and Bulwinkles, the tools | of the mill bosses. | We are still going on with the | |work in the South. But the bosses | ain’t asleep, They are doing all their! might to stop us. The other day in Knoxville, Yenn., they formed a mob | ‘and tried to lynch one of our organ- izers, but when they saw that the | workers were prepared, to defend | themselves and the organizer with | | workers, regardless of | their lives, they got cold feet and | finding themselves speeded up and lor, tried to organize a their minds. | —“Red” Hendrix. | | subway workers show. Track work- ‘ands of unskilled railroad workers )for the railroad workers, | This occurred immediately after| Worker. |the cessation of Hoover's council.|Dear Comrades American Seamen:| The Van Sweringens knew they were lying when they chimed in vith Hoover's cheerio chorus but In the name of 200,000 seamen) and port workers of the ports of| Batum, Poti and Sukum (Black | they held Green to his bootlicking,;Sea) we send our proletarian,| promise of “no strikes” when they| brotherly greeting; to all seamen sent 3000 striking freight trainmen|and pore workers of U.S.A. as well back to work on the Van Sweringen/as to the whole working class of | owned Erie R. R. through the boss- | America, | controlled U. S. Meditation Board.) Dear Comrades: Today we have) The Van Sweringen’s labor policy| had with us here your representa- is one of ruthless exploitation; few tive, Comrade who is | safety helps are provided: but the|sexman, His greetings delivered in| tool shacks, hand cars, ete., are/the name of the American seamen | |plastered with “anti-carelessness”| were received by us with great, posters. No respirators were pro-| enthusiasm. Ti is transferred to} | vided all last summer for the pneu-| aj) port w: and life boats’ | matic hammer operators—the men | crews of the po! | lay awake all night coughing with) be inspected every four months and You are interested in our life,|the drivers must’ spend their own You | time having them inspected. achievements and activities? want to iknow how the work started! Fellow Workers, it is because we by worl and peasants 12 years |aré not organized that we tolerate | Tc goes ahead with | such conditions. With a militant) vnion led and cortrolled by our own ‘drivers under the leadership of the |T.U.U.T., the bosses would not dare | to threaten us with bawling out for low booking. Let us bnild garage committees in every garage and then we will get our demands. —TAXI DRVERS. ago goes on? full Speed and steady! We, long ago, smashed ali cani- talists and counter-revolutionists in the Soviet Union, end now in buiid- iny the Socialist. state we clean out all remnants of the capitalist sys- tem. We entered here on the great task -the five v of the industrial- ization U.S. One year of “this plan has ee omplished with great success. The working class of the Soviet | Union has gone over the top above ali expected figures. Our aim is to reach the level of fully developed industrially capital- | st countries and above it. their lungs full of concrete dust. This stone dust is fatal if a worker is subjected to it for any length of time, as statistics on quarry and ers, car cleaners, window washers, | freight handlers, construction work- ers, are all pushed to the limit and | paid the lowest wages possible. The Lackawanna as well as all railroad workers have got to organ- ize under the Trade Union Unity League. The old craft unions have shown they help the bosses. Besides, they have left hundreds of thous- unorganized. So it’s the T.U.U.L. —D. L. & W. SLAVE. Rail Magnates Make Millions While Rail Toilers Are Scrapped ST. PAUL, Feb, 6.—The net in- come of the Burlington Railroad in| 1929 was about $29,278,000 accord- | ing to a preliminary report of F. H. Williamson, president of the road. This was approximately $3,- 000,000 more than the previous year, | While the railroad magnates pile up enormous profits, the rail work- ers are steadily being thrown out of work by “labor-saving” machin- | off. ery. ed workers. Thousands of workers Meanwhile, those still at work are) forced to surrender even’ the plat hour day. of lay-offs by the auto bosses. Speeded to Limit, Then Ford Lays Them Off Ford workers at work. Speedcd to the limit they are then laid Ford has added tens of thousends to the ranks of the unemploy- Feb, 26 under the leadership of the Communist Party. the forefront in forming Unemployed Councils in the Detroit area. Letters from Ford workers and other auto workers in this issue tell We seamen and workers go with | great enthusiasm the way shown to lus, by our great teacher Comrade | Lenin and have victories on all fronts in the construction of Social- ism. A short time ago we celebrated | the twelfth year of our November | Revolution. | In other countries class conscious workers had the same celebrations. It is true, you have not such oppor- tunities as we, because there is still the rule of capitalists in your coun- tries, We have heard from American |comrades, who come here from | sbroad, how hard life is under the yoke of capitalism, how you strug- |gle against capitalism. We know | of the cruelty of capitalist state practiced upon Gastonia textile strikes. We condemn the deeds of the hired nangmca of the capitalists against the working class of U. S. A. and ail over the owrld. We ex- press our contempt for the social traitors, the Socialist Party of U. S. A. and AFL—the hirelings of American imperialism. We send our greetings of solidar- ity, sympathy and admiration to the Gastonia strikers. We fully understand how hard and great are your struggles. Further, you know,, that world, imperialism, \ineluding ‘that of America is rap- _idly preparing a new imperialist war ‘against the Soviet Union, the only | workers’ republic in the world. World imperialism sends- the Moody Chinese generals to attack the U.S.S.R. They provoke a war (Continued un VPage Five) laid off by Ford/will demonstrate They are in |International Tobacco Workers Union, affiliated with the A. F. of |L., boasted a 90% membership among the tobacco workers. Again |in 1927. Neither time were any | strikes called. Neither time did the ITWU make any serious demands on the company for wage increases | or shorter hours. When the workers began to ask for something to be done the officials sold out and left. Today the tobacco workers’ condi- tions are miserable. The workers have done away with | the fake A. F. of L. Their only hope is the Trade Union Unity League. | Under the leadership of the T.U.U. | L. we will march forward to shorter | work days, increased pay and better | living conditions. We must build a strong T.U.U.L. among the tobacco | workers. Workers, support the T.U. | U.L., it is your union. | —W. B—TOBACCO WORKER. (By a Farmer Correspondent.) CLIMAX, S SASKATCHEWAN, Canada.—Comrades: As a member of the Communist Party of Canada, I would like to greet my brother slaves through the columns of The Daily Worker, so here goes: I have been farming for 20 years in Canada. “Had nothing to start with and if sold out would have nothing now. During the last 10 years I have raised close to 30,000 bushels of grain, and today I cannot rustle the price of a sub to the Daily. The only difference between the workers in the city and those on the farm is that our masters see that the latter get three squares a day to keep them healthy, strong and able to work 16 hours a day for eight months in the year, in order to swell the profits of the machine companies, banks and grain trusts. When one has done nothing else for 20 years but one job, one simply cannot break away. Am deeply greeved for my comrades in the in- dustrial trades, and but for the hope / of all-have none and those who pro- duce nothing have all. We've got to fight the Rockefeller interests along side of all other workers. We | must fight the whole capitalist sys- tem for it gives us workers nothing but low wages, unemployment, star- vation and wars. —AN OIL WORKER. LAY OFF MONT. COPPER WORKERS Smelter Hands Suffer (By «@ Worker Correspondent) GREAT FALLS, Mont.—The Anaconda Copper Mining’ Company is reducing forces kere in the smelt- by large numbers, throwing hun- of mer onto the streets. s expected that when the re- adiustment is completed there will be oniy twenty-five per cent of the original working force employed. The same vercentage of reduction is being applied te the Butte mines. Alvealy thousands of miners have been laid off in these copper mine hel?-holes. The copper miners must be of- ganized into ihe Nationa: Miners Union, which has got to reach here soon. The workers in the copper plants have to organize into the Trade Union Unity League, thru the Metal Trades Industrial League. And as for the unemployed workers being thrown on the street by the copper bosses, they have to form into unemployed councils, organizing themselves, under the TUUL. —A SHOVEL STIFF. Build The Daily Worker—Send {n Your Share of the 15,000 New. Subs. Miners, TENANT FARM SLAVERY Twenty Years at It --- And Penniless I put in the Communist movement, life would-not be worth living. The system in vogue in Canada is something like this; The Canadian government locates a man on $20 acres of land. He has to get credit at ‘rs start. After he has com- pleted his three-year hornpese duties and paid $3 an acre, he given title to the land. But here’s the joker: The farmér has no funds. He goes to his local bank manager and is asked what collateral he has,, His Jand is valued at say $8,00 his stock at $2,000, making total sets of $10,000. On this amount the banker will lend (providing you are a hard worker) 300. If anything happens to your crop for two yeaxs in succession, you have developed into a tenant farmer, and will so re- main to the end of your life. Ass result of these condition’ approx- imately 87 per cent of the land is not really owned by the men who farm it. Yours for the national- ization of land, -AET t