The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 11, 1930, Page 3

DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1930 vage Three Burk Bros. Leather Co. Divides Workers to Speed Them Up; Broke Union Wages Once Were $40 a Week Are Now Aver- aging $20.for Those Still Working Workers Must Organize to Fight Against In- tolerable Conditions Now Existing Philadelphia, Pa. Daily Worker :— Since 1918 the Burk Bros. Leather Co. started to drive the workers worse than ever. Before 1918 there existed a anion and shop committees. That time the bosses had to agree with the workers’ demands. The workers had more say about the workers that were needed. When the workers saw that they needed more men they used to hire them themselves. There were no stool-pigeons or spies that treated the bosses with: booze, nor speed-up guys as there are now. MCKEESPORT TIN |.2%.2oc"e" sees. MEN MUST FIGHT SHORT TIME WORK | their factory. for a long time and Speedup and Then Lay Off Bosses Scheme (By a Worker Correspondent) McKEESPORT, Pa.—We workers | Later they opened and took in non- union workers. Since that time when the union was broken up the workers have lost hope and don’t even think of organizing or joining the union. Cut Wages. The bosses have cut wages from an average of $40 to the average of $20 per week now. At that time the workers started |at 7 o’clock in the morning and | worked until 4 to 5 o’clock at night. The workers are divided into cate- in| | telling the men there was no work. | of the McKeesport Tin Plate Com- pany worked every day during the hot summer days and six days a week, where before we had five days in a week. | Every Friday the boss would put a notice in the office: just one more | week, workers, just one more week to work six days in a week, and that | lastéd all summer. Many workers | were sick and all in from the heat, | and the bosses would coax the work- | ers to finish the turn. Some of the | workers were so tired and sick that when they would go home their| heads would be resting on their chests. While the Bosses Brag The bosses and their suckers would brag how good the tin mill| was working all summer, and going | to work steady in the winter, while | the other mills in McKeesport were | working half time. The Reward For slaving all the hot summer in the hot mill department the bosses put our reward on the office window. This week, September 26, mills from 28 to 44 shall work during the week of September 29 to October 8, and mills from 1 to 22 shall be laid off that week, ard the follow- ing week 1 to 22 shall work and the other mills shall be laid off that week, | Workers, this is the company’s wage cut, but in a different way. Instead of cutting us they make | us work half time, which is just as a wage cut of fifty per cent. | They do it this way because it | does not look so openly like a wage cut. Join the M. W. I. L. Workers of the McKeesport Tin| Plate Company, wake up and get wise to yourselves. The only way we can fight for better working con- ditions and shorter hours, six hours a day and the five day week is by fighting for it under the leadership | of the Metal Workers Industrial | League. Many Jobless We have in McKeesport between three and four thousand workers unemployed. Every mill in McKees- port isn’t working steady. If you walk down the streets in McKees- port some hungry workers will ask you for a dime or nickel for a cup of coffee. Many workers sleep in the streets and several under the bridges, so no cop would see them. Workers of McKeesport, do not for- get to vote Communist this coming election! —A DOUBLE WORKER. MARINE WORKER UNION SECRETARY FACES YEAR NORFOLK, Va., Oct. 9.—Archie Gibbs, Marine Workers Industrial Union secretary here, was arrested today and faces a year inthe chain gang if convicted in a hostile court. The fact that he is regularly em- ployed organizing marine workers only makes a capitalist judge more hostile. The trial is set for tomorrow morning. The workers here demand @ postponement to prepare defense. Gibbs was just released two weeks ago from a 90-day sentence given him as a result of a frame up by the Seamen’s Church Institute. MORE LAY-OFFS IN TOOL CO. HOUSTON, Texas.—The Houghs Tool Co. laid off 450 men Monday, Sept. 22, and laid off 50 more today. This company is now working only six hours a day ond a five day week, The workers are paid by the hour, jis piled up and after the holidays | the double speed-up begins for long- gories of oppression and nationality. The workers are made to hate each | other on account of different na- | tionality. They don’t want to know | that it has nothing to do with the work. That it makes it better for the boss when they don’t agree with each other. That’s why the bosses exploit the workers in every move- ment. And here are a few facts: The boss keeps the workers from one department two hours longer while the next department goes home two hours earlies, so that makes workers disagree against each other. Bosses Divide Men. Further, here is an illustration | how the bosses know how to get rid of skilled workers and take un- skilled laborers in their place. The boss hires a laborer and has taught for a short time by the skilled worker, then gives him less wages. This worker does about the same | work the skilled worker did but works for lower wages. Then the skilled worker has nothing to do in the factory. This is only done on some floors. Here are more. de- tails: How the bosses know how to make double speed-up. They show the workers how holy they are. On every holiday the bosses give the workers 2 to 3 days off. Then in two weeks around the workers get another couple days off again. What does that mean? That means that during the holidays the work er hours, more speed-up and less wages. This is in practice almost every month. No Union. There is no workers’ union in our shop. But we have a minis- ter union, so-called Pilsudski’s Committee, which works hand in hand with the bosses. Even the bosses allowed this committee to { tack the placards on the gate of the factory about an excursion for the purpose of Church. But does the boss allow the workers placards on the gates? No be cause that is used for the work- ers’ purposes. There are a group of other work- ers that have lighter work without speed-up and get higher wages than others. Those workers do not want to have anything to do with foreign workers. But do the workers take any consideration in this? Not at .. They do not read workers’ pa- \pers, and do not even think of the way to better their conditions. But instead of thinking, they do plenty of drinking to forget about the mis- erable conditions they are living in. They talk about baseball games, fist fighters so that they will know who ul be the next champion. But fellow workers, such talks will never better our conditions in the shops, the terrible situation and longer hours, smaller wages, double speed-up and so on will teach us. And you bosses don’t forget it either. Without reading the workers’ only working class paper and other language work- ers’ papers, And without joining the Trade Union Unity League, we cannot do anything unless we all join one revolutionary organ- ization. Otherwise the bosses will be crushing the life out of us as they are doing now. —One of the Workers. TEN CENTS AN HOUR! HOUSTON, Texas. — The City of Fort Worth is making Clear Lake larger and exploiting workers, taking advantage of the large lay- offs of workers. This work-is all being done by white labor. The scale of wages on this job is ten cents and fifteen cents an hour, It is a hurry-up job. The workers are work- ing twelve to sixteen hours a day. iy ELL THEM JZ> The straw bosses in the Burk Leather Company factory try to divide the workers and speed them up, by playing one nationality against the others. This is an old bosses’ trick, and used to pit the workers against each other in working faster and not talking to each other. * * * The foremen say: the men can talk anything, about the world series, about their clubs, and such things. But not about the fact that their wages are being cut, that the speed-up is great. “No union talk” the straw bosses say viciously. For “union talk” means | organization and fight for decent conditions for the men. “Youst. Guys CAN TALK \ THE BOOXE IVE BEEV {WU SEZ7AN¢ From Tem 3 | he THEM [DAMN THEM POLBEKS ji } Ey) AVY Ting Gur Untorr |i Tey AIN'T Bet BRINGIN' | INE CANNOT WorRK AND WE MUST Do SOMETHING '}\ Live LIKE THIS, WE MUST) ORGANIZE AD FIGHT a ne ae ze 2 The straw bosses want the men sucking around them, giving them booze, presents, and sometimes money. And when collections are taken up you got to give. He play the native born workers and curses ens vengeance. * * The workers, sweeting blood every day, finding their slim payroll not enough to feed the wife and kids and take in a movie on Satur- day, see through the vicious tricks of the straw bosses in trying to keep them divided, doped with all fight. By RYAN WALKER. s off the skilled and in this case the unskilled workers and threat- * kind of junk, and begin to talk Phila. Worcorrs | Conference, Oct. 12 The second city to call a conference, Philadelphia worker correspondents will hold their first conference Sunday, October 1ith, at 567 North 5th St., at 2 p.m. The worker correspondents are to be especially mobilized for the workers press during the election campaign, in exposing daily the tricks schemes of the three capitalist parties, and showing the need for a fight for the Communist election program. Reports will be made by a Daily Worker worker correspondence representative and a local worker correspondent. All workers who wish to become worker correspondents of their press should not fail to attend this conference. | Jacob Shoe Bosses Fear Militant Talk in Shop Brooklyn, N. Y. Daily Worker :— Let me tell you something about the real “convict made goods.” I am working in the Jacob and Son Shoe Co., located | at Wythe and Penn Sts. here in Brooklyn. I have been work- |ing in this place for the last few years. The conditions of the | workers in the lasting department are worse than bad. I have a family to support, but I am sure that if I keep on working in this lasting department of the Jacob and Son or any other de- partment without an organization my family will be deprived of all necessities of life. Bosses Fear Communists. The bosses here, not contented with the manner in which the work- ers are exploited in the factory, are now introducing the methods im- posed upon the workers when they lived as chattel slaves. The Com- munist Party is holding meetings in front of the factory every week. And I must admit here that all the honest workers have a lot of re- spect for the determination on the part of the Communist Party for the organization of us workers against the ever-growing bad condi- tions. At the orders of Mr. A.D. Basch, the superintendent of the factory, the workers were ordered not to come near the Communist speak- ers, and when the workers in spite of the bosses’ orders came near to the speakers’ stand today when the meeting was held the superinten- dent had his dogs to drive the work- ers back to the factory. Gag Any Militant Talk. In plain words, we workers in the Jacob and Son shoe factory are not allowed to even listen to Com- munist speakers, not allowed to go out of the factory at lunch hours if the Communists happen to be around, not allowed to buy the Daily Worker, not allowed to talk about organization inside the shop, not al- lowed to make any remarks about the wage-cuts that we are continu- ally getting, not allowed to go to the fire escape during the lunch hours and many other things. If this does not mean that we are ac- tually prisoners at the order of the Jacob and Son Co. then what is it? 300,000 By CHARLES BLANK (Worker Correspondent) Over 300,000 workers in differ- ent branches of the leather indus- try are being exploited in differ- ent parts of the country. A very small percentage of the workers in the industry is organized and the bosses have a free hand to do ith the workers what they please. In work shops filled with poison- ous rotten air they have to work long hours under a killing speed- up system. Yellow dog contracts enslave the workers to their jobs. Workers are blacklisted and spied upon if found taking part in any union activity. Workers are in constant fear of losing their jobs and suffer from all kinds of abuse from their bosses and foremen, Workers Embittered The workers in all branches of If the Fish Committee, or the Wall Street bosses are looking for any “convict made goods” they need not speak so loud about the Soviet Union “convict made goods,” be- |cause the workers are free over there, but let them come to the Ja- | cob and Son and then they will know jwhere “convict made goods” is | made. Bosses Have Nightmare. The bosses here fear the organiza- tion of the workers. They seem to} have dreadful dreams about the fact | that as soon as the workers here will organize, the bosses here will have to pay these workers decent living wages, give the workers less hours of work. This, of course, is to be! expected from the bosses. Their! dreams are dreadful now. But let| us workers of the Jacob Shoe or- ganize. Organized under the leadership of the Independent Shoe Workers’ Union, affiliated to the Trade Union Unity League and with a Commu- nist leadership we will be able to make the bosses allow our demands for higher wages, lesser hours and many others. When organized the bosses will not be able to keep us| in the factory as convicts. —SHOE WORKER. COLLECTORS WIN NEW ORLEANS, La. — A quick strike by garbage collectors em- ployed by the city forced Mayor Walmsley to return to full time pay schedule. In an effort to cut ‘city expenses, the collectors were cut to | leans, etc. three days a week with a similar cut in wages. the industry are embittered against the wage cuts and speed- up system, but they have to be organized under militant leader- | ship. The Trade Union Unity | League must give more attention to the leather industries, The narrow and loose activities of the different groups in the leather industries must be re- placed by activities planned joint- ly by all the organized groups. Leading comrades in the differ- ent branches of the industry must come together and work out a plan of action for the different branches in the industry. The “Organize and Strike Fund” drive must embrace all branches of the industry. The situation in every branch of the industry must be studied carefully and contacts built up with workers in as many shops as possible. ‘MANY FORCED 10 | SEA SLAVING AT HUNGER WAGES Joining the MWIU to Fight Misery (By a Worker Correspondent) S.S. “CITY OF PHILADEL- I have been going to sea for years | but never have. conditions been so) bad. In spite of the uneatable grub, | lousy fo’cesels, speed up and wage cuts, we have workers from land taking jobs at sea simply to keep from starving to death. Hunger Wages On this ship for example, one fel- low, a former mechanic in the Penn. R. R. with wife and four kids, takes a job for $47.50 per month and is glad to get it. Another, formerly a gardner with good income, now driven to sea, is working as deck- hand at $25.00 per month! (He told me he can not stand the work, and | if he does not get ashore, he will buy a gun and hold up some rich bastard.) In the black gang there is a man working as fireman at $62.50 per month, who was formerly an engi- neer in a power plant. He has three children, a wife and an aged mother to support. Men Joining M. W. I. U. I need not say that these men are getting very bitter, and are eagerly lining up with us in the Marine Workers Industrial Union. Six of this crew have already joined, because they know of the history of the M.W.I.U. in fight- ing for the interests of the long- shoremen here and in New Or- On this ship they work us ten hours one day and fourteen- hours the next, And when we are tied up, it is eighteen hours some days. Well, the harder they beat us down, the quicker and. stronger we will organize and beat back. Our day is coming! More power to the M. W. I. U.! —A. J. Travels 20 Miles to Get $2:'A Week Job (From The Southern Worker) (By a Worker Correspondent) A worker was promised a job at a dairy about twenty miles away in Catoosa County, Georgia. He rode out of Chattanooga on the dairy truck. When he arrived at the dairy the boss told him he would give him a job for two dollars a week and) board, and furnish him two pair of overalls a week. He was to work seven days a week. -~A NEGRO WORKER. Register Today! 0 WORKERS IN LEATHER INDUSTRIES HIT More Attention to Shobs Necessary in Organizing the Leather Workers Many Opportunities Lost In Newark, N. J. many good opportunities for real activities in the leather industries for the Trade Union Unity League were lost because of the lack of a di- rective center in the Trade Union Unity League for the industry. The same situation exists in Phil- adelphia, Chicago, and other cen- ters of the leather industry. Many leading comrades in the fancy leather goods group and from the shoe workers are mak- ing a jake of the amalgamation of all the groups in the branches in the leather industry one central organization and thereby spread out the activities to more shops and more centers. The Trade Union Unity League must take steps and call to re- sponsibility those responsible for still keeping the activities of the | PHIA.” — Where is it going to end? | seventy dollars a week have been | workers have been cut fifteen per Big Wage Slash Hits Furniture Men of Ralston, Neb. Ralston, Nebr. The Daily Worker: I have been reading in your pa- per which I get from a friend, about wage cuts, which seem to have become a rule all over the country. Here in this little town there is a furniture factory where the workers have had this experi- ence. Piece workers, skilled men who used to earn from sixty to cut to a point where they can earn only from about thirty-five to forty dollars a week, while hour cent. As there is a fear among the workers that the plant may shut down for the winter, the cut was accepted without a pro- test. A case of take it or leave it and make the best of it. —A WORKER. $4 KILLED ON THE EMPIRE STATE JOB Speedup Takes Heavy Toll (By a Worker Correspondent) BROOKLYN, N. Y. — I will tell why a great skyscraper like the Em- Pire State Building will be done in a year’s time. This applies to all skyscrapers. All day there are men standing around this building by the hun- dreds begging for a day’s work. It is very hard to get a job here. If| you do get put on you have to do two days’ work in one. To get on you have to know somebody or a politician, as ex-Governor Smith is interested in this building. Great Speed-Up | There is great speed-up on this | job. From inside sources I give you the list of killed upto ten days ago. Eighty-four were killed. The bruised and those with cuts and other in- juries are so lined up waiting for attention by the doctor that you would think that it was a line wait- ing to be paid off, And this job is by ex-Governor Smith, one of the “friends of labor.” —BUILDING TRADES WORKER. CUT FORCES 50 PER CENT HOUSTON, Texas. — The Texas Oil Company has cut their working force down in the Port Arthur Oil Refining plant. This company had a working force of 5,500 men this spring. They now have only 2,500 on the job. MUSICIANS STRIKE ATLANTA, Ga. — Musicians em- ployed in Atlanta theatres struck when they were refused long term contracts. groups limited to the particular craft and do nothing, and even hinder the spread of the activities on an industrial b: Ready to Fight The workers in the leather in- dustry, as the workers in all in- dustries, are ready to fight, and it is up to the T. U. U. L. to give them guidance and lead them in all their struggles. The time is ripe for real activity in the leather industry. All past errors must be utilized only for lessons how not to act in the future. And with revolutionary determination let us jump into activity in the leather industry and bring in the vast army of leather and leather prod- ucts workers into the army of the fighting workers, Let us lay the basis for an Industrial Union of Leather Workers in the United | the living standards of the worker: SUITCASE FAKERS HELP BOSS PUT SHOP ON PAY CUT, PIECE WORK BASIS Company Union Officials and Metropolitan Suitcase Boss Best of Friends Workers Seeing Through the Role of the “So- cialist” Fakers and Will Fight (By a Worker Correspondent) NEW YORK.—The Metropolitan Suit Case Co., with full support of the union bureaucrats, is exploiting the workers to the limit. Some months ago the relations between the firm and the union have become very friendly. The boss was invited to the executive board meeting. There the boss expressed interest in the workers of his shop because they are not so anxious to submit to his speed-up schemes. But he expressed full confi- dence in the executive board to assist him in his plans to lower The shop operated on the week work basis. After his visit the work in the shop slowed down and was finally closed for several weeks. At first the manager of the union, as a true agent of the boss, spread the story that the firm has intentions of moving the shop out of New York. Later he came out that if the workers would agree to go over to the piece work basis the boss would change his plans to move out of New York. The fear of losing the shop altogether weakened their resistence to the piece work basis. AT RR DEATH JCT: - CO. “ECONOMIZES” | Only Fighting Union Fights for Men’s Needs States. At shop meetings the members| of the executive board advised the | workers to accept piece work. | Boss Wants More. | A committee was appointed to see the boss and work out prices for piece work. The prices offered | by the boss were so low that the) workers would not accept. The| workers walked the streets for an- other few weeks. At last they came to an agree-| ment and some workers were called) in to work. But the boss was not| satisfied with his victory over the) workers and began to demand that} the workers even though working) piece work must punch their time} cards. The workers protested against) this and refused to ring their cards. | The boss threatened them not to give them their pay on pay day. Union Decides for Boss. This question was taken up by the office of the union and decided in favor of the boss, giving the reason that the boss has signed an agreement with the union such a minor issue should not stop the good relations between the union and the firm. Real Fight Necessary. This is the way the workers are “protected” by the agents of the bosses. But the workers in the| shops are beginning to understand the role of these “socialist” and A. F. of L. union bureaucrats and will be forced more and more to fight for their own interests. We must organize into the Leather Workers Section of the Trade Union Unity League for a real fight) against the bosses. —SUITCASE WORKER. $10 SLAVERY FOR PHILA. WAITRESS Conditions Must Be Fought Philadelphia, Pa. Daily Worker: I work as a waitress in a res- taurant in Philadelphia, and I wish to say that the conditions are sim- ply rotten. We are forced to work nine hours a day, sometimes for ten hours, six days a week, all for the large sum of eight dollars a week. The boss tells us that if we| give good service we will make big | wages in the tips that the custom- ers will give us, while at the same time he knows that the workers who eat here are hardly making enough money to feed themselves. In fact most of them have to order small meals so that they will have | enough money to pay for it, so where} are they supposed to get the coin to give us tips, to make up for the wages that the boss is sup- posed to pay us? More Slavery Besides having to slave nine or | ten hours a day for the measly 8 dollars, we are given the choice of | becoming the bosses’ mistress or be- ing fired. In plainer words, we are told that if we do not make pros- titutes out of ourselves for bosses, we might as well look for another job. Which is the reason that I lost| my last job. Must Fight This The sooner the girls realize that by organizing into the Food Work- ers Industrial Union, affiliated to the Trade Union Unit League, the better it will be for them, for then the bosses will not be able to treat us the way they to, for they will then see that WE and not THEY are the bosses, and they will have AROUSE THE WORKERS IN THE SHOPS Philadelphia Pa. Daily Worker. At 8 p. m. on the evening of October 1, 1930, Fireman Benner, an employee of the Reading Rail- road, was killed by the B. & O. Express at Nicetown Junction, on the Reading Railroad. At Nicetown Junction where the B. & O. trains switch off the New York branch of the Reading Rail- road to go out to 24th and Chest- nut Streets, there is a very sharp curve and a steep grade, and the express trains travel about sixty miles an hour through there. They have to pass through the lower end of Wayne Junction freight yard, where men are constantly on the tracks. For the past two years every meeting we have had of the local lodge of the Brotherhood of Rail- road Trainmen, we have made a complaint of these conditions to the superintendent of the Philadelphia Division of the Reading. and he has always promised to have an auto- matic whistle or bell installed there to warn men when there is a trair all the noise that the shifting en- coming around the curve, for with gines make it is impossible for them to hear the trains until it is almost on top of them, and on ac- count of this condition there has been quite a number of men killed at this point in the past few years, Nothing Done But the superintendent has never done anything toward keeping his promises. After we saw that the company did not give a damn about it we put it up to the grand lodge of the Brotherhood, and we weré told that it would annoy the people living around there, which is a very thin excuse to cover up tne facts that it would be an added expense to the company. They would rather see the workers get killed than to have to put up anything that might cost them a few dollars. And now another man has been killed by their neglect. Must Have a Real Union If the railroad workers would or- ganize into a union that would see that all these rotten conditions be done away with, they would be much better off and perhaps they would live longer, for although a few of the deaths are caused by carelessness of the workers, most of them are caused by the neglect of the company to make conditions better. Organize into the Railroad Industrial Union, affiliated to the Trade Union Unity League, a union whose main policy is that the work- ers must come first and to hell with the company. Step into. the office of the Trade Union Unity League, 39 North Tenth St., Phila- delphia, and have a talk with the officials of the League. Have it ex- plained to you, and then take it up with the rest of the workers. —A RAILROAD WORKER, to treat us accordingly. So my ads vice to every waitress who reads this is: “Don’t wait for someone else to start organizing the union for you.” Just step into the office of the Trade Union Unity League, 39 North Tenth Street, Philadelphia, and you will see that you are not the only one who is ready to be ors ganized! —A WAITRESS. To Fight Against Wage Cu munist Party Candidates! Carry the Election Cam- paign of the Communists and the Demands of the Workers Into Every Shop! ts! Vote for the Com-