The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 18, 1931, Page 3

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4 ARMOUR CO. SPEEDUP KILLS FATHER OF FIVE IN FARGO, N. DAKOTA Bosses’ Greed For More Profits Have Them Use Defective Tools and Equipment Armour Workers Forced To Stand In Water While Slaving At Machines Fargo, N. Dakota. Daily Worker: While working with an electric drill on a sewer pipe at the Armour Co. plant here, Fred Osthund, 34, steamfitter and plumber, received a shock when a short circuit developed in the drill and he was instantly killed. He was the father of five children who with his widow survive him. Due to having to stand in water while they were drilling and using old and defective equipment this fine worker had his life snuffed out and who but Armour and Co. is responsible Beis & EX-SERVICEMAN JOINS MAY Ist WORKERS PARADE After Listening to Lies of Fascists Philadelphia, Pa. Daily Worker a I was in New York, May 1st and demonstration was the greatest thing I ever saw. I slept on the Bowery, that great “paradise” for American workers, on May Day eve. I left the “flophouse” about ten o’clock and T arrived at Union Square about 11:30 and I de- cided, to listen to the fascists. So I listened to these well fed, well paid parasites. They tried to incite a riot. They told about the terrible Bolshe- viks. Join Workers’ Parade. These reptiles so sickened me that I went to Madison Square and joined the parade with the ex-servicemen’s league and marched to Union Square, in the greatest Red Demonstration the U.S. has ever seen, The ruling class would gladly have slaughtered the reds ,on May Day except that there wes too many for this yellow bunch. Many of the people at the side lines d to get in, but the bulls tried every method to keep them out. I think the Daily Worker was very couservaiive when it says that 100,000 attended the deronstration. I think it was double that figure. Besides, if there was enough room to hold 590,000 we would get that too. Comradely, —War Veteran. MIDLAND STEEL SLASHES PAY More Speedup; Cuts Pay 20 Cents A Hour By R. C. CLEVELAND, Ohio.—At the Mid- land Steel plant we work around 180 hours in two weeks. Last year we got about 70 cents an hour. This year, for the same amount of hours and more speed-up, we receive only 50 cents an hour! Of course, the bosses always have some tricky way of cheating us and cutting down our pay. : For instance: They put an extra man on the gang. Well, instead of making more money with more men working, we got from 60cents to 75 cents an hour—3 cents less—although we produced more with the extra man on, When a little work comes in we have to rush day and night to get it out. As soon as it is finished many of us are laid off, sometimes getting only one or two hours after that a day, and at times just_one or two days a week. Workers Pay. We are told by the bosses that this ts done to save “overhead expenses!” Of course, it’s for that, but the work- ."S pay the price with their health. Fight against this wage-cutting and ying off of the bosses, Midland eel workers, organize grievance ommittees in your factory! e Metal Workers. Industrial League. vrite to the district office at 1426 WV. Third St,, Room 210, and find out more information about this fighting union, Unemployment Grows On Railroads San Antonio, Texas. Dear Editor: , Tn talking with a switchman of| Dally Worker: the Southern Pacific Railroad who has been on the same job 29 years, There is less hauling now than at any time in the last 30 years, Passenger service has been cut down. One passenger train has been cut out between San Antonio and Corpus Christie. Houston, Many workers who haye been with the company 15 years have been laid off. Many others are on part time. ‘The brotherhoods can’t do any- thing for the workers, employed and unemrleyed, Reesd how) Workers don’t sufi company’s profiis, F ‘a yard conniitear, goin vade Union Unity League, —R.P, g fernt Canutes propose to reinstate “The Two more have been ” dropped between San Antonio and Many With ithe! Hoe” by “handing out ®for conditions in the local plant in which a worker can be killed in- stantly as Osthund was? During re- cent months the speed-up, mass lay- offs and wage cuts have been piled up on top of each other. More Output From Fewer Workers. The tragic death of Osthund was the logical culminating point of all the mad mania of the bosses for ever greater speed and ever greater output from ever fewer workers in order to pile up bigger profits for Armour and Company. It should be told to all West Fargo workers that the limit of endurance has been reached and that organiza- tion into a militant trade union of all Armour’s employees under the leader- ship of the T.U.U.L, will be the only way to enforce ofdinary safety and decent working conditions in the plant here. +.—West Fargo Worcorr. WORKERS DRIVEN FROM U. §. LAND IN MINNESOTA ‘Forced Into Woods By Hunger; Government Drives Them Out 1 (By a Worker Correspondent) MORA, Minn.—I am_a worker and I bummed all over this land of the “free” hoping to find work so I could buy food for my family. Having failed in all the industrial sections, I headed for the tall timber and swamps up here to try to work out a living to save my bal from hunger. Driven From Land. We tapped maple trees for syrup and sugar, killed wild game for meat. and lived on roots and herbs and we expected soon to have a garden. But now they call us “squatters” and say we cant live on the government lands, tap trees, dig roots, kill game, catch fish and raise a garden. because, so they say, it is against the law. We are sick of these laws. We have a right to live on this earth and we will fight for it. Send some more subscription help build the Communist Party here. SLASH PAINTER’S PAY IN MISSISSIPPI Painters. Carpenters Farn 25 Cents Per Hr. Oxford, Miss. Daily Worker: I really don’t know how we will live down here if conditions con- tinue as they are. Carpenters, pain- ters and other skilled workers work for 25 cents an hour. Farm laborers work for as little as $10 a month, We are promised prosperity in the fall. The merchants and capitalist press are doping the workers this way, but I happen to have overhcard & confidential between a high finan- cier from Chicago and a wealthy woman I work for, in which he said that the crisis would not reach the Join! bottom before next year—and per-|workers are afraid to organize be- haps not then. —G. U. blanks for the Daily| Worker and I will do what I can to} BUILD A WORCO DAILY WORKER, EW YO RK, MONDAY, MAY 18, 1 931 Page Thre RR GROUP IN YOUR SHOP LUMBER UNION ORGANIZED IN ANCORTES, WASH. After Lumber Bosses Force 10% Wage Cut Starved Workers Anacortes, Wash, Daily Worker:— Workers of Anacortes, nearly all of them saw-mill workers have been sub- ject to wage cuts and other mistreat- meants. But the last wage-cut of 10 per cent was so hard on them that they decided to organize a union. Since the organizer of the National Lumber Workers Union was there most of the lumber mills are organ- ized into the lumber workers union and Work is still going on to get the rest of the workers lined up. Will Sell Daily Worker. In a few days a headquarters of the Union will be established and the Daily Worker Agent who has been selected will also sell literature. He is selling the Labor Defender but it takes full time to sell the Daily Worker and he is busy at present with some other work but he will sell the | Daily Worker. Large May First Meeting Held. About 150 attended our mecting, the largest crowd we ever had, very gcod speakers from Seattle participated. I hope from now on Anacortes will be a different town, Comradely, ——Saw Mill Worker. | National City Bank Fires, Speedsup And | Blacklists Workers | New York, N. Y¥.} Daily Worker:— Until lately I worked for the Na- tional City Bank of N. Y., but like the rest of the “poor slobs” as we jworkers are considered there, I was given the air—reason reduction of staff. I would like to tell you about con- ditions in this slave-house—the speed, {up there is terrific and if one pro-! tests about it one is told “you ought to be glad you've got a job, and if you don't like it get out! The National City Bank does not give you any wage-cuts for they fire you right out and of course reemploy at a cheaper salary which is an in- direct wage cut to the others em- ployed. Talking about hypocrites, the bos- ses at the National City Bank, have them all beat—always talking about “good times just around the corner” and firing right and left. ‘They pat, you on the shoulders with one hand and stick you with a knife in the back with the other hand. The cause of a viscious blacklist system which they employ. —A Worker. Akron Unemployment Plan Robs Farmer Akron, Ohi The “brainy” mouthpieces of this robbing system have a new scheme to relieve the unemployed by giving them rakes and hoes. After the tractor and farming machines have driven the “tired” farmers off the land into the factories, our modern cards reading: “Get your garden and raise your own vegetable supply ‘this summer,” But that is not all. “The Man With the Hoe” is to do all the work and get just half the product, so that our idle class can play golf while the “Hoeman” sweats in the wn to reise more cabbage heads. Dey propes? ¥ pay for work done on acreage lots ' of Products at the rate of $4 a day, paid in vegetables to those who raise them. Thus the poor farmer, who, was driven off the farm by modern ma- chinery, and out of the factory by the same process, is being brought PENNA. MINES CUT PAY (CHAIN GANG FOR ' ™ 1 ad) ) By FRED ELLIS Johnstown Aids Marchers Daily Worker: In the Johnstown Steel Mill Johnstown, Pa. ls, many are laid off, some work only one day a week for the “large” sum of 40 cents an hour— for 8 hours a day and at the end of two weeks, your whole pay is $6.40. However out of this $6.40 the company takes $2 out for stock and $1 for unemployment relief. You can imagine how much a worker really gets. Columbia Mines Receive Wage Cut. The Columbia Fuel Mines have re- ceived notice to cut the wages start- ing the first of the month from 55 cents to 48 cents a ton. They have said that they will not pay any more for dead work or pick coal. Unemployed Council Gets Food For Marchers. In spite of the police forces who went from store to store to tell these workers not to give food or relief of any kind to the Hunger Marchers,! the Unemployed Council of Johns- town collected enough food and money for the Hunger Marchers, Try To Force Workers To Pay Damages. ‘The Johnstown government has de- i manded from fifteen of its citizens who are also taxpayers that because A GROUP OF ME CRILDREN | they are members of the Unemployed Council they must pay a bond for damages which they claim was in- flieted on property on May Ist. This Mayor sure carries out the policies of the owners of the Johnstown Steel Mills. We workers are organizing ourselves into real militant organiza~ tions like the N. M. U. affiliated with lthe 'T. U. U. L 'Reds in 3 French Cities Gain 388) Votes, Socialists Lose Paris, France. oily Worker: During the first week of April sup- niomeniary Pes De Calais, Sain Ouen and Alafar- ville. Everywhere the Communist Party had to face the united front of the reactionary, and, in spite of this, came out of these elections stronger than before, Gain 2,000 Votes. In the Pas De Calais, where a week ago the miners were on strike, the Communist Parity gained 2,000 elections took place at! votes and the socialists lost 1,000. At Alfarville, in the Seine, the so- cialisis lost 700 votes and the Com- munists gained -250, At Saint Ouen, in the Seine, the candidate, a renegade of the Com- munists, lost 500 votes, and the so- cialists had only 500, while the Com- munists came out first with 1,635 votes. In spite of the present mass per- secution against the Communist Party, the workers of these three cit- ies gave much support to the Com- CAL. OFFICIALS REFUSE RECIEF Spend Money Against May 1 Parade Oakland, Cal Daily Worker:— “To provide work for the unem- ployed would ruin the state finan- cially,” says the assembly ways and means committee. A proposal to the assembly was made at Sacramento, to appropriate one half of the surplus in the state treasury up to $10,000,000, to provide work for the unemployed in Califor- nia, was atly rejected by the assem- bly ways and means committee. Millions in the state coffers spell wealth and to part with it for the insignificant purpose of providing employment at least for the part of 800,000 unemployed in California, “would ruin the state fmancially.” That is what our big salaried men at Sacramento think. Fear “Red Menace.” But the. so-called labor leader Mc! back to the land as a share-cropper,|D0nald, president of the state build- given a hoe and paid off in half Oh ing trades council, and the secretary cabbage heads he produces, In the] the citizens employment relief meantime*the truck gardeners around | Committee, wants the appropriation— Akron will go broke and help swell | Ut listen—not fora purpose of alle- the soup lines next winter. viating some of the misery among the The newspapers, the church and| Unemployed, but because of the “red the schools have given their blessing |™enace,” if this isn’t done, Espe- to this “solution” for unemployment cially he feared the May Day demon- While the landlord waits for his rent| ‘tations. In his statement to the and the ragman’s disappointment, is | Press he says: “Jobless men, driven to explained by the tatters that adorn} desperation, were planning May Day the limbs of the new city peons and |4¢monstrations all over the country serfs, Such is the fruit of the sys-|'9 focus attention on their plight.” tom of private appres on of thr Right, Mr, McDonald! ‘The work~- wealth produced by tho mes ce. vs are going to fight for Social In- —Comrade 10607, “surance with ever increased tempo. \ \ \ munist Party, —french Worker. ‘ | WBN! CLOSE HARTY SR: HOME FOR AGED No Other Relief; Workers Protest x Hartford, Conn. Daily Worker:— Conditions in Hartford are getting worse. The Old Liberty Hotel for the Homeless closed down recently. The homeless, therefore, must remain homeless. The Community Chest offers very little aid. We had a good protest meeting here after the closing of the Home. ‘The only jobs advertised by the em- ployment offices are jobs on farms at $20 a month, waitresses to eat out at $20 a week and busboys with ref- erences ,at $5 a week, There are however, a hundred workers for every job. —vV. N. N. J. Ford Plant Hires Squealers There are two more mills right next to the Bogota Mills by the names of Continental and Federal Paper Mills whose conditions ‘are Just as bad. Then there is the George M. Brewster & Sons in Bogota, on the Fort Lee Rd., whose laborers are worked to death. All the industries that are on the Hudson waterfront near Edge- water have very bad conditions. In the Henry Ford Auto Plant workers are paid t6 squeal on other workers in case they do not speed up enough. - —A WORKER. ae -,| demonstrations, J | CALIF. WORKERS DEMANDING FOOD Welfare Head, Owns 3 Cars, Says Worker Is Able to Live On 25c. OAKLAND, Calif—Oakland's “gentle” police chief, James T. Drew, who orders his staff of trained bulls to split the heads of the workers at and Frank Coul- bourn, city commissioner of public welfare, another labor “lover,” who issued a statement last fall saying that 25 cents per day was enough for a worker to live on (though his family runs two Cadillacs, one Du- tand and one Buick, besides grand home, etc:), decided that Oakland jail was “too attractive.” “Equipped with a raido, com- fortable quariers and serving good food (Hm!), the city jail in the airy quarters atop the Oakland city hall, is proyiding an attraction to tramps, hoboes, floaters, etc.” (Of course, eic., the workers arrested for the Struggles and there are many.) Whipping Post Favored. Soa ‘es of conferences are be- | ing held by these noted personages, with a view to curbing the number ‘ables. “Jailing them t was agreed, because of such a wonderful, comfortable jail. “The unemployed welcome such OREGON BANK CRASH RUINS 800 WORKERS AND POOR FARMERS All Credit In The Stores Has Been Cut Off; Workers Can Buy No Clothes For: Children Blacksmith Tells How Family Wh Lost All Faces Ruin And Starvation By P. M. PORTLAND, Ore.—Tragedy stalks through the dusty streets of Nyssa, Ore. The little town with a normal popu- lation of 563, swelled to around a thousand by the dam project underway there, has been hit by a bank closing. The Malheur County Bank has ! its doors and over 800 workers and farmers have lost their savings varying from fifty to several thousand dollars. Credit in the stores has been cut off, children will not get clothes unless the workers and farmers can salvage sometl bank. But let a worker tell the storys of his own tragedy in there, a worker who lost his few hundred dollars of eighteen months of slaving for the bosses on the dam, Bank Crzsh Takes All. “I went to Nyssa, eighteen months ago and worked asa blacksmith. Day and night, I worked. No Sundays off, | no new clothes or enjoyment E slaved and saved because of the fear of being unemployed and having my kids and wife starve. I saved, if I can call it that, after all the sacri- ficing, over 1500 dollars and then the bank smashed. “I and eight hundred others lost our savings. The bank examiner is in there but that will not pay us} back in full, if any at all. Nobody ‘mows who is to blame. The funds are just not there. I came to Port- land, and it was while I was here that I learned of the failure. I went to Montgomery Ward’s and they Inew me and cashed my check for some thirty odd dollars of purchases. A few days later a collector called on me the bank had closed its doors and that I would have to make the check good. I protested and asked them who was the crook, me or the banker, but I had to make that check good. That is boss law. I am out of a job,! my kids are near starvation, that is all.” DENVER MAYOR HIRES WORKERS 10 GET VOTES Workers Organized to Vote Communist Denver, Colo. Daily Worker :— In Denver, there are no signs of work, those who get money are only bosses. These serve Governor Ad-| ams who receives a big salary and has about ten ranches. Workers Awake. Here is some news concerning Mayor Stapelton who is fighting hard to be reelected. In order to achieve choice lodgings, especially as there is very little work to be done. So a chain gang was discussed, although there is no money at present for this purpose. It was contended that a drastic chain gang: regime, with plenty of hard work for all would be just the thing. The time is approach- ing when we must recognize this and handle the problem vigorously before it gets worse.” (Admitting times are driving conditions, so they are get- ting worse. That is what we said, but they admitted it only off guard.) In Sacramento, the capital of the sunny state, the chain gang is being discussed v« seriously by officials; also the wh i post is openly fa- y (Why not the guiflotine, n eiso goes with barbaric feudal » her tim Boss Tells Father Of Five That He’s Too Old For Job Kansas City, Mo, Daily Worker: : My father came to America in 1910. At the age of 28 the bosses allowed him to work on any hard job, for very long hours and for a jJow, measly wage, since he was young and could be exoloited. At | that time he wasn’t married. Now he is married and has five of us to feed, clothe and send to school. He has no job and many bills to! this he employes about a hundred men who of course will vote for him. These men are ordered to carry a little book which is used for names of twenty-five voters which the men are supposed to recr If they don't, they are fired. However, he won't get in this time. The workers are awake now and will fight for our man, a Communist. We are organizing to demand his name on the ballot. It appears that the Denver Post is against the Mayor and for reasons not benefiting the workers, but for the fact that the owner of the Post, Bondfield, is Mayor Stapelton’s op- ponent. This Bondfield claims to be a friend of the workers but he cer- ncreased the fe and hasn't cent of wages | eliing his papers, mostly old men and women. But we are organ- izing against these fakers. —A Comrade. est pay. When he applies for a job the bosses tell him he is too old to work. “Go home and starve,” are their statements. But when it comes to paying taxes nothing is said about your age, but you are forced to dig down into your pockets and keep your children from the essentials of life in order to pay the lousy bosses and keep them living in luxury, while we starve. Son of Exploited Father, —“Young Worker,” Women Worke $7 to $8 a Obarlotte, N. C. | Daily Worker:— Just a few months ago I went to work at a mill, They paid $13.75 a week. I hadn't been there long until the bosses put piecework rates on all the yarn, Some of the very rottenest yarn was only 1 14 cents a pound, and some weeks we only made $7 or $8, working hard ,staying right with the work, Fire Sweepers, Then the bosses got the idea that they could slave us more. They made us put on large aprons to keep the waste off the floor. They brought brooms and stood them by our ma- chines for us to sweep the floor every few hours. In this way they fired the Negro sweeper and helper. ' Now the bosses are ordering their caps already run, They can get them vs Slave for Week in South one cent cheaper per pound than they could the hanks and pay us to run them, They then invented what is called knot catcher, which catches every knot that comes through and breaks the yarn. The bosses bought us scissors and told us to backwind the caps and tie weaver's knots and cut the ends close. This hinders time and we poor women workers can hardly make a living. Homes Broken, T actually saw a young widow who had to send her children to the or- phans’ home because she could not make enough to keep them up and times keep getting worse. This is the Way capitalism breaks up the home. We must stick together and fight with the Communists to keep our homes aing from HOTEL WORKERS SLAVE FOR $2 A DAY INN. Y. Mnst Eat Third Rate Food While Cops Gorge on-Best the assets of the Daily Worker:— New York City During 1926 I was employed in one of the swellest hotels in the Fifth Ave. section “as a room waiter. While in that respective. house we waiter re- ceived our food fromthe so-called of- ficers’ help hall where I noticed daily a score of cops being served. Police Receive Free Meals. I took the trouble of counting the uniformed policemen in that hall and I counted no less thar 47 police and patrolmen demanding food and ser- vice. As I still work in that hotel, I wish to say that we are given food werse than they serve in a Bowery Coffee Pot. Hence ih order not to get indigestion from this food we are forced to buy our food elsewhere with our already reduced wages. Eat Third Rate Food. The cops however eat all the sec- ond class food away in the help halls while the low ‘paid employees ere forced to eat third rate stuff. We asked some of these cops why jit they are allowed to eat here. oe answered that they would give mo: of these hotel custorhers tickets if they were not given permission to receive free meals. Thus it is cheape® for the hotel manager to give the cops free meals than to lose a score of guests who otherwise would feel annoyed if-their-¢ars would get a ticket for parking along the curb. Receive $2 for 11 Hours. As things are now, we. waiters get than two dollars a day in wages. We are forced to putin 11 hours a day for this measly sum. —A Waiter. WORCORR- BRIEFS ATTENTION HACKENSACK— The comrade who'srote in from Hackensack telling about conditions in New Jersey and requesting that organizers be sent failed to give us his address, thus making it impos- sible to get in touch with him. We request that this comrade send us his address at oneeto.the Work- ers’ Correspondence Dept. of the Daily Worker. Ail names and ad- same. RELIGION vs. LABOR A worker in Belton, Mont., writes that the ultimate need of labor is “to adopt biblical teachings as a method of overcoming capitalism in favor of Communism.” He states further: “If you @emy me that, or it the labor movement'Has no use for it or ignores this moral or biblical basis, then you or the Party cuts me off from the labor movement éntirely and forever.” The Communist Party does not bar workers {rom its rans on account of their religious views, We admit workers into our ranks having relig- ious views, but carry on a vigorous campaign against the religious ideal and the church, which is a tool in the hands of the bosses:to dupe the workers away from the struggle by offering pie in the sky, What is required is that the worker in the Party works with understand- ing doing his Party work against the capitalist state and the bosses and dees not come into opposition with the Party program, ees a” CALIFORNIA LEADS The comrades in California have done fine work in building active workers correspondent groups. In fact the California comrades lead ail the other districts in this work. The news sent in is mostly concrete and, on the whole, reflects very well the struggles of the workers in California. The California news also is sent in by groups of workers instead of by individual workers, which is very significant, We would like to hear from more groups of workers like the California group, Keep up the good work, California. Follow California's example, Build from being broken up by the capitalist mill owners, —A Young Working Woman. little Worcorr Groups in your fac+ tory, shop or neighborhood. Write about workingclass conditiens and struggles,

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