The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 16, 1930, Page 3

- Fe ay wre ¥ _WORKER NEW YORK, See AY, a GUST 16; 1930 _ disks: Wwe trTe ke S&S “= INLAND STEEL WORKERS DROP TO FLOOR; HEAT AND SPEED-UP TERRIFIC Vv ith Speed-up, Wage Cuts and Unemployment _ Rife Among Steel Workers, Strike Needed il Workers Too Are Ready For Fight and Are| Organizing Into Trade Union Unity League daily Worker: i There are two steel mills her ills in the central west, which is int “aying off workers by thethousands. rprints every worker that gets a job es ees nembers of the movement and finge here, The other day 5 Negro workers ind one white worker were taken o the hospital because they were Yorced to work in the heat of 150 o 200 degrees at such terrific speed phat they all “played out” droping ineonscious on the floor. This hap- ened particularly in the Sheet Mills ind the Open Hearths. When these \vorkers returned back for their jobs fis all were fired. This company fhas a saving system for workers mployed 18 months, The company Organize Shop Committees in Your I educts 5 per cent every two weeks ut of the workers pay and buys hares for the workers. This helps ) create willing slaves for the com- any, as they are told time and gain that they (workers) are part wners of the mill. The lowest paid workers get 35 to 40 cents per hour snd two or three days per week. Starvation and want is all around here. Youngstown Slave Drivers. The Youngstown Sheet and Tube Jo. is the other steel mill here. vho take money from the workers or jobs. But as it happens, these orkers only work a few days and hen they are fired. The names of he two employment crooks are “Steve” and “Bruce Darrow” who vork hand in glove with police and he city administration of East Chi- go. The one named B. Darrow s known as red baiter and he is jlways on the heels of our most ac- ive comrades, blacklisting them and ailing them with the help of the ity police, thugs and private agents bf the bosses. ieeting at Empire Oil Co. and | nary | toeny Bunores workers list-| a ae Seledaed the next| work and then fire them. just the same the Metal Work- Industrial League is growing the Unemployed Council meet- are swelling. ed for permit to hold Au- Antioch, Calif. Jear Comrades: A few months ago the U. S. Steel k over the Columbia Steel Corp. ere in this Pacific Coast center of eel, chemical and rubber industry. \bout the same time the U. S. Steel ucleus was formed, and now we have a nucleus in the rubber mill. rhis is in Pittsburg, Calif. The own is completely company owned, you see we are working under il- gal conditions. U. S. Steel has a hack of trained stools after us, and ome of us have been exposed, Low Wages. In the steel mills, the eight-hour lay has been started in departments where it was not in effect. In the ,ail mill feeders formerly made round $6.25 for a 12-hour day; now hey make around $4.00; $16 for the iv Helpers make less. Short Time. The sheet mill frequently has a hree-day week. The wire netting department has shut down since U. S. Steel came n. The Tin Mill had a four-day week two weeks ago, and most of | he steel rolled was light. It prob- vbly wont be long before they run this department on a_ three-day veek. Men go and come from the astern mills all the time, from \vhich the railroads profit and the ompany profits, while the worker ays back the fare. Recently a vorker was killed in the foundry vhen a dilapidated platform for arrying flasks collapsed, and let he flash slide onto the worker and yvush him to death. The company sunlly can find a way to excuse ll accidents (calling them the work- ys’ fault), but it tried to keep this viet, The nucleus exposed the soss negligence of this company hey have two employment men} The other day we had a gate! demonstration but the| ® East Chicago, Ind. e, two oil refineries and one cement lant. The Inland Steel Co. is one of the most powerful independent steel troducing more machinery every day, It also black-lists the most active |New Machinery, More Slavery For the Tin Workers, McKeesport McKeesport, Pa. Daily Worker:— The bosses in the McKeesport Tin Plate Co. brag about the new pat- tern double machines they have in the mill. They say no worker didn’t lose his job with this new machine, but, boy, they sure get more work to do now. With this new machine the catch- ers, roughers, sccrew boys and“pair beaters get more work to do new. These workers get more work and yet they get between a five and ten per cent wage-cut. The beat- ers, single boys, doubles and rollers that didn’t get more work to do, get a biger cut than the rest of the workers that have more work to do. Workers of the McKeesport Tin Plate Co., join the Metal Workers’ Industrial League, the League that fights all rotten conditions in mills. This goes for the young and older alike. —YOUNG HOT MILL WORKER. ee REY TT RTE mayor and chief of police refused us. We announced that permit or no permit we are going to hold the demonstration anyway and we are. We have had some factory gate meetings and one or two street corner meetings and they were very successful. The workers are ready to join us and fight for our de- mands. There are still few work- ers here which are very disillusioned, due to the A. F. of L, betraying the steel strike in 1919, But this is easily combatted when we tell the iy Bes? sIAney r Correspondent! company hires men for | workers that our T.U.U.L., Com- munist Party and Young Commun. ist League are not the organizations of the A. F. of L. They look to r+ with hope and respect and they are ready to fight for better working conditions. —STEEL WORKER. U. S. Steel Spies Track Men in Pittsburgh, Cal. Plant which plasters the walls with safety slogans—in the shop bulletin. The workers in this town are be- ing rapidly radicalized. In two Red Sundays only two houses visited did not give a favorable response. And this includes the Italians and Mex- icans, as well as the native-born Negroes and whites. We are in urgent need of more Mexican and Italian language literature. The steel mills, the rubber mills, and three chemical plants producing nitrates and poison gases give us a big task. And now Shell is build- ing a $7,000,000 nitrate plant here. Yours for more intensified wérk, J. H. Chicago Section Steel Plants Now On 2, 3 Day Basis Chicago, Tl. Daily Worker, Dear Sir: The steel mills around South Chi- cago and Indiana Harbor are work- ing two and three days a week. women out of work. cents wheat in Kansas, Thave a clipping sent to me from Ireland. It says Henry Ford is turning out 300 tractors a day or about 90,000 a year. Ford moved his tractor plant to Cork, Ireland, 2 or 3 years ago, so he could get cheap labor. Ford is one of our dry hypocrites that fires anyone that works for him who takes a drink. This winter will be a tough one in America, a smany farmers will be broke, crops burned out. AN EX-SERVICEMAN, Sixty-three Chicago is still full of men and} Where Steel ies Are Scrapped At 45 nar 40 Years Life is literally burned out of the steel workers in the great speedup in the industry. seit Ewing Galloway Schwab and the other big steel bosses recently declared that 45 or even 40 is the deadline for all workers— the rest are to be scrapped. Only by organization of the steel workers into the Metal Trades Workers Industrial Union, and wide-spread strike struggle can the steel workers fight the murderous speedup and the s ping them. ances eel bosses scrap- Only when organized can the steel workers fight for accident, sickness and disability insur- Above scene shows workers pouring ingots into the open hearth steel department at the Bethlehem East Chicago Steel Workers Want Organization and More | Action From MTWU Group East Chicago, Ind. (Indiana Harbor, Ind. Daily Worker: pay. That’s in Inland Steel Co, T understand there is a certain shop committee here and many Dear Comrades: workers have been looking forward T just want to tell you a few | to this committee for some action. things about Inland Steel Co. here! But much to my surprise, I see no in Indiana Harbor, Indiana. | shop paper or any kind stickers * This company is so hungry for| which will explain to the workers profits that now the workers must} what to do in order to fight against work till the last minute, if they| these rotten conditions. wish to retain their job. Some time! Ready For Fight. | ago, the company maintained cer-| Of course, I hear a lot about the tain rules for washing up before the! yeds here and the Times is printing time is up, but now if a worker) many columns telling all about stops to breath for a second he is|inem, But somehow these damn fired. capitalists papers lie like hell for a worker give one a Daily Worker the other day and there I found, what to my mind seem to be, the truth about conditions here in U. S. and everywhere and I tell you, I am/ not only interesting about the revo- lution in China, but I wish the Christ I could stop somehow the warships | sent by U. S. capitalists to fight | the workers’ Red Army there and to erush the revolution. Somehow I wish I could go there to fight) | shoulder to shoulder for the real) interest of my class...the working | class. Vicious Speed Up. The bosses are on the heels of) as workers every minute of the day, for he is told to speed us up to the! limit. The workers are sore as hell,; and it is no surprise that so many} of the workers turned out to de- monstrate against war, speed up) and wage cuts last Friday night. You could hear for hours after the police beat up about a dozen workers at the demonstration, how the work- ers were swearing and gritting thei: teeth against police brutality. Want Action From Shep Committee. Due to speed-up many workers | Take for instance those fellow! get hurt, but the company forces | workers engaged on the cold rolls.|them to come to work anyway s0| They are told openly that if they| they won’t have to pay compensa- | can not roll 70,000 pounds of sheet | tion insurance. The workers are steel in 8 hours to get the hell out.| ready to take guns and kill every| Before they used to put out about! son of bitch of a capitalist and their | 80,000 pounds of steel in eight hours! flunkies, and for more money. Now twice! Please print this in your paper. as much work, and half as much} —A STEEL WORKER. GARY STEEL TOILERS REPLACED BY MACHINES AS BOSSES LOWER WAGE Gary, Ind. were able by speeding up to make | from $2 to $4 bonus per day in © addition to the measly $4 they received as wages. The bosses thought this was too much money for the workers, so they took away the Tie Plate Tonnage, in other words, this had to be loaded just the same, but they were not to receive the bonus rate on this Daily Worker: Dear Comrade: I will point out some of the wage cuts and speed-up that have taken vlace in my section of the steel plant here in Gary. I am working in the Merchant Mills and the Merchant Mill Warehouse. The workers here are working ten hours where they work steady | amount. ‘This cut in bonus days or where the two shift sys- | amounted to $1 to $2 or better tem is applied. Where the three | per day. shift is in effect, eight hours, The ten hour men receive $4.40 per day, while the eight hour men get $4 with the bonus rate for speed-up. About a year ago, before the Wall St. crash was really felt, all hookers, loaders, carmen, and cranemen, working in the ware- Now that the production of steel has fallen off so much that it is impossible to make any bonus whatsoever, $4 is the aver- age wage per day and that about three or four days and less for | most workers, Another thing to call to the at- tention of the workers is the box | ) house under the bonus system | car loading machines. A few 1 A Fighter Too 3 Baby Castoff and Mother Cas off of Johnstown, Pa., delegates to the miners convention in Pitts- burgh, August 26-28. If Baby Casoff ta mother (and he looks as if he will) he'll sure be a spunity little fight er for the working class. RED FLAG} Carry the Red a Flag high Under its color upon the sky Dare to live. es after his Fight the capitalist gain Watch our Cause through its pain Of birth. We bow no more to the cruel Lash of the parasite rule We rise In one body, stand and acclaim in one voice the awaited name Of Sovietism, |}penings that take place at one of| |the hotels in the Catskill Mts. eaaaih Point 5 itee Ow Life in Yaddenin SpE, ont Neen fi =— * he WV 1] A ud ht ch g Speedup As Schwab Piles Up Millions Organize Shop Committee of the Metal Trades Workers Industria) Union and Prepare vor Siril Negro and White Workers Must U Editor, Daily Worker :— The word is passed oll o sary workers, put more work o1 at all cost. And under the edicts of sures forced forced upon the workers Organize Shob Correspondents Steel Workers:— In your day-to-day fight against speed-up, wage-cuts, lay-offs and bad working conditions the bosses are forcing more and more upon you, yan have a weapon in the Daily Worker. In your fight for organization and preparation for strike struggle you have in the Daily Worker a power- ful instrument for mobilizing and welding the steel workers in all sec- tions of the country’ Place the Daily Worker in your | front ranks in the fight against the bosses. Organize a grcup of workers in|! to the Daily Worker and help mob- ilize the workers in the planc for} struggle. Organize a Worker Correspondents’ group in all plants to tie up all struggles. Workers who wish to organize a Worker Correspondent group should immediately write to the Daily Worker, Worker Correspondence Dept., 26 Union Square, New York. SLAVE DRIVING IN BOSS HOTEL Collegiates With Seab Outlook Hurleyville, N. Y. Dear Comrades of the Daily Worker: “I want to tell some of the hap- It |is supposed to be a highclass hotel at Luzon Station called the Morn- |, ingside, . There are about 150 workers, white and Negro, foreign-born and |native. Hiring and firing is a daily | occurrence. To me this large estate looks like the old time southern | slave plantations. The other day a_ dishwasher came in five minutes late and the gorilla manager, Mr. Bergman, thought that it’ is a good reason to fire him as he had too many on hand, but the other five pearl-divers | would not stand for it and they left! the slave plantation. Rah-rah Boys Waiters. I am a waitress and spread the news in the dining room, All the | busboys are college students and a |few waitresses go to Hunter Col- lege and follow the goose step. I told them we ought to follow the footsteps of the dishwashers and de-}| mand human working conditions. The goosesteppers told me don’t intend to follow in this line of work so why should they become Bolsheviks and in the second place they thought they had nothing in} common with dishwashers, Fellow- | workers, the future belongs to the| working men and women and not to the intellectuals. the dishwashers have more fighting spirit and more intelligence than the future doctor or lawyer. —Waitres. years ago it took from fifty to sixty workers to load these cars in the old way. Now with the aid of this mechanical robot, it takes three men. One operator and two hookers. The operator receives $5.50 and the two hook- ers receive $4.40 each for ten hours. Compare this with the cost of fifty or sixty men at the usual rate of $4.40. The new 28 mill just completed rolled over | five hundred and sixty tons in one | shift. Nothing has been over- looked in efficiency. The rough- ing and finishing courses are on one direct line instead of running the hot billet back and forth as is done on the older type mills, | through the different sets of rolls. All the smaller roller lines oper- ate on high duty roller bearings instead of the old type ‘plain bearings. All gearing is enclosed and runing in oil instead of the | | old type exposed gears. This means more efficiency, less men, less wear, greater pro- duction and more lay-offs, Of all the twelve Merchnat mills, none are running full time. Schedules are from one to four days a week, This has been going on with the exception of a little spring rush, since 'ast August, The °° ions of the workers are pitiful and poverty and starvation are the order of the day in the boss owned, bo controlled city of Gary. "* are some of the con- ditions as they exist in my section of the mill and I think are a good example of what is goinr on throughout the entire plant. STEELMAN. —————® where the worke Steel Workers they | It proves that) t Strus in Fighting Our C En- mon emy—the Sparrows Point, Md. ver—Cut down on cost, speed up production, lay off unneces- n less men; we, the bosses, must have more profits—profits the bosses there develops the results that such inhuman mea- would naturally produce. The steel mills become battlefields are speeded up to the highest degree and every day witnesses more workers of the mills listed in the hospitals of Baltimore and waiting at the dispensaries of the Bethlehem Steel Co. to get ban- daged up. 46-INCH MILL. The new order says cut down on expenses and soon a reaction is felt in the fort I tha P| strange m ween n the Plate F come to tak e of the ex- workers w n orgy of hau Hoel 3 who have acquired a slow un ly step after | being ihe up to the highest for {eight hours producing profits for the Schwab: ises of millions for the pre: * From the first of the year the eight-hour turn replaced the twelve-hour turn that we Plate Mill workers formerly had. Twelve speeding up ani hours work had left a terrible penses. For mark on the faces and hodies of worker that was oili the workers but even so the eight- up the manipulate hours was received with displea- sure because we were just able to allowed two barrels of oil to do the , then it cut down to one then it w dow He to half then to ten nd ame | for this Ne-| ze on oil to exist on the tonnage rate that we made for the twelve hours and it was impossible for us to under- stand how we were going to live on the tonnage for eight hours. Before we used to make 250 tons your mill that will write regularly |2°W it is five gallor |a very serious probl |gro worker to econow Where Speedup Is Rampant and Killing equi v mill at the Sparrows Point plant of the Bethle | such an extent for the twelye-hour turn, for average man who earned un-| from $2.65 to $3.15 for of it dred tons meant about in -50 for the twelve-hours at rail i got blooms. Assault On Negro Worker. | ; The s' the mill| § ght-hours work | that the m: r ed whit v y makes a reduc- | worker inspecting the mill saw sev-| tion of approximately twenty-five | per cent in wages, For the two weeks pay it is a familiar sight enyslaye ranging from (rats 1s One OF MY GENT the mill runs f wi Organize pon eral cups empty |the Ne abu ally Imina) |telling the jis go Th | did white worke and beat the 2 of two dier move: Mill worker ed tons and on the j s towards red tons Co. for six year one day in was his re him to us of oil to | jorder to i bosses. and Workers Must The gre f th confusion this white trained from groes was hi worker but against « ses who force u conditions. Every four new the Plat we ses side a y color, A two- oduction means ‘on for the boss (Continued on Page Four), ter | the Mills of the Bethlehem| picture of anoth Just as in trenches of| hundred ton turn regiments of soldiers re-|a maximum product wounded and tired, so it e Steel Co. war new Ilieve the