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Nshed by the Comprod New York City and mai) all checks \ Page Four fly Publishing Co., Inc. “to the Daily Worker Galls. except 1896- Cuien x, Cabli Telephone Stuyv 8; Square. Sunday, at 26-28 8. Union - Baily > ENROLL WORKING WOMEN IN SHOP NUCLEI ANNA DAMON, By our Party th h into the factories vunist ad the wor kes, which ap- becomes unemployment es- and and build- driy ernational hing inside vital importance. Up to ‘on in factories not been car- r such decisions havi of the fac aper decis 8 the recruiting drive real efforts to shops; for ex- important auto- y 18 women i imilar con- Of the 152 Ne- 1 working women le, Detroit, one of t cente shops ov tin how ex s Must Be work Shops ou shops. In d unskilled workers, ns of women in f all workers in the three per cent of work- illed and semi-skilled, 4 id only 8 per cent are skill- per cent laborers ed. The work t the women workers for the n e them. for fight against im- | n defense of the Soviet Union, ation must be considered by us a major task. Com- igned definitely to this work should be and made responsible to carry it on. Women comrades should be utilized for this work, but the work r ut of the shop nucleus as a whol There are at the present time very few shop nuclei in the ba ustries and practically women members, We ive consider this as a very serious shortcoming and take steps to overcome it. The conditions for recruiting wom- en into the Party from the shops are very fa- vorable. The degree of radicalization which is taking place among the working class has also reached the working women. The extreme speed-up, wage cuts, unemployment, has been none of them ha must in the re: met with militant opposition by the women workers, as indicated by spontaneous strikes. These strikes are spreading. It seems, how- that the Party membership does not fully grasp the degree of radicalization that is going on among the working women and the op- portunities that exist for the Party to mobilize them for the class struggle. There is a very grave und imation of the importance of women as an industrial factor and a potential revolutionary force. There still exist the social democratic tendencies of the past that we can- not approach women in the economic struggles. This is the main obstacle in recruiting women from basic industries into shop nuclei, for re- cruiting them into the Party. Once we over- come this we will be able to work out plans and special methods for rercruiting women members into the shop nuclei and build sym- pathetic circles around the shop nucleus. onization of competent women comrades in the factories should receive immediate attention. Some of the special methods of work to be undertaken are: Organizational Tasks. 1, Electing a women’s work director in mix- ed factories to be on the executive of the nuc- le District Committee to call meetings of undreds | only 6 are wom- | Negroes recruited, 4 are the shop nucleus executive committce chosen for concentration, organization secretary, agit- prop secreta ndustrial secretary and wom- en's work secretary to be present at this meet- ing, where a plan of action should be worked out for Wwork inside the factories. Colonization Notice on Membership Drive Chart. Due to the delay in receiving mail as a result of Saturday, Februa: being a legal holiday the regular weekly chart and comment on the Party Recruiting Drive will appear in the Daily Worker on Wednesday, February 26. GANIZATION DEPARTMENT ENTRAL COMMITTEE. of competent women comrades, slogans, de- mands, building of circles, women’s, page in shop paper, mobilization for unemployment. International Women’s Day, propaganda for joining shop committees, ete. Work should also be assigned, that is specific tasks for the esetions for outside factory, such as literature distribution, factory gate meetings, neighbor- hood meetings. 3. Working out special demands for the shop based upon general demands of the Party and the Trade Union Unity League, taking in special grievances against factory authorities, | wage cuts, speed up, lack of sanitation, etc., Col- | paying special attention to the Negro women. 4. Popularizing these demands in shop pa- pers and “Working Woman.” 5. Shop papers to have a special woman’s page. 6. Electing a standing committee from the section of the shop nucleus territory to cover periodically the factory with literature to ar- range periodic factory gate meetings, speakers to popularize the demands advanced in the press and to arouse the working women inside the factories for action. 7. To build around the shop nucleus sym- pathetic circles of social, educational, char- acter, to organize workers correspondence from the factory. Fractions in trade unions and sympathetic language organizations are to be | mobilized for this work. 8. In shops and factories where members of Negro workers are employed, the nucleus should be on the lookout for instances of racial discrimination within the factory. Examples of such discrimination would be: lower wages for Negro workers doing the same work as white workers; discrimination in hiring and firing. The action of Wanamaker’s Depart- ment store,in segregating all colored employees in a separate cafeteria, which aroused much anger on the part of the colored workers, was an excellent issue for a shop nucleus to take up, had there been a nucleus of the Party in this store. 8. Every Communist trade union fraction should appoint a responsible organizer man on woman comrade) fro mits midst for trade union” work among the women. 9. The trade union organizer must work in closest association with the factory nuclei of all the factories in which working women are employed ni the trade represented by the union concerned. It is only through carefully planned system- atic work in the shop that we will be able to mobilize working women and arouse them to action under the leadership of the Communist Party. We must fight the reluctance for work among women in the Party. We must fight the existing ideas, remnants of social democ- racy, that women cannot be organized. We can and must approach the working women on the political and economic demands of the Party and the Trade Union Unity League, making use of special methods of approach to gain the confidence of the women workers. Engels on Religion OW, religion is nothing but the fantastic re flection in men's minds of the external forces which dominate their ever, a reflection in which earthly forces take the form of the supernatural. In the beginning of history it is the forces of nature which first produce this reflection and in the course of development of different peoples give rise to manifold and various personification. This first process is capable of being traced, at least as far as the Indo-European people are con- cerned, by comparative mythology, to its source in the Indian Vedas and its advance can be shown among the Indians, Greeks, Persians, Romans and Germans, and as far as the ma- terial is available also among the Celts, Lith- uanians and S. zBut beside the forces of nature, the social forces dominated men by their apparent neces- sity, for these forces were, in reality, just as strange and unaccountable to men as were the forces of nature. The imaginary forms in which, at first, only the secret forces of nature were reflected, became possessed of social at- tributes, became the representatives of his- torical forces. By a still further development of the natural and social attributes of a num- ber of gods were transformed to one all-power- Workers! Join the Party of Your Class! Communist Party U.S, A. 43 East 125th Street, New York City. I, the undersigned, want to join the Commu- nist Party. Send me more information. NAMe ..cescccccccecssescscccesceecceueses Address ...+sssscesdecenweses CitYeceseeeee Occupation .. Age. Party. 43 East 125th St., New York, N. Y. Mail this to the Central Office, Communist ay existence, | | the latest product of Greek vulgar philosophy, ful god, who is, on his part, only the reflection of man in the abstract. So arose monotheism, which was historically and found its impersonation in the Hebrew ex- clusively national gor, Jahwe. In this conveni- ent handy and adaptible form religion can con- tinue to exist as the direct, that is, the emo- ional form of the relations of man to the dom- ination outside, natural and social forces, as long as man is under the power of these forces, But we have seen over and over again in mod- ern bourgeois society that man is dominated by the conditions which he had himself created and that he is controlled by the same means of production which he himself has made. The fundamental facts which give rise to the reflection by religion therefore still persists also. And just because bourgeois economy has a certain insight into the relations of the orig- inal causes of this phenomenon, it does not al- ter it a particle. Bourgeois economy can neither prevent crises, on the whole, nor can it stop the greed of the individual capitalists, their disgrace and bankruptey, nor can it prevent the individual laborers from suffering deprivation of employment and poverty. Man proposes and God (to wit, the outside force of the capitalistic method of production) disposes. Mere knowledge even though it be broader and deeper than bourgeois economy is of no avail to upset the social forces of the master of society. That is fundamentally a social act- Let us support that this act is accomplished and society in all its grades freed from the slavery to the means of production which it has made but which now dominate it as an out- side force. Let us_suppose that man no longer merely proposes but that he also disposes. Un- der such conditions the last vestiges of the ex- ternal force which now dominates man are de- stroyed, that force which is now reflected in religion, Therewith, the religious reflection it- self is destroyed owing to the simple fact that there is nothing more to reflect, ' Fight the Right Danger. A Hundred Proletarians for Every Petty Bourgeois Rene- gade! The Hymn of Hate Soviet Republics. By JORGE PAZ. Pees the problem of the presiden- tial succession in a country dependent on English economy, until yesterday, as Brazil was, we must necessarily touch the economic forces that press for total possession of that country. Brazil was an economic dependency of Eng- September, 1822, the so-called Day of Inde- pendence of the country from Portugal. With the introduction of steam in industry, England then in full possession of Brazil, de- veloped railways, street cars, electricity, and the important textile industry. With the centralization of industry and com- merce, and the formation of trusts, England in the first part of the present century and in the last part of the past century, started a chain of banks throughout Brazil, transforming ‘the forests into plantations. nstalling factories, using for this work the slavery of the Negroes that ended only formally in 1889. From that date, until the World War, there was a long period of imperialist penetration by the United States which, as is known, is on an almost equal plane with British imperial- ism. But it is certain that in Brazil, the yankees who hal nothing to commence with, by the penetration carried out in the frozen meat region of the southern states, had in 1917, $150,000,000, From then to date, the governmental posi- tion of imperialism in Brazil varies each four years; 1918-22, supremacy of yankee imperial- ism over British imperialism. The British, by means of the “progressive democrats” of that country made a revolution in 1922, in the latter part of the regime of the Pessoa government, and Arturo Bernardes (British imperialism) rose to power. In 1924, the state of San Paulo, incited by the Wall Street bankers and per- fectly “fertilized” by them arose in arms against the government of the Republic. This was another small revolution that ended by the complete defeat of the insurrectionists (yankees) and] the government of Bernardes was constituted formally. In all this period there was being create] (1922), in the field of con- flict, the revolutionary Communist Party, and from the day of its birth until now it remains in semi or complete illegality. In 1926, Washington Luiz was elected pres- ident of Brazil, after the same fashion as Ortiz Rubio was “elected” in Mexico, with the dif- ference that the Luiz is a loan agent contractor of Whitehall, while Rubio is the agent of the White SEEN Street bankers. This constant and close linking with capital- ist imperialism created the background for the rise of a class of anti-imperialist intellectuals, who many times took much too seriously their role as “saviors” of Brazil, although at other times they gave a very valuable aid in the fight against imperialism. New elections are coming. Against the Con- servative Party (British imperialist) in the elections that are to take place on March 6, is presented the candidacy of the Liberal Al- liance that “fights” the government and reac- tion, the dictatorship, ete. The government “te Julio Prestes, conservative, and the land, one may say, five days after the 7th of | Liberal Alliance has nominated Gertulio Vargas. Central Organ of the Cominunist 1 | Worker y cf the U.S. A. By Mail (in New York City onl. By Mall (outside of New York SUBSCRIPTION RATES: y): $8.00 a year; ity): $6.00 a year; $4.50 six months; $3.50 six months; 0 three months 0 three months $ $2. a By Fred Ellis Wall Street plays upon its godly organ the tune of war against the Union of Socialist The Revolutionary Workers of Brazil and the Coming Elections But our comrades tell us that Gertulio Vargas is a candidate that is aided by yankee imperal- ism, and really it is not a “coincidence” that the state of Minas Gerass, that supports Ger- tulio Vargas, is the state where U. S. imperial- ts have investments of a $100,000,000 and in which they have promised to invest more, up to $250,000,000 (Minas Geraes, as the name indicates is the richest mining state in Brazil. It has an area of 1,000,000 square kilometers. The investments of U. S. capital has been Sunk in mainly by the United States Steel corpora- tion in exploiting the rich iron ore deposits in this state.). Negro Worker for President. The Worker ani Peasant Bloe has named also its candidate, a Negro comrade Minervino de Oliveira, a marble worker, the general sec- retary of the General Labor Confederation of Brazil. But if there exists a problem of two imperial- isms in Brazil at present, there exists also an intense interior fight of the small agrarians ruined by the fall in the price of coffee, by the depreciation in the valuta of Brazilian money, and by the general economic crisis. To avoid catastrophe the government of Washing- ton Luiz has been obliged to resort’ to a loan from London, which has conceded $100,000,000 for this purpose. : Throughout the countryside of Brazil there boils a revolutionary efferveseense among the brutally exploited mass in what they call the “fazendas” and “usinas” (the first meaning coffee plantations, an] the latter sugar cen- trals), an exploited mass that constitutes the real agrarian proletariat. The anti-imperialist revolution is on the road to realization in Brazil, but this anti-imperialist revoluton is able also to be seized upon by the yankee imperialists, who fight against what they call “impositions.” There are “imposi- tions,” true enough, in regards to the “impo- sitions” of both imperialisms upon the coun- try, and “impositions” upon the classes exploit- ed of this country, yet it is a term that con- fuses the minds of some workers that find themselves in such countries under conditions prior to a petty-bourgeois revolution. The Amalgamated in Chicago The Chicago “Amalgamated Centre” is a modern million dollar building and each official has a big light and airy room. There is even a special room for Hillman—nobody knows what for. But for the employment bureau they fixed up a dark room with a low ceiling that can hold about twenty workers. In that smaM dark room you will find every day sev- eral hundred unemployed standing around, hop- ing that they will get a chance to make a few days, and in the meantime each, one tell his hard-luck story, and how much he or she. is in love with the Hillman-Levin administration, The other day one of the unemployed opened - a window to get a little fresh air into the over- crowed room. Mr. Christian, the boss of the employment department noticed it and jumped up exclaiming, “Any one that is too warm can} go outside,” and then turning to one of the : unemployed that happened to be near the win- STARVE OR FIGHT! A Challenge to the Unembloyed : By GRACE M. BURNHAM, Labor Research Association. (Continued) < s Trade Union Benefits. te is quite evident that the efficiency pro- duction schemes of the A. F."of L. offer no solution for the union member who loses his job. As a method of keeping their mem- bership, certain unions have attempted to meet the problem by providing unemployment benefits or by agreements with the employ- ers, guaranteeing work or unemployment in- surance for a specified maximum of weeks each year. Altogether we may say that pes- sibly 50,000 of the four million organized workers in the United States are receiving some form of unemployment benefit, either through their own contributions entirely, or through joint funds to which both workers and employers have contributed, The method of attempting to solve the un- employment problem individually, union by union, s unsound and misleading to the mem- bership, The source of unemployment lies not in a particular industry but in the capitalist system as a whole. The forces of the trade unions at the present stage of their develop- ment in the United States are far too scat- tered and weak to gain insurance features which will even approximate wages for the full period of unemployment. Workers must be made to realize that the entire responsi- bility for failure to provide work, for arbi- trary lay-offs, for the setting of age limits, for the introduction of new schemes to tighten up production with their attendant squeezing out of workers must be placed squarely on the corporations. Work or its equivalent in wages should be the demand of every worker in every union. The payment of unemploy- ment benefits by the union, agreements which undertake to make the union a party to the solution of the employment problems of the industry weaken the union fight and help the employers to fasten more firmly on the backs of the workers the system which makes un- employment inevitable. Fake Union Insurance Schemes. An analysis of the unemployment insurance schemes and agreements in operation in var- ious unions in the United States proves only too clearly the truth of these statements. Trade union out-of-work benefits, under which the union assumes the entire financial obliga- tion are in operation in three A. F. of L. or- ganizations: the Diamond Workers’ Union of New York, New York Typographical No. 6, and the International Siderographers. Bene- fits are negligible, $12 a week for a maximum of 13 weeks for the diamond workers, $5 a week for 26 weeks for the siderographers and $14 a week for the printers. A total of 388 printers drew benefit in 1926. Less than 500 workers are covered in the other two unions. Joint agreements guaranteeing a specified number of weeks employment with the alter- native of a limite] amount of unemployment insurance have been adopted by the United Wall Paper Crafts, the Cloth Cap. and Mil- linery Workers, the Amalgamated Lace Oper- atives, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, and the International Ladies’ Garment Work- ers. Except in the Cleveland market the schemes undertaken by the International La- dies’ Garment Workers’ Union have been sus- pended. The agreement with the employers in the wall paper industry covers 582 members and guarantees 50 weeks employment, 45 weeks at full pay and the remaining 5 weeks at half- pay. The agreement of the Cloth Cap and Millinery Workers cover 3,900. workers and guarantees 48 weeks work a year or unem- ployment benefit. It is confined to cap mak- ers. For New York City the benefit amounts to a maximum of $10 a week for men and $7 for women, not to exceed seven weeks a year. Wages in the New York industry aver- age $40 a week for men and $28 for women. The employers are the sole contributors to the fund, paying 3 per cent of the payroll. The fund is administered entirely by the union. The Amalgamated Lace Operatives . also have a joint agreement with several firms, under which about 300 workers are covered. Employers contribute 50 cents a week for each worker and employees an equal amount. Internatiénal Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union Schemes, Members of the International Ladies’ Gar- ment Workers of Cleveland were forced by union officials to accept a 15 per cent wage cut when their unemployment insurance scheme was initiated. The scheme was started in May, 1921, and guaranteed 40 weeks’ em- ployment or two-thirds of the minimum wage earned for the number of weaks in which em- ployment fgll short of 40 weeks, The guar- antee was extended to 41 weeks in 1922, but in 1924 the benefit was cut to one-half the minimum wage. The fund was made up en- tirely of contributions from the employers, but these funds were actually taken from the workers in the form of wage cuts. In 1922 employers who guaranteed 41 weeks employ- ment were allowed to make an additional wage cut of 10 per cent. The net result of the Cleveland scheme was a decided loss to the workers. The first eleven weeks of unemployment—the difference be- tween a full year’s work and the 41 weeks guaranteed by the agreement—were borne en- tirely by the workers. By 1924 workers had accepted wage cuts of 25 per cent in order to get back a possible 50 per cent of their wages for a limited number of weeks of un- employment. Moreover ‘standards of produc- tion” (speed-up) were agreed to which resulted dow, shouted: ”Are you hot, then get outside and cool offi” One of the unemployed workers standing around who was fed up on Hillman prosperity jumped up 'to Mr. Christian and told him that “I am warm and I will not go outside but stay right here and keep the window open. It is we who have paid for this building and we are sick and tired to have you treat us like a bunch of mules, and’ if you know what is good for you, you will beat it as fast as you can.” Mr. Christian looked around and saw in the s of the unemployed that it may soon be late, so he quickly retreated to his office, keeping his mouth shut for the rest: of the day. a : : in a marked reduction in the number of work- ers employed in the Cleveland market. Those who were forced to leave the industry were® in’no way compensated. Both of the schemes started by the I. L. G. W. U. in the New York market have been abandoned. The agreement in the dress in- dustry was entered into in February, 1925, and discontinued in April, 1926. Workers con- tributed 1 per cent of their earnings and the employers 2 per cent of the payroll, An ar- rangement was made whereby the employers were to pay in proportion to all their work- ers, non-union as well as union. This was in order to protect the union as about 40 per cent of the industry—to make a very con- servative estimate—was non-union. By April, 1926, union members had paid $130,000 into the fund. The employers’ con- tributions should have been double this amount, $260,000, for their union payroll and $104,000 for their non-union payroll, making a total of $364,000. Actually they paid in only! $50,000. No unemployment benefits were ever pai from the fund. The plan was abandoned in April, 1926, the workers’ contributions being returned to the union, and those of the em- ployers to their organization. The workers never received one cent from the employers’ part of the fund. The union payments were averaged for the membership, according to Mr. Julius Portnoy, now the secretary-treas- urer of the New York Joint Board of the Nee- dle Trades Industrial Union. An average of $11 per member was arrived at in this way. Back payments in dues were deducted and the remainder repaid to each member by the union. The agreement in the cloak and suit branch of the New York union was even more dis- astrous. The union had originally asked that the scheme be financed entirely by the employ- ers. However, in the strike which took place in 1924 the commission appointed by the gov- ernor ruled otherwise, and union officials ac- cepted a plan of 1 per cent of wages to be paid by the workers, with 2 per cent of pay- roll to be paid by the employers. A joint board administered the fund. Payments began August 4, 1924, and bene- fits were to start June 1, 1925, the inter- mediate period being allowed for the fund to accumulate. The fund was suspended January 11, 1927. In the meantime the entire Joint Board—the left wing—had been expelled from the union, the membership intimidated, anc the union disrupted. . At the time of the suspension of the fund the Industrial Council—the administrative body in control of the unemployment insur- ance—had in its treasury $400,000. The un- derstanding was that payments were to be resumed in July, 1928. To date, January, 1930, no payments whatever have been made. By a series of resignations, the public rep- resentative on the Industrial Council, and the three representatives of the employers, with- drew, leaving the right wing representatives in complete control of all funds. What was done with the $400,000? The left wing, through its president, Louis Hyman, expelled manager of the Joint Board, openly charged the International Ladies’ Gar- ment Workers’ Union with misuse of these funds, either for their own personal purposes or to help in the reorganization of the right wing union. No denial of these charges has been made. No accounting of the fund har been made to the membership, or to the public, nor have unemployment insurance benefits been resumed. (To Be Continued) Questions and Answers on Unemployment Below is given the sccond of a series of “Questions and Answers” on the world crisis, unemployment and the tasks of the revolutionary trade unions, issued by the Red International of Labor Unions.—Editor). * * * Question 2. How will the crisis develop? Will it grow deeper or will the depression be gradually ameliorated and outlived? The continued dispatches received from the U.S. A. and the capitalist countries in West- ern Europe on the curtailment of production, the closing down and winding up of enter- prises ani the discharge of workers, etc., show that the world economic crisis is only begin- ning. c For example, the newspapers on January 26 were full of reports on the mass discharge of workers and the closing down of enter- prises in Poland and Czecho-Slovakia and that the world economic crisis had now hit Sweden where the manufacture of ball-bearings and several other engineering enterprises were winding up operations. The crisis has also affected the colonial and semi-colonial countries, Thus, the view given currency by certain bourgeois economists that the crisis was over and an improvement had set in, is contrary to the facts. During the next few months we must expect an intensification, extension and deepening of the world economic crisis. ¢ In studying the present crisis we have to solve another question: is the present depres- sion a typical economic crisis, seen during the pre-war period when we had a livening up of, industry, a period of prosperity, to be fol- lowed by over-production, slump and. crisis, the economic cycle having turned full round? It is true that we have today all the fea- tures of a typical economic depression, but the crisis today is aggravated still further by the fact that it is occurring during the gen- eral post-war crisis of ‘capitalism with its chronic over-production, chronic industrial stagnation and chronic unemployment, etc. — In analysing the situation we should not lose sight of the present complicated character of the economic crisis, for here it is not a question of a profound depression after a per- iod of prosperity, but of a marked worsening of an economic situation which was already depressed in a whole series of countries,