The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 27, 1931, Page 4

Patterson Silk Workers Ready for Struggle : 4 ‘ ‘ 4 4 5 i Published by the Comprodaily Publishing Co., Inc., daily except Sunday, at 50 East 13th Street, New York City. N. ¥. Telephone Algonquin 7956-7, Cable: “DAIWORK.” Address and mail all checks to the Daily Worker, 50 East 13th Street, New York, N. ¥, Daily, a, lorke Desty , USA) 3 MAHONING VALLEY STEEL WORKERS FIGHT AGAINST STARVATION--WAGE CUTS By ANDREW OVERZARD. (National Secretary MWIL.) HILE the employers in the steel industry con- tinuously advertise “better times,” the steel workers in the Mah ig Valley continue to face starvation and misery never witnessed before. Out of the normal force of 9,000 workers in the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company only about a thousand are working and only part time. In cities like Canton, Massilon, Warren, Niles and other steel centers, the misery inert s daily. In visiting workers’ homes by the organizers of the MWIL, we found out of some 50 visited ia one day, only two were working and in the majority of these homes no food existed. All of the families are on the verge of dying of hunger. Bosses Prepare Further Wage Cuts. While the unemployment crisis deepen employers are taking advantage of this sitt and are paring further cuts in w: reducing the steel workers’ already miserable standard of living. In steel plants throughout the whole Mahoning Valley the bosses announce wage cuts to take place in the month of Febru- ary but due to the determined answer of the steel workers, under the leadership of the MWIL, the employers have again resorted to the old methods of cuts in individual departments and to other various clever means. After Hoover's sta7ger system, which is widely introduced ‘in all | for the building and strengthening of our shop steel mills of Ohio, it is almost impossible to find a steel worker who averages more than three or four days a week and thousands are working only one or two days a weeks. The makers of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers are taking the initia- tive in this wage cutting campaign through the so-called sliding scale, According to this, wages are paid according to the current market prices on tin. But the employers are always controll- ing the prices so that the scale will be sliding downward for the workers. The rank and file members of the American Federation of Labor union are disgusted with the leadership and are | joining the MWIL in greater and greater nun- bers. Especially in Warren, Ohio, which has been the stronghold of the Amalgamated for a long time. The MWIL is concentrating its major efforts in the Mahoning Valley and Pittsburgh district organization, Groups are being but up in the | Youngstown Steel and Tube, Republic Iron and Steel, Otis Steel, Mckinnly Steel, and other large factories. The campaign to organize the steel industry should be supported by every worker, by every Party member and sympathizer in the Cleveland district. The TUUL in Cleveland is preparing for a state wide campaign to support the MWIL in building up a powerful union in this state, in line with the policy adopted at the last National Committee Meeting of the MWIL. PATERSON, N. J., Feb. 26—The United Front Committee To Organize And Prepare For A Gen- eral Strike has issued the following statement to all silk and dye workers in the city and vicinity of Paterson: “Fellow Workers: The National Textile Work- ers’ Union that was formed and built in the midst of struggles and which today represents the only organization of the textile workers that fights for their interests, called a theeting and | | department and shop committees, the movement conference on February 15th, at which a com- mittee of union and non-union members was elected to organize and prepare for a general strike in Paterson and vicinity. “This committee, composed of rank and file workers from the shops discussed the conditions of the silk and dye workers at its last meeting on Feb. 21. The committee is aware of the widespread discontent among the workers owing to the wage slashes, the worsening of conditions, and the mass unemployment. The 8-hour day which was gained through many bitter struggles has been lost. The 10 and 12 hour day is preva- lent in the silk mills. The dyers, who have con- ducted no struggle since 1919, have to work 18 or more hours in one stretch. The lunch periods in many places have been abolished or have been reduced from 1 hour to 30 minutes. Big Wage Cuts. “Daily wage cuts are taking place throughout the silk and dye industry. The wages of a weaver who works from 50 to 60 hours a week have been cut 35 to 40 per cent in the past year. The dyer who works 90 hours a week gets the mis- erable wage of $18 a week, The winders running three sides get the fearful wage of 35 cents an hour. The warpers, twisters, and loom-fixers, the supposed aristocrats of tht industry, are no better off. These intolerable conditions in every shop and mill of the industry have caused deep discontent among the workers of the industry and are driving the workers into action. “While wage cuts have proceeded throughout the industry, the unemployed have been in a desperate condition. Hungry and starving, they have received no relief from the city and have been the object of charity. The bosses, taking advantage of the deep crisis in the country and the fearful: unemployment, have initiated this drive against the workers still having a job, and have left the unemployed to starve. Prepare Struggle. “The United Front Committee recognizing the sentiment of the workers to fight against these conditions, has been given the task of preparing | the workers for the struggle. These preparations consist above all in the organizational steps that have to be taken: the establishment of depart- ment and shop committees in the mills, the | mobilization of the best fighters, reaching the workers for the struggle by means of leaflets, mass meetings. The United Front Committee, however, points out that without proper prepara- tion, without sound footing in the shops through cannot go forward. On the other hand, with adequate preparation in the shops, the struggle will be properly organized and can and will be won. “The workers in the shops must establish these department committees in the mills, buildings | and sections. Union and non-union workers, members of the Associated Silk and UTW, in the shops must be drawn in and the machinery be established for organization and leadership in the coming struggle. “The city-wide United Front Committee must be enlarged by adding representatives from as many mills and crafts as possible, but particu- larly from the dye mills, women and young workers, Call To The Dyers. “The silk workers must understand that the dyers play a very important role in the silk in- dustry and must make it their particular job to involve the dyers in the preparations for the struggle. “Fellow silk and dye workers! The lessons of 1913, 1919, and 1924-28 must be a lesson to every silk and dye worker in the present preparations for the strike. The coming strike must be the | means of gaining a substantial wage increase and shorter hours. It must be a means of our establishing our union in the shops on the basis of shop and building committees, which will be the basis for struggle to abolish the piece-rate system and other evils in the mills. “Organize department and shop committees in preparation for the general strike! “Raise the banner of struggle! “Put an end to the miserable conditions! “All workers together—employed and uneni- ployed! “Support the United Front Committee! The Economic Crisis and the Mutual Aid Organizations By LOUIS KOVESS. time has come, when the millions of work- ers organized into those mutual aid organ- fgations, which are led by the agents of the bosses, are actually forced to demand account of their pennies and dollars which they paid into the central treasuries of these organizations, to insure themselves for time of sickness and need. With over ten million unemployed roaming the streets, other millions suffering wage cuts and facing further wage cuts, more intensified speed- up, sickness, accidents, death has reaped a large harvest among the undernourished workers, working women and children. The need for the return of the small investments of the masses in these mutual aid organizations is greater than ever when facing sickness and suffering. But do they get it? The workers of these or- ganizations in ever greater numbers, find that when their bosses throw, them out of the fac- tory, when the landlord is trying to throw them out of their living quarters, when the govern- ment refuses to give them unemployment relief and insurance, they are also thrown out of their “own” organizations, where they paid in for years to get support just during such times of need. ‘The boss agents, fascist and social-fascist lead- ers of these big mutual aid organizations, always using these organizations as mediums to carry) through the dictates of the big bosses and their government, to distract the worker-members from struggle for social insurance, against wage cuts, discrimination, etc, and using the organ- izations for graft, lead these organizations to a point where they face actual collapse. When the workers membership calls the leaders to account, they will find (as it was found in one of the biggest Ukrainian mutual aid organiza- ‘tions) that the investments still shown on the books at the value of the time the investment ‘was made, ere shrinking to such «a extent, that hundreds of thousands of dollars still shown on the books actually are non-existent. They will find that investments in shares of industrial enterprises, which are working with small forces or completely shut down, in banks like the Bank of the United States, in bonds and real estate constantly reducing their value, and for which there is hardly any market at such times, etc., evaporated the money paid in for years by the workers into the central treasury of these organ- izations. The leaders, who found ways and means for personal gain by certain investments of the money of the membership and who are responsible for the consequences, are still con- tinuing such investments, are still at the head of the organizations and the worker-members, who paid in for years and are unable at present to pay their dues on account of unemployment, are thrown out of the same organizations, It is not enough to find out in what way, the reactionary leaders grafted, stole and “invested” the hard-earned money of the worker-members through investigation by workers committees elected in the branches and lodges, but at the same time the demand must be raised, that the throwing out of unemployed members be stopped and the central treasury, still claimed by the leaders to be strong, shall pay the dues of the unemployed members. Only if the investigation becomes a start for the organization of the left wing, for the struggle against the reactionary leadership to be replaced by workers’ leader- ship, for the workers’ control of the funds, for municipal relief for the unemployed, sickness, old age, etc., state insurance, against discrimina- tion of the foreign born and Negroes and against the deportation drive of the bosses supported by the same reactionary leaders, can the worker membership have assurance for the future, Just in such a time of deep-growing crisis can it be most clearly seen that the workers co- operative insurance organizations, based on the class struggle, controlled by the workers them- selves (like the International Workers Q@edex) are IDLE, TOO! ‘— BeiscRIPTION RATES! ——~ By mail everywhere: One year, $6; six months, $3; two months, $1; excepting Boroughs of Manhattan and Bronx, New York Ctly, Foreign; one year, $8: six months, $4.50. ~ By BURCK Worker Sportsmen Joining Labor Sports Union By FRANK HENDERSON, (Nat'l. Secy., Labor Sports Union of America.) INCE the Fourth National Corivention of the Labor Sports Union held on Noy. 8-9-10th, thirty-one sport clubs and teams have joined the ranks of the workers sport movement. Eighteen clubs have joined in New York, five in Chicago, four in Mass., and four in Ohio, showing defi- nitely that the worker sportsmen see the role of the bossés’ and reformist sport organizations as anti-labor. Particularly has the question of un- employment and the struggle for relief for the unemployed exposed the leadership and control of many sport organizations. The bosses controlled sport organizations such as the Amateur Athletic Union, YMCA, Indus- trial Athletic League, and many independent sport organizations have not lowered the fees or dues nor have they taken into consideration the unemployed sportsmen. Not only have they ne- glected the lowering of fees and dues for the unemployed athletes but are actually fighting against relief for the unemployed by ‘arranging “relief games” which bring no relief to the un- employed but are used to detract the attention of the worker sportsmen and the unemployed generally from fighting for social insurance to be paid by the employers and the government. The same is true of the reformist sport or- ganizations. The German Workers Gymnastic and Sport Alliance, section of the Lucerne Sport International, recent national convention re- ported that over 50 per cent of their member- ship are unemployed. But the reactionary lead- ership of the Alliance did nof do anything on the question of unemployment. The Alliance did not lower fees or dues—did nothing to help the unemployed to fight for unemployment relief. They showed clearly that they differ only in name with the bosses’ sport organizations. In the name of labor they attempt to betray the worker spot !smen. Only the Labor Sports Union has taken up the question of unempleyment and the unem- ployed sportsmen. The National Executive Board at its recent meeting lowered the fees and dues to permit the unemployed athletes to remain and join the workers’ sport movement. Not only this but the LSU in various cities have ar- ranged bencfit solidarity sport games for the Trade Union Unity League which is leading the fight for the Unemployment Insurance Bill; Also worker sportsmen in the LSU have taken active part in the demonstrations of the unemployed and the general struggles of the workers for unemployment relief and for the Unemployment Insurance Bill, ‘The Labor Sports Union appeals to the work- ers in the bosses’ and reformist sport organiza- tions to join the Labor Sports Union and to sup- port the present campaign of the Red Sport International and the Labor Sports Union to send a big delegation of athletes from the United States to the Workers International Athletic Meet (The Spartakiade) in Berlin, Germany, July 4th to the 12th. Support! Prepare! And train for the Sparta- kiade! Workers Sportsmen, Join the LSU! the only sound mutual aid organizations, where graft, fake investinents, etc., are unknown. These organizations do not claim to have millions, in their treasury. Still, these are precisely the or- ganizations which do not face bankruptcy like those lead by the agents of the bosses. The plan of the International Workers Order to amalgamate all other language workers fraternal organjzations and to build branches for Negro and white workers, for the Mexican masses, for the women and youth, ete., should receive the fullest support of the Communists, members of the revolutionary unions and all classes of workers, ‘The workers organized into the American and foreign born mutual aid organizations led by reactionaries, should also look toward the In- ternational Workers Order as an example and with the atm to clear their organizations of the agents of the bosses and make them part of this great workers’ fraternal organization <<, | onstrate” on Feb. 6 and the calling aff of this Another Step to Help the Boss Class By EVA LEDER. (Mr. Busick Is “Victorious.”) 'HE first step of the Socialist Party of Califor- nia to come to the assistance of the boss class in its suppressing the struggle of unem- ployed was—the “asking” for a permit to ‘‘dem- “demonstration” under the pretext that “the police meant to usé machiné guns.” ‘That this was merely & Méans to savé the face of the socialist party; to help the bosses stran+ gle the militant struggles of the suffering tinem- ployed masses in this city; to win grace (for Mr. Busick and the Socialist Party)®in the eyes of the boss-government, all this was pointed out in a previous article on the subject. That our analysis was correct can be seen from further developments in the provocative, boss-serving activities of the Socialist Party in Los Angeles. Boss Government Invited, Workers Thrown Out. After Mr. Busick has decided “not to march in the face of (imaginary) machine guns,” he has called a meeting of the “unemployed” in the Labor Temple. This meeting has received full publicity in the capitalist press in the city; (it must not be forgotten that not one meeting of the TUUL or Communist Party can be held without fights with the fascist bands—the “red” squad and the whole police force, let alone pub- licity in the newspapers). ‘To this meeting Mr. Busick had invited “all the members of the City Council.” But the real unemployed he had invited to sit home. Those that did come and raised their voice in pro- test to the “Socialist” treachery in sticking a knife into the backs of the unemployed with the sham “hunger march,” those were promptly. ejected by the thugs at the meeting. , Mr. Busick and the rest of his socio-capitalist henchmen at this meeting warned the workers and unemployed to stay away from the “Com- munist demonstration” on the 10th of February. 10,000 Answer Call of TUUL. But the 10th of February saw over 10,000 un- employed and partly-employed workers on the streets of Los Angeles fighting for unemploy- ment relief and social insurance. Although the police has declared (regarding the Socialist Party would-be-demonstration) that it .‘‘would not use machine guns,” machine guns were ready to be used to fight the 10,000 in the Feb- ruary 10 demonstration. The police were violent: night-sticks and tear- gas bombs were used freely to crush the un- employed demonstration, Workers were vio- rlently beaten: one of the Japanese workers, com Organize Unemployed Councils! Communi rade Hama, not a member of the Party but an unemployed agricultural worker, was so savagely beaten up that he 1s now with a fractured skull in the hospital with his life in grave danger. * Paid for Service—Fight Workers: But Mr. Busick “is a victor.” He has served the boss class faithfully; he has helped to bring about the “justification” in crushing the Febru- ary 10 demonstration and beating to death of workers; he acted in accordance with “law and order”; the Socialist Party has not marched without a permit; the unemployed workers un- der the leadership of the T.U.U.L. did—“it serves them right; let them get what’s coming to them!” and for this help, also to show that “the city council is considering the unemployed question” Mr. Busick of the Socialist Party was allowc 1 in to the meeting of the city council on Feb. 13, only 3 days after the Feb. 10 dem- onstration, when a committee of the unem- ployed workers, _carry on a real militant struggle for unemploy- rot that Hoover and all politicians talk about | for a year, why can’t the “Socialist” Party too | talk about it? 2. And this is so interesting to observe: “Only one member of a family to be employed by a | city or a county.” The “Socialist? Party must take care of the master’s purse; “we can’t press the poor boss.” But supposing there is a fam- ily of 8 out of work; one out of these 8 should, according to the “Socialist” Party, get a job at $5 a day and the whole family can make a “nice living’!—good watch dog of the bosses’ purse, the “Socialist” Party, but what a lot for | the unemployed! 3. “Eight dollars a week for a single man or woman (unemployed), $10 for a family of two, and $15 for a family of more than two.” Re- member: The “Socialist” Party of California is “sure” that a family of 8 or 9 can make “a nice living” from $15 a week! This is enough according to the standard of living for the work~ ers, set by the California “Socialist” Party! “We can mention a few other such brilliant points in the “proposals,” but space will not permit. One more we simply must mention: 4, “Where persons are unable to do so them- selves, city or county to pay house rent, gas, light and water bills.” Remember: Where per- sons are unable—good precaution dear watch dogs, for the bosses! And when will the boss class, the company, the landlord say that the person fs not able? ; In a word: this “Socialist” Party “program” for unemployment is a program for the bosses, to fool and delude the unemployed; this pro- gram and the whole policy of the “Socialist Party directed against the very lives of the un- employed, has unmasked the treacherous role of the Socialist Party in California and must be- come a rallying point for the unemployed in this state to fight the treachery, to fight mercilessly the “Socialist” Party as a whol. and drive out this enemy from the ranks of the workers; to ment relief and social insurance under the revo- lutionary leadership of the Trade Union Unity League and the Communist Party. Every Mining Camp, Steel and Textile Town, Every Large and Small Indus- trial Center Should Be Honeycombed With Jobless Councils Workers! Join the Party of Your Class! Communist Party U. 8. A. P. O. Box 87 Station D. New York City. Please send me more information on the Cum- munist Party. GPP scudiasboceundestecs BEMLOs ésccnvecce -Mail this to the Central Office, Communist Party, P. O. Box 87 Station D. New York City. toh By JORGE The World Has Gone Bust! ‘The New York World, we mean. And through all the politely restrained joy of the other cap- italist papers of this ancient and romantic vil- Jage there looms the gloom of the Pulitzer pro- nouncement that “there are too many papers in New York.” Served it right for pretending to be “liberal” and being in reality one of the most reaction- ary journals. Perhaps the World staff of writers and reporters, some 2,700 of them directly dumped into the unemployed by this collapse, will have time to meditate on what they have been writing. Let them look over the stories they have writ- ten about “returning prosperity,” hokum about “this land of boundless opportunity,” etc., etc, When they are hungry enough to enjoy some of the ‘adequate relief” they have been saying is furnished to the jobless, against which they have launched attacks in keeping with old Pulit- zer’s command to oppose “the predatory poor,” maybe we will find some penitents among them whom we can welcome as staff workers on the “American Pravda” we intend to start. The fact is that horseradish is not so popu- lar as it used to was. If you have noticed the big bunk-shooting magazines have been resort- ing to full and sometimes double page ads in the daily papers, trying to hold up. Even that old dope peddler, the Saturday Evening Post is up against it, and since the advertising is collapsing it is reported to have stopped trying to get cir- culation as the more it prints the more it loses, All this may be charged up to “Soviet dump- ing.” But the fact that the World started down- hill before the grand crash in Wall Street’ shows that there is something in the notion that a part of the people are just lying down on capitalist newspapers. ‘They (the newspapers) talk about summer vacations at the beaches as though everybody has them, when very few do; talk about fine clothes and good food as though they were avail- able to all; gabble about golf and polo as if they were mass amusements; steadily deny there is want and hunger until revolution slaps their faces and then they're for “law and order” ~and starvation; in short they give any sensi- ble worker a bellyache. It is a sign of progress if American workers are ceasing to believe capitalist newspapers. A recent remark of Cuba’s fascist dictator, Mach- ado, indicates he thinks Americans don't believe newspapers any more. In explaining why he suppressed Cuban newspapers, he recently said: “You Americans must remember that we Cubans are an excitable people, inclined to be- lieve what we read in our newspapers.” Incidentally, it seems that the employees of the New York World don’t believe what it says. They sent a lawyer into court to deny their boss’ statement that it had been losing as much money as he said it has! What a World! ee ti Somebody Is Lying Fish, fast, furious and foolish, has broadcast over the radio and by tongue and pen, that Soviet “dumping” is strangling the "infant in- dustry” of 100 per cent American manganese “producers.” Let’s see! In the U. S. Treasury Department (which has recently ordered an embargo on Soviet lumber) they say that in 1929 Soviet imports of man- ganese into the United States totaled 225,888 tons, and the Treasury Department of Andy Mellon says, very plainly, that this was “s, little more than 50 per cent of the total of these minerals used in the United States.” Then, that being 50 per cent; the Treasury says that the poor, downtrodden American man~ ganese capitalists furnished only about 10 per cent of the total. That makes 60 per cent, don’t it? And the Treasury Department sticks by that. But in the Department of Commerce, the fig- ures on manganese imports for 1929 are given in cold type. And here we find something as- tonishing! For in 1929, according to the records of the Department of Commerce, imports of manganes« into the United States from Brazil were 359,65) tons—a lot more than from the Soviet—anc from Cuba 85,698 tons; and from Chile 7,63: tons, a total of 452,983 tons from these thre Latin-American countries alone. Now, boys and girls, since 452,983 tons (fron Latin America) are just about twice the amoun from the Soviet, and what the Soviet sent wa. “a little more than 50 per cent of the total use: in the United States”; and the local patriot furnished 10 per cent, we get the followin arithmetic: From the Soviet Union. Produced in U. S. A. From Latin America.. Total importations . +-160% We admit that it looks utterly cock-eyed t say that America is importing 160 per cent what is uses in manganese ore, But then “ou! government has a “great engineer” at its he: and the government itself says so. What becomes of that extra 60 per cent is mystery, and how it happens in the first p is still more of a mystery, except that we kn that any old lie is saleable now-a-days so lo as it is against the Soviet Union. PO MS Dire Consequences From away out at Carlsborg, Washington, \ get the following, with a bit of a prelude telli: us that Red Sparks is (or “are”) causing a co flagration “way across. the continent”: “Dear Jorge: I merely want to report t damage the pope's blessing caused in my neig borhood: Two of Mr, Ferguson’s pigs ated 1 following morning and the big Holstein b across the river got so constipated that the : tending horse doctor doubts whether the pi beast could live through another benediction. am vehemently opposed to the dumping in | vicinity of Carlsborg, Wash., of any more ble(/ ings below the cost of production. We are longer living in the Muddled Ages.—v. N.” We are extremely pained to hear about pig's demise. We always heard that pigs ‘co never be killed by poison, “ But what really astonishes us is that any : ing thing could become constipated, or rem so, It seems to us to transgress the laws Physics. Perhaps what ailed the bull '