The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 28, 1930, Page 3

DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK. SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 1930 Page Three THE CREW AS IN Galls On Seamen to Organize Into the Marine Workers Industrial Eéttor Daily Worker:— I have been reading in th which occurred when the oil tanker “Pinthis” came in collision with the passenger ship “Fairfax.” The blame for the disaster # thrown onto the crew. Nothing is said about the working wenditions on these boats. Having completed a trip in one, I| *ROCKSVILLE, PA, TASLOW AS ant to Organize Into Needle Trades Union Frocksville, Pa. Daily Worker: There are two factories here in his small town. One of these fac- otles is called the H. D. Bob with eadquarters in New York. There te 9 of these factories in the ounty. They like to build big factories in | small town because they know that itis in the city would not work for fiosé wages. Lots of us girls are etween 14 and 16, working 10 hours day (which has been changed just few weeks ago) from 7 to 6 o’clock rorking you nights. This factory employs 250 girls and 0 young men. All these poor girls forking here are not working for he fun of it. It is because they ave no other place to find work. fany of the girls that work here te working as there is nobody in ne family working. Here is what some girls are get- ing: Buttoners, 2 cents a dozen; lannel and cambray, 4 cents a doz fa; trimmers, 4 cents a dozen; zip- ets, 4% cents a dozen; trimmers of flannel lumber jackets, 544 cents dozen; putting pieces on button, cents a dozen; putting zippers on amber jackets, 1 cent a dozen; but- taking, 3% cents a dozen. It takes about half an hour, may- @ more for a dozen to be made, ow could a family live on this? BOSSES GIVE SEAMEN ROTTEN PONDITIONS AT SEA; ALWAYS BLAME om sewers, 445 cents a dozen; cuff There are about 200 girls that | CASE OF “PINTHIS” | 1 { i Union for Struggle New York, N. Y. e@ press accounts of the disaster | ill give you some idea of how} they are run hy the company | with no regard for the safety | \of the crew. | | 1 joined the “Hampton Roads” | | which is owned by the Oil Trans- | | portation Company, New York. We |proceeded light to Norfolk, Va., | | where we drydocked tq have the) | propellor shaft straightened which had become bent during the pre« vious voyage. This job could have been done in Brooklyn, but wages | are lower in Norfolk, and they work | fast there too, with the result which I will show later. After leaving dry dock in New- port News, we proceeded via the Canal to San Pedro, Calif. Here we loaded 160,000 barrels of gaso- Speakers at the Memorial Mass Meeting, Friday, June 18, held for the 6 tunnel worke Monday, June 9 in dynamite explosion. From left to right: George E. Powers, secretary, Michigan Dis- trict, Trade Union Unity League, Joe Billips, president, Detroit American Negro Labor Congress and can- didate for governor on the Communist Party ticket, Phil Raymond, organizer, Auto Workers Union and Frank Kerchel, organizer, Tunnel Workers Indu rial Union and leader workers killed of the recent tunnel workers strike. line. We arrived at the oil wharf. |at 10 p. m., and the order came that we would load immediately. This is a dangerous thing to do when you consider that the ship is under steam with fires lit, and everything in the engine room “un- der way.” This order was eventu-| ally changed, and instead we com- menced loading at 6 a. m. with use, N. Y everything shut down and fires | Editor, Daily Worker | banked. Industrial conditions in this par Overloading the Ship. One day we noticed the chief en- gineer and captain getting uneasy | about something. The “chief wanted | some of the gas pumped overboard, but the captain didn’t want to lose} any of the precious stuff and he ‘had 60 barrels pumped into a pipe \Tine on de: | bonus. This it from rising. \after leaving Colon. No survivors, | t of course. Bum Chow for Crew. We arrived in New York Harbor | and stayed there a couple of days and nights at anchor. Meantime the propellor shaft had | i bent of the state are becoming progres. sively worse with no Many factories formerly | 1 working three or four days a week, | the foundries and forges shut down have cut down to two days and some change. They were cold "storage eggs, and Prebably he got a/ though New York state law limits | is like taking a bucket | their stay to six months in storage, jof water out of the ocean to keep | the same law says nothing about We got through | them being shipped to another state |the canal alright, but many ships |for six months, and the said eggs have been lost through overloading. ;may have travelled around all the | |I remember one in particular, the states in the Union before being “Swift Star.’ which blew up soon; sent to sea to get—well to feed effect of these eggs can be meas-| ured by the extraordinary amount! |of physics the men had and used. signs of a} he unfortunate crews of ships. The | The “Hampton Roads” The general conditions for those in the after-end were bad. There Syracuse Workers Feel Har Hand of the Growing Crisis d down completely. _ This icularly to the heavy y of the United States has been closed entirely for than two months. Many of for weeks at a stretch and then re- open for a couple of days. The | Franklin Automobile Co. working on a five hedule, cut down to four, thr two, one, and now has been shut down completely for more than a week, Particularly swift and accumula- |tive have been the wage cuts the were compelled to accept. \The percentages have reached as thigh as 2 nt of the former in the Brown-Lipe are receiving 33¢ an hour for an eleven hour day — that is, those who are working. This plant producing two-thirds of the total gear output in the count: and normally employing -2500-300¢ The Crucible Steel, a} Indians Are Exbloited on | Da m Work Florence, Arizona. Editor, Daily Worker, Dear Si: | Unc m exploits “Poor Lo”, the | Indian thoroughly as any other |group. I am enclosing pictures of |Indians employed on the San Carlos Irrigation project in Arizona. This is a U. S. Reclamation pro- ject, and many Indians (mostly Pi- |mas and Papagoes) are employed. The work is dangerous and the In- jdians are paid from fifty cents to ja dollar less per diem than white workers doing the same class of The Pajagoe Indians receive no rations from the government. The! Indian agent here says that they are good workers and the govern- | ment does not wish to spoil them by issuing rations to them. Yet they frequently average less than six months work during the year and shift, for themselves the other mont! | got again, rushing into the| was a bathroom for oilers, firemen, jengine room, through rork from $1 to $10 for two weeks, f course. Some girls are afraid on e¢ount of stool pigeons. The boss-| gland which had become torn out.|shower to take a bath. Water had 8 know if they fire one girl there| With all the pumps working, wej|to be taken from a tank after, in te plenty that will take her place.| were only just able to make Brook-| a bucket carried nearly amidship to f everyone stuck together they lyn drydock. We drydocked without | the washhouse. This was very bad | ouldn’t get fired and the bosses |steaming the tanks out. None of | when you consider that a bath twice | saldn’t run the factory on a scab | the crew stayed on that ship after) a day is necessary, the engine room | ebis. | the trip. | and petal ifemipestuts being | Before I close my letter I will| frequently 120 degrees. see ae rary panda give you some idea of the food on| The messrooms were often very ae the stern) ete. but there was no faucet or) nd join the Needle Trades Workers | this boat. The food in general was | dirty. On several occasions a bos’n mostly junk, badly cooked at that. Most of it consisted of hash, maca- roni soup, stew. It seemed to be! planned along lines of extreme. cheapness and being easily pre- dustrial Union and the Commu- ist Party. Send in your name and ddress to the Daily Worker, 26-28 | Inion Sq., New York and join the. fion that will fight for your in. | breasts. | pared. Green stuff was never see and fireman had to turn and clean them. This was due to the fact that the messman had too much work to do, having firemen, oilers deckhands and engineers to wait on. If seamen would organize into a men, is now employing at the most 500. Building construction is at a} standstill and skilled workers are| both forced to search for other wor and also leaving the A. F. of L.| The Indian worker must be or- unions. Discontent and poverty is, sanized together with other workers spreading engulfing large sections) nder the militant banner of the of the petty-bourgeoisie, and a talk | Communist Party for the overthrow with the average intelligent worker | 0f the rotten capitalist system. will show that the American work- —INDIAN WORKER, ing elass is getting ready to resist the multiple attack of capitalism against the workers and that this resistance will not be merely a pas- Many live in ab+ ject poverty and wretchedness. Fre- quently the children are unable to attend school as there are no school facilities. CAUSES SWISS BOY- corr. SWISZERLAND.—As autos are sive one but a sharp offensive to) among the first objects of the Swiss build trade unions to conduct strug-| boycott against American goods, TARIFF gles for immediate demands and to dealers here are selling American An apple a week was the only fruit.| real union, which the Marine Work- ‘The hreakfast was two fried eggs,| ers Industrial Union is, they would the first morning, two fried eggs! have some say in the running of the |the second morning, and for the | ship. They would get what they forty-nine mornings thereafter. You wanted by strength of numbers and hould begin by the building of shop) couid have them scrambled, straight |a united front. Seamen! Join the smmittees in every department.) yp. or standing on their hind legs,| Marine Workers Industrial Union! ad a request made of the national i i ; but th thing but fresh, Read the Daily Worker, the only flee of the Needle Trades tndus-|jpe cre, Viich we wou i The! | —JINGLES. * 4 8 Editorial Note — Organization in he shirt factory in Frocksville the same, which we would not have , paper worth reading today. Hal Union, 16 West 21st St. New) minded if these eggs were fresh, | rest is all junk. Sat Frattens mdm an organizer.| put they dere anything but fresh. | —SEAMAN (OILER). 5 | Siar“ * Ss" Ussp SEAMEN GET CARE be a Ma ng bilby ‘American Seamen Enthused After Visit i | | free itself from the ideology of bour- | geoisie politics. autos at cne-half of the cost price. retaliation for ng cf the new tariff. | This boycort is in —David Dwofsky. | the pas: Cleveland Carmen Getting “Benefit” of Fakers Rule Cleveland, Ohio. To the Daily Worker: ; the moment the “new” company put | their wage cut into effect was hot- | for The Daily Worker. Become ‘REFERENCES’ PART UF BLAGKLSTING SYSTEM OF SPEED UP BOSSES; FIGHT IT BY ORGANIZATION Bosses Hold Life and Death Over Men with’; “Reference” System Says Worker Editor, Daily Worker, New York City. Dear Editor and Fellow Workingman like myself :— Will you please publish and spread a big propaganda against the so- called reference system. Please prove to all the workingmen that they pooh, Brookl are the slaves of the bosses. Please show them through the so-called and | f | pernicious reference system that we now have here. A poor hard workingman who does not speed up the works to suit his slave-driving boss is discharged’ and blacklisted so that he cannot ob- | {tain work anywhere unless he has a | | reference from his last employer. | And they do not stop there for a} reference from the last employer. But he (the worker) must get refer- ences from 5 to 10 former employ-} ers in order to get a job. Can’t any workingman who has any brains and work for 4 boss, know very well that he is a bosses’ slave, The bosses are well organ-| ized. the slavedriving and blacklisting trust. When the Ham-Fish committee, in- vestigating and hearing propaganda will you have the courage and tell the committee composed of the rich and fat fishes to investigate the | slave-driving and blacklisting trust | the National Association of Manu- facturers and their methods of em- ploying help through the so-called reference system. The boss can discharge and black- list you for any thing that you may say against him. And under the so- called reference system he holds life and death in his hands. He can say OK and you may get a job, Or he may say through the phone that you are no good. And you are left in the street to starvé you and your family. In the so-called land of supposed. to-be free you must obtain a license to get a job. I remain yours truly, A WORKINGMAN. Co) ee EDITORIAL NOTE:—-The com: | rade worker correctly shows up the reference system as part of the blacklisting system of the bosses. AN. big open-shop companies employ the reference system for just this reason. Trade Union Unity League in or- ganizing the millions of unorganized workers will be directed against the vicious blacklisting system, includ- ing the reference system. 6 Months Hunger “Vacation” Given Mill Workers (By a Worker Correspondent) LEADVILLE, N. C.—The Lead- He belongs to the National Manu| facturers Association of America, | One of the fights of the | N.C, MILL BOSSES WANT TO EVICT GRANNIE M'GINNIS Grannie Was Fighter in Gastonia Winston-Salem, N. C. Editor, Daily Worker | Grannie McGinnis as she is known |to us, is one of the first union mem- | bers here, it was “Grannie” McGin- |nis with Bill and Elizabeth who were the very first ones that walked out of the Loray mill when the huge strike occurred in Gastonia, They went along from the first day of! |the strike, helping the union to or- |ganize the men and women in the textile mills of Gastonia and vicin- ity. | Bill McGinnis is now one of the 7 | defendants, expecting to get 7 to |20 years jail for helping to organize his fellow men, while Lizzie has for the able to get a job ever sin jbosses hate and fear Elizabeth, and | her talk about unionism. | The very day that the I. L. D. and |N. T. W. U. opened their new head- jquarters at BE. 14th and Caldwell Sts. this city, and when the bosses got wind of this, they at once informed | Mrs. McGinnis that she will have to “get out” and so Gfannie went and found another place for herself and |Lizzie to stay. “I don’t care how many times they make me move,” said Grannie, “they cannot make me ive up my faith in the union, 1 am jgoing to stick by the union for the \rest of my live. “And I am going to tell every worker to come in and join it, if he or she wants their conditions im- | it for them, they will have to do it themselves.” worn out from the many years of Worker agent in this city, she goes out every day when the Daily bundle ville, N. C., Woolen Mills, employ- jeomes in, from house to house, till ing 200 men and women, working 60 hours a day and 65 night shift, | nas recently laid off every worker in the mill for six months. This is an addition to the many | thousands of unemployed that are | already looking and have been look- ing for work for many months, but! in vain. The workers in this mill have been carrying on agitation for or- ganization, and most of them are members of the National Textile Workers’ Union. Write About Your Conditions every copy is sold, and when she meets a worker who does not have the 3 cents (and you will find al- ways workers in this section who cannot spare 3 cents) she will give him the Daily, and tell him that he can pay for it when he does have it. Here is hoping for many more |like “Grannie” McGinnis. q —For the N. T. W. U. INTERNATIONAL RAYON MERGER PLANNED. FRANKFORT.—Dr. Bleuthgen, head of big international rayon combine, will sail from Germany to America to plan the merger of Worker Correspondent. The members Street Carmen’s Union are now ficials and their henchmen as usual about to receive the benefits ac-| threw cold watet on the motion. cruing from the double-dealing and) They advised the rank and file to of Division 268 ly debated. Our “progressive” of- class-collaboration activities of our | “go slow,” to “do nothing pre Camden Plant | Camden, N. J. eto Dear Comrade Editor:— | Unemployment is terrible here | is Camden. Thousands of work- | apply for work here every day the Victor Talking Machine Co. | ey wait all night long until orning when the employment of- | opens. Then they fight like | dogs, in line. yey have cops here all the time | chase the workers when they too numerous, On ac- int of the speed-up the work- are always quitting, so they a few worker§ every day. Byt a § dollars a week less than the ones that quit, 44 cents an hr. le the average pay here for men at Victor’s, The Catholic church- ee’ propaganda has: poisoned many workers minds against the Soviet Union. ‘The Catholic church is the worst of mankind. I used to be a jeman Catholic but I became con- verted to Communism. I want to pet revenge on the pope and the war profiteering buzzards of Wall atreet for tricking me into the lest war. \ % Comradely, —WAR VET. apes Outside Leningrad, June 1. Aboard ‘S. S. Schenectady’. | Daily Worker, N. Y., | | | Dear Comrades:— Most of the seamen aboard this | seow didn’t know how rotten our conditions were until we got to | Leningrad, where we went aboard some Soviet ships and saw how | they have it. Where we sleep ten together in a dingy, dirty fo’castle, the Soviet seamen sleep two in a room, on real beds with white linen and writing tables. Where we eat in a mangy, greasy mess room out of tin gear, they sit on chairs in » well lighted decorated dining room with reading room and_ radio alongside (on U. S. ships there is a stinking washroom alongside with the banging steaming engine room on the other side). And to .compare what we get to eat and what they eat! As I write this 1 could vomit from the thought of the terrible grub dished out to us, rotten beef, stale margerine, powdered milk and eggs and sour bread. In the bargain, the Soviet sea- men, A. B. gets approximately $25 a month more than we do, other classes of work accordingly. They get working clothes free, get paid for overtime where we don’t. ete. Evenings they get instructed in some useful courses, so they can \ all this. advance themselves. They have a library and wall paper, on which they can freely put their opinions and suggestions, etc. Well, the men on our ship sure opened their eyes when they saw And one of the results was when the ship was to leave Leningrad and they woke us up at union officials. The Cleveland Railway Company for which we work has been gob- bled up by the Van Swerigin octu- pus which has already announced a wage ‘cut to take effect on July 20, on what is known as the “Rapid Transit” division. This is how these “kind and con- gentlemen” who have the “most 4 a.m. on Sunday, we all kicked, | whereas before no one would have | the courage to argue with the mate. And Sunday afternoon when they wanted us to go down and clean out the holds, the men held | together (to the surprise of the | bos'n and mate!) and demanded 60 | cents an hour or time back. And we won the strike, although the captain tried to intimidate us by | hinting of “charges.” | These seamen are going to join the Marine Workers Industrial Union. Already they have pledged to defend the Soviet Union! Amer- ican seamen, into the M. W. I. U. for. human, decent living and working conditions. ARTHUR NILSON, “s, S. Schenectady.” * . P.S.—I was glad to find all re- cent copies of the Daily Worker at the Interrational Seamens Club in Leningrad, \ intend to dispose of the union men now on the job. They have informed them that a! “new” company has taken over the line and will permit them to con- tinue on the job provided they make applications for re-employment, ac- cept a wage cut of 15 cents per hour and pass a steam road test. These men being members of our union, attended en masse the last business - meeting and demanded that action be taken at once to fight against this announced wage cut, One after another they took the floor and pointed out that this “new” company announcement is |only the thin end of the wedge | They pointed out that the “new”! ‘company has no intention of re- hiring them as they already have | a full complement of scabs ready | to continue operation on the 20th next, A motion that we tie un the city tnd suburbs by walking off the job! siderate executives,” these “affable | beautiful office we were ever in”) ture” as they, the union officials, might be able to make the com- pany “change their minds.” At the suggestion of the fakers a substi- tute motion was passed authorizing them to call in our International President, Mahon, and have him “negotiate” with the “new” com: pany. Brothers, street car men of Cleveland, if we are to fight off this coming wage cut and worsening of | conditions, successfully, we must first begin by kicking out the labor fakers in our union, i. e. the offi+ cials and their henchmen on the executive board, and affiliate our local with the Trade Union Unity League, the only progressive labor _ body composed solely of rank and file workers who fight their bat- tles with mass strikes and mass | picketing, then elect a strike com- | mittee and a defense corps for each | [car house and with these forces we |can meet the “new” bosses’ on-! slaught with a demand for imcreased | wages and the seven-hour day, and | force them to concede; but if we) allow ourselves to be led out on) | strike by our present officials, loca’ | or international, we will surely meet | the same fate as our brothers in New Orleans. Next week another | letter on the same subject, also} | Bussmen and Booze Parties! CARMAN No. 2 three American rayon firms which was started last year, BROUNA SOCIAL-FASCIST Sheds Yellow Tears to Save Bosses June 20, 1920. Mr. Heywood Broun, New York Telegram, New York City, Dear Mr. Broun: No policeman forces me to read your column. Not evem the po- | liceman who beat me up for pro- | testing against the militarization | of our youth. My appreciation of your contribution in the Sacco- Vanzetti case at the sacrifice of | your job with the New York World makes me read your col- umn. Each day, as 1 pick up your column, I am hopeful that you will leave off kibbetzing and dorbetzing and devote yourself to the noble cause of fighting for justice as you did in the case of the mutderous State of Massaehu- setts. I am the guilty one. I wrote in the Communist paper that your employment agency, distribution of cigarettes, etc. was like making a hole in water. During the war I travelled from one training camp to another. I was hungry and thirsty and longing to write to my Kome. In the station a good looking young fellow offered me a post card, an apple and a glass of lemonade—with these words: “I give you this. When you get to Franco, fight the Germans like hell.” Something of the same feeling came to me in your em- ployment office. Much hungrier and unhappier I find myself in giving a group of young ladies a thrill, It's a wonderful pastime. On several jobs I have checked up, but it was always a case of firing a higher priced person and replacing him with someone from | your office. | The Communist slogan of work | | | or wages is more practical than your venture. It’s not a very happy situation that the Communist Party hasn’t enough money and sufficient forces to print and distribute good literature. The American work- ers know who are their friends and the language that you employ is just as far away from the American worker as is the Com- munist lingo. . You know well that the Con- aressional Committee does not come to investigate the Commu- nist movement, but comes with the ieee purpose of suppressing it. Combatting the Communists seems to have become one of your recent hobbies, Our Quaker president adds no glory to Quakerism. The blood shed in Boston seems to have been in vain, ‘The Communist movement seeks been black-listed and has not been} proved. The boss aint goin’ to do | Granny, altho she is quite old, and | torture that she has been subjected | to in the textile mills, is the Daily | GYPPED BY YWCA Wants to Know How to Get A Worker’s Rights | Brooklyn, Y., June 23, 1930. To the Editor: Dear Sir: For two years and a few months worked seven days a week without ja day off or pty for the extra Sun- {day work. I constantly asked for remuneration but could never get satisfaction from anyone. Finally \it Jed to my dismissal. This work was done for the Young Womens’ Christian Asso ion, Central Will you pl I can get my large family an attorney f a contingent b: greatly if you could dir people. With thanks for your courtesy, I am, \ @ Very truly yours, | THOMAS §. JONES. * * Editorial not |sands of other | Jones is beginning to jeulty of getting his r \worker by individual effort jhe cannot even get the “justic the bosses of laws in regards to pay- ment for work do And the “Christian” association for which he worker is typical of the “C bosses that maintain the i for their own purposes, The lesson that th experience of | Comrade Jones drives home is thi | that the workers must fight actively | for their rights, that the fight must be in an organized fashion. Today the workers have the Trade Union Unity League and its affiliated unions as those organizations that eee lead them in the day-to-day bread and butter struggles. Comrade Jonés should jiun the | Trade Union Unity League union jin the trade to which he belongs and jin an organized manner will be able to fight for his rights as a worker. \Graduate Nurse, With No Work, Is Suicide |night told Charles B. Cool manager of the hotel, that | been unable to find work,” sa; press stories. Then they recount | that the body of Mrs. Margery Craig Newell, skilled worker, grad- uate nurse, was found dead with a bottle of cyanide of potassium be- side it. This shows the conditions. The Communist remedy is not poison, but organization around the slo- gan, “Work or Wages.” PORTUGAL TO SPEND $60,000,000 FOR WAR. LISBON.—The Portugese bosses will spend $60,000,000 in the next 8 years for naval construction. to strike at the root of the mat- ter—to do away with a world of robbery and establish a world of justice. Do as you intended once, jump into the boat and sail against all hard winds, against the armed capitalist state and for those who will bring the dawn of a new day! Yours very truly, DAVID LYNIN. hin * Editorial Note:—That Comrade Lynin has yet to learn of the true role of that newly initiated social- fascist, Heywood Broun, is self- evident from his above letter. Broun, with as inane a column as ever won the plaudits of the pink petite bourgeois “liberals minded,” is, as Lynin points out, the latest recruit in the anti- Communist drive started by the Fish committee. Typical petite bourgeois that he is, Broun makes use of “liberal” or even “radical” sentimentalities to earn his thou- sands in the service of the cap- italist press. Comrade Lynin allows himself to be confused when Broun speaks of a “Communist lingo.” True the American workers have not been educated to make an ap- proach to intricate economic and political problems which necessi- tates formal phrases at times, but that they are rapidly learning is quite evident. To ask a choice social-fascist to join in the revolutionary move- ment is to lose sight of the role these “socialists” betrayers play in the class struggle, that of the last “labor” reserve of capitalism. Witness the blood brothers of Broun’s party in Great Britain, ordering the wholesale massacre of hundreds of Indian workers and peasants. Social-fascists, even bigwig columnists, are to be rec- ognized only as hangmen of the working class. The work for “Work or Wages” must be the fight of the workers under Communist leadership, Write as you fight! Become a worker correspondent