The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 20, 1931, Page 3

ee DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 1931 Page Tizes ~ <== Mine Strike Spreads in Ohio Despite Boss Terror By BILL DUNNE. BRIDGEPORT, Ohio, June 16.— 300 miners at Big Run, 760 at two Constanza, mines and 200 at Gaylord No. 1 struck this morning according to reports received at the district headquarters of the National Min- ers Union and the District Rank and File Strike Committee, 2 North Side Lincoln Ave., Bridgeport, Ohio. The Executive Committee of the District Rank and File Strike Com- mittee, elected at the meeting held in Dillonvale yesterday, following the closing of Roma Hall in Bellaire where the meeting was scheduled by city police and special deputy sher- iffs, met-in.the district headquarters and made plans for carrying out the main decision of the Rank and File Strike Committee of 109 delegates for spreading the strike. The Executive Committee elected the following offi- cers: Whitney Nelson, chairman; John Rollins, vice chairman, and Tony Minerich, secretary. It selected a number of Ohio and West Virginia mines as concentration points where literature will be dis- tributed and to which organizers will be sent. Reports of the members of the strike Executive Committee from their mines and sections show that in most instances where miners are still working the miners are only waiting to receive the strike call and direction as to how to proceed to organize and carry or: the strike. In & numberof mines also, as reports showed, @ spontatieous strike has been prevented only by actual ter- rorization of the miners by armed special deputies, members of the American Legion and other methods of suppression. At one of the Brad- ley mines, for instance, American Legionaires have set up a machine gun covering the approach to the mine and are threatening the miners with violence and even death if they strike as they have already declared their willingness to do. The strike Committee Executive declares that directly contrary to statements in the Pittsburgh, Cleve- land and local press to the effect that the strike in Ohio and West Virginia is a result-of threats to the miners made by National Miners Union or- ganizers. the situation is such that many mines have struck without a single organizer being pres:ni or a single leaflet being distributed to the miners and that only lack of forces available for organization work pre- vents the more rapid development of the strike against starvation and slavery in Ohio and West Virginia. The meeting of the rank and file district strike committee instructed its executive to call upon all mine workers and their families to buy nothing in Bellaire and St. Clairs- ville and to defer payment of all bills till after the strike since in these two towns the_breaking up of miners’ meetings, the gassing of miners and their wives and children and other workers, the actual open declaration of war upon the striking miners and their leadérs ‘such as that in the Bel- jaire Leader of June 13, makes it clear that the business men of these communities and county authorities are supporting the starvation and strike breaking program of the coa’ operators and the UMWA officials. ‘The Strike Executive elected a spe- cial strike relief committee from among its members and is now pro- ceeding to organize local relief col- lections. There is already dire need and suffering among the miners and their families as a result of starva-~ tion wages, part time employment and actual robbery of tonnage on the scales by the coal operators. Boss Press Lies. An example of the so-called ac- curate and impartial reporting of the strike developments by the local cor- respondents of the Associated Press and the local papers is seen in an A.P. despatch carried in the Pitts- burgh Post-Gazette and Wheeling Register this morning. Both these news stories state that William Fos- ter, organizer of the great steel strike in 1919-1920 and National Secretary of the Trade Union Unity League, who spoke at the picnic at Shady- side yesterday, was deported from Moundsville by police and “50 Ameri- can Legion members who had volun- teered their services.” These des- patches also state that Bob Sivert, District Secretary of the National Miners Union, and Frank Borich, National Secretary of the NMU, were among those deported. Neither Fos- ter, Borich, nor Sivert were in Moundsville last night nor were they scheduled to speak at this meeting which had been arranged by local workers in the Paisley mine. The or- ganizers deported by armed strike breaking coal-operators’ agents were miners employed in Eastern Ohio mines until the strike. Sheriff Duff of Belmont County, according to the Wheeling Register of Monday, June 15, claims to have “struck a blow at the strike organization in Eastern Ohio” by the arrest of one Fred Sul- vaskey “alias Frank Sylvester, 38, a Russian residing at Black Oak.” A general charge against Sulvasky ap- pears to be that he is “one of the undercover organizers of the strike.” This terrific blow has not yet been felt by the rank and file strike com- mittee of the National Miners Union and Sheriff Duff appears to have merely taken another step in his gen- eral policy of arresting and intimi- dating wherever possible all miners who refuse any longer to accept pov- erty and serfdom at the hands of the operators. Not a single serious act of violence has been proved against the strik- ers up to date in the face of the most severe provocation by coal operators’ agents and armed thugs of all de- scriptions with meetings prohibited and miners facing jailing in the most arbitrary fashion. The striking min- ers and their families have confined themselves to organized protest and picketing and a few cases of neces- sary self-defense against scabs and armed agents of the coal-operators. The strike committee is sending another telegram of protest to Gov- ernor White calling his attention to the open incitement to violence against strikers and organizers and the czaristic acts of suppression of workers meetings by city and county authorities. Arkansas Miners Robbed of Wages Families Starving and Desperate (By a Worker Correspondent) FORT SMITH,Ark.—The miners are in a terrible condition out here in Arkansas. They are not living— they are merely existing. They have had very little work in over a year. Those who are working get only a couple of days work a week at $2 to $44 day. Then the miness are robbed of some of their pay by a fellow by the name of Bob Young, who has the contract of putting the coal on top. This Bob Young is notorious out here as @ union buster arid has done the’miners more dirt than any- body in town. ‘The miners are now paying dear for listening to the hot air the bosses and their-agents peddled about “re- turning prosperity.” I just met a miner who told me he had nothing for himself.and his family to eat for two day s. A miner’s wife, des- perate from starvation, rushed into a store and seized a sack of flour. and a bucket of lard. She looked so determined that the merchant was afraid to try to stop her. ‘The Arkansas miners will have to do like the. miners in Pennsylvar are doing--that is, line up with the National Miners Union and strike against starvation. ‘ Wages Slashed On Oakland City Job (By a Worker Correspondent) OAKLAND, Sal.—We carpenters, engineers and laborers working on Melrose High School building are be- paid $1 to $2 below daily wage scale here. This job is supposed to be a public job, paying employes the standard wage scale, yet we are being wit hsuch procedure Jobs and semi-public complaint means noth- ly @ talk to bluff about work- ers receiving standard wage scale. Nearly all’ jobs in the city, the con- tractors are Violating this and when protested the blame is bounced from contractor. to the city. city to the DEMANDS OF STRIKING MINERS The following are the demands for which to date 35,000 miners are striking: 1. Machine coal 2. Pick coal 3. Cutters .. 4. Day Men. 5. Helpers . 6. Narrow work yardage 67%¢ yard Cutters ....... teat 15¢ yard 7. Payment for all dead work to be based on the day men’s rate of $5.55. 8, Outside skilled labor . Outside unskilled labor. .f 9. All supplies to be delivered to face and adequate supplies to be on hand at all times. Union checkweighmen at every mine, Enforcement of 8-hour day. Recognitién of National Min- ers Union. STEEL BOSSES LAY OFF 100 Metal Workers Indus- trial League Grows (By a Worker Correspondent) GARY, Ind—The Gary Sheet Mills laid off over 100 men from ail their shops last week. The Metal Workers Industrial League is growing here. The work- ers, white and Negro, are forming a strong united front and are pre- paring to fight the bosses. All the workers I talk to around here say they won’t starve, but will fight to the last ditch against this starvation. 10. i. 12. Unemployed Texas Worker A Suicide BEAUMONT, Tex., June 18.—De- claring he “couldn’t continue with this mode of living,” George E. Saums, an unemployed worker, com- mitted suicide today as an ineffec- tive and mistaken way of protesting against the bosses’ starvation system. company and so on (as was on the Seventh St. subway job) and so on. The result beting rio one to blame for wage cut. Will we stand this all the time? Only organized we will be able to pro- test most effectively, | ——EE = Sidelights On the Hunger Most of the marchers had been up since four o'clock picketing and pull- ing down news mines, marching sev- eral miles often to do this One miner's wife said in a matter- @-fact way that e had gotten up at twelve, after three hours’ sleep in order to do the family washing and ironing before going on the picket line Farmers ni the neighboring dis- tricts, although hard up themselves, when visited by local strikers’ relief | committees give from what little they have. But this is not enough. In order for the miners to get even | one decent meal a day, the workers | | of the rest of tise country must rush | to their aid at once. If you still | have three meals a day, remember | that there are thousands in the coal fields who've not had a square meal| | in mony months. “Only beans—beans | and beans” as one miner expressed it, “and darn little of that.” One had one loaf of bread and some let- tuce yesterday, nothing today, and] the prospect of nothi: w. | Immediate relief is the pri tical way the rest of the work class can support the coal diggers in their heroic struggle. Not only has the mine st ig tomo: most ke had a tremendous effect on the steel | workers, encouraging them to con- sider undertaking similar action, and | also on the Pennsylvania unemploy- ed, but also the small shop-keeper | and similar elements in the local | territory are actively in sympathy | with the strike. Examples—today, family for instance of eight members | g March to Washington, Pa. to make extra post Washington shop-keepers gladly ve cardboard, boxes, ink, and shoe blacking, and use of stores for this purpose, and. helped in the work. Also, along with steel workers’ families they set buck- ets of fresh water along the line of march. Signs read, “Join Us and Fight Starvation,” “Food for our Children,” “Negro and white miners, unite,” 'd Not Marit a Yellow Dog,” “Join the National Miners Union.” Several Negro miners made ex- lent speeches. The UMW came in for drastic criticism, One said, “When I was a my ma used to switch me. But she never got to switch me but once with any switch, be- cause I always got hold of ’em after~ wards and broke them up. Well, Lewis his gang gave me @ ter- rible switching once. He gave all of us. But I'll be gol-darned if he’s ever going to get a chance to do it We'll break him and his gang Another miner said, “For a long time I’ve been ready to strike against this starvation. But I figured I could not strike alone. Now we got a real union to lead us, our National Miners Union, It's up to us to win.” An Avella middle-aged man, un- employed miner brought to the front of the truck for the demonstrators to see a small lad who claimed he was sixteen but looked barely thir- teen. “Look,” the miner told them, “the coal barons turn men like me out of the mines and put young chil- WIR PICNIC FOR MINERS RELIEF Two Children From the Mine Fields NEW YORK—The Picnic andj Solidarity Festival arranged by the} WIR for miners’ relief and the chil- | dren’s camp campaign, is only a few days off. Sunday, June 21st, at ten in the morning, thousands of work- | ers will gather at Pleasant Bay Park, Unionport, Bronx, to spend a happy day in the open. .The Workers Laboratory Theatre | and Proletbuhne have written a spe-| cial Solidarity Mass Recital for this | event. | Two children from the Pittsburgh strike area—one a child-miner, the other the daughter of a miner—will be there to tell of actual conditions in the strike-ridden area. Comrades Stokes and Turner, who received severe sentences in the Bronx boss courts for tho crime of selling the Daily Worker will tell of their experiences while in prison. “From the Volga to Gastonia”—a movie showing vivid scenes in the class struggle, will be shown. A rich program, including dancing, mass singing, music, games, and athletics is constantly being enlarged. The Harlem Progressive Sports Club will play a soccer with the Forwartz|, Sports Club, and there will be many surprise attractions. All workers who come will have a good time. But—what is far more important—they will show their soli- darity with the striking miners, with unemployéd workers, by helping the Miners’ Relief Campaign and the WIR Children’s Camp Campaign. Workers Correspondence is the backbone of the revolutionary press. Build your press by writing for it about your day to day struggles. Use your Red Shock Troop List every day un your job. The worker next to you will help save the Daily Worker. Children Toil in Fields | Long Hours for Few Cents (By a Worker Correspondent) Universal, Ind. Daily. Worker:— P There is much noise in the capi- talist press that there is no child labor existing in the U.S. A. On my return from Indianapolis, I investi- gated and found that children are employed there of both sexes, be- tween the age of 5 to 16, picking berries. What is most appalling about this is that children are collected like rubbish in the cities in trucks and automobiles at 4:30 a. m. and 7:30 p. m. they are brought back home. The children must pay 25 cents a day for being taken there and back. | At the start the bosses were gen- erous, paying 12 cents a crate. When | the bosses saw they had no trouble ; | getting over 1,000 children they cut them to 7 cents a crate. The chil- | dren must take their own lunches | with them from home. A child) working there for three days, 15 hour-day made $1.87. Organize. Workers, open your eyes, don’t stand for such insults. Organize | and destroy the child slavery sys-| tem. Establish workers and farmer | government that will safeguard the| children from such horrible slavery. Miners Children Fight With Parents In Strike “We've got 7 in our family to eat. Sometimes we have black coffee and bread, and sometimes we have nuth- in’. No dinner at all,” Zita Lusciana, an eleven-year-old girl stated mat- ter-of-factly. “Mine work ain’t so regular,” she continued. Two children, one a child laborer of 17 who looks no more than 13, are now in New York, sent by the Pennsylvania-Ohio Striking Miners’ Relief Committee t oget funds for the fighting miners’ families. John Pomfert, who has been working with his father for seven months in the coal mines loading coal, came out on strike with the other workers immediately the National Miners Union came to Kinloch, “We was waintin’ for the Union,” he said, “and as soon as organizers came, we struck. My father and I, we both earned $30 in two weeks. I get $10 for two weeks work. We got to buy all our things at the company stores. ‘We live in company houses, three rooms, toilet outside, no running water, plaster pealing off, and it costs us $6. “We came out on Friday, and on Saturday 17 miners’ families didn’t have nothin’ to eat. When we saw McKeesport Miners Out Solid On Strike; All Join Nat. Mine Union Build Rank and File Strike and Relief Committees (By a Miner) McKEESPORT, Pa.—The miners of the Hubbard Mine, of the Mc- Keesport local coke company, came out on strike against starvation pay on June 11th. On that date 43 men went into the mine and on June 12th only three men ehtered the mine, The miners have all jonied the National Miners Union and have Against Starvation this, we went and organized a Re- lief Committee and got stuff from the farmers. They helped us along some,” “We haven't got many scabs in the mines, only about 50, and they, all about 20 who're dirty rats, don’t want to work there and how. These scabs were gotten in first fiwm Pitts- burgh, they were told they’d work on the roads. But soon as they| found out they was hired for scab- bin’, they left. Then the bosses went to Cleveland and got a carload of ‘em. Told ’em they’d work on State Construction work. About half way they were told it was labor trouble. ‘The State Troopers were on each side of the car and wouldn't let them off. ‘Step off this car, they said, ‘and you'll be dead.’ “A scab can’t go to the toilet with- out having @ deputy sheriff with him. They all want to come out with us, and when we get a strong picket line, they'll join us. Otherwise they are afraid of getting shot. “My father and I, we always was union, We never did scab. “Zita and me, we're gonna collect money to send back home to keep the strike going. We sure must win elected, their officers and have or- and keep the strike-breakers away from the mines, Relief Committee Formed ganized a strike committee of 25 men who look after the picket line We have also formed a relief com- mittee which will look after any striker and striker’s family who are in need of aid. This strike has been called to try to get better working conditions and wages in the mines. The average wage under the present conditions is from $17 to $19 for days days work —and no man can live and support his family on such wages. A miner at this mine received from 20 to 25 cents per ton of coal— that is, we are given credit for this on the company sheets, But when we had a checkweighman on the tipple to look after our weight, these Wagons weighed from 75 to 85 hun- dred-weight. But now it is very sel- dom that we can get 69 hundred on the same wagon. And under pres- ent conditions the company will not allow the miners to have the check- weighman on the tipple. Could any one blame us miners for striking against these starvation conditions. MINE BOSS PRESS — HIDES TRUTH Worker Asks to Join Communists Canonsburg, Pa. Daily Worker: | When the strike broke out here a} newspaper reporter asxed me to act} as his guide and show him around} the country. The next morning I went with him to Westland. When the trouble began Mr. Reporter be- gan taking snapshots. When he went | to the telephone I took his camera | and snapped a scene myself—a pic- ture of three state troopers brutally | beating a 17-year-old boy. The pic- | tures the reported took were all of | the miners, their wives and children | throwing rocks at the police and fighting them, Not one of his pie- tures showed the brutality of the | police toward the miners and their | families. The reporter was very angry at me for taking this picture and told me that nothing of this} kind could be turned in to his paper. My interest in the Communist Party up till this time had only been my friendship with Pat Foohey, but after thinking of Mr. Reporter's conduct I determined to find out! why such a picture was rejected. So | I got all the back numbers I could of the Daily Worker, and now I) know why the capitalists use their | press so vigorously—because if the people learn the truth, the power and wealth of the bosses will surely and certainly be broken. I am ready ow to become a member—an ac- tive member—of the Communis’, Party. —A New Comrade. this strike. And we're gonna help the best way we can.” It is a determination such as this, and the fighting spirit of the miners that drives them onward in their struggle against starvation. With nothing better than “black coffee and breat to eat” when the mines are running, and “sometimes nothin’ at all,” the miners’ slogan is “Better Starve and Strike Than Work and Starve.” Rush funds to 611 Penn Ave., Pittsburg, Pa. to help the struggle of the miners against mis- erable poverty and exploitation. First Truckload of Food to » Miners Sent Today the first truckload of food is being shipped to the strik- ing miners. Now there are about forty thousand out on strike! With their families they number at least one hundred thousand. We must send them hundreds of carloads of food. We can only do this if thousands of workers get behind this program and work for it. The W.LR. and T.U.U.L, call upon all wérkers, native and for- eign-born, Negro and white, men, women and children together, to rise to the solidarity-support of the striking miners! Send clothing to 240 E. Ninth St. New York. Rush funds to District Penn.-Ohio Striking Min- ers’ Relfef Committee, 799 Broad- way, Room 614, New York, N. ¥. when miners’ wives and kids wanted | dren like this in to take our place.” CALIFORNIA MINIMUM WAGE LAW FOR WOMEN VIOLATED BY BOSSES THROUGH THE APPRENTICE SYSTEM Law Calls for $16 a Week Minimum Wage for Women; Thousands Toil Long Hours for $6, $8 Skilled Girls Kept On Payrolls for Years As Apprentices At Low Wages (By a Worker Correspondent) LOS ANGELES, Cal.—A few sessions back, the Legisla. ture of California, forced by pressure from the workers, passed a law requiring employers of women to pay a minimum of $16 per week. A severe penalty for failure to comply with this law was also forced into the act by popular demand. Since then, California, past master in the art of publicity, has let the world know that it was a state with a heart—a progressive state that protected the “poor working girl” from the ruthless ex- ploitation of greedy employers as capitalistic legislature goes—but as with all capftalistic legislation, there was a joker. Inserted in the bill was a clause permitting appren- tices to receive less than the minu- mum $16.00 per week. Since this famous piece of legis- lation has passed, girls and women are now hired as apprentices. They are paid as low as $6.00 per week, on the pretext that they are learn- ing a trade. Mexican and Negro girls especially, suffer from this form of hypocrisy. “This practice is carried on quite openly. The Woolworth, Kresge, Grand, and United five and ten cents stores carry about half of their girls as apprentices at $12.00 weekly, al- though a girl can learn what is re- quired from her in half an hour, Newberries does somewhat better, with $14.00 a week. $8.00 a Week. Recently at Parisian Millinery Co. it was discovered that a girl had been in their employ for 2 years at $8.00 weekly. She was already a} skilled liner and maker, but was still listed as an apprentice. Practically every industry in Los Angeles;. department stores, restaur- ants, factories, etc. have their ap- prentices. Sears and Roebuck not only em- ploy apprentices but it has put them on the stagger system in a number of departments. In these depart- ments the girls are divided into two forces, each working only three days per week—at three days’ pay. The force that works are made to do the work of the half on “vaca- tion.” Lured to Prostitution. Thousands of girls are out of work in Los Angeles and the pimps Cannery Wages Down 15 Per Cent in Calif. (By a Worker Correspondent) NILES, Cal—Schucki cannery here employs about 350 workers now. Most of the workers are town peo- ple and poor-small farmers’ wives and daughters—some mere children. $1.50 a Day. We are canning apricots now and after 3 weeks the cannery will close, San Joaquin valley apricots are al- ready overripened and the growers are rushing shipments. So we are being rushed in turn. Our wages average about $1.50 per day—a cut of at least 15 per cent over last year. This year less are employed here than usually, We did not pack any cherries at all this year, as the can- neries claim they cannot pay but 2 cents per pound for them to the growers, In the orchards the cher- ries are rotting on the trees. Great over-abundance has been produced by nature, yet canned cherries sell at the same price to the consumers. Workers are half-starved, under- The bill was a model one as far ® and the perils of the street. are taking advantage of the situa- tion. Recently a scout with a smooth tongue, hanging around the Underwood Typewriter Employment Agency succeeded in obtaining ¢ few desperate young girls for thj brothels of Tia Juana. The official, do nothing about this. The L@ Angeles Record which poses as like eral and progressive tells nothing of this althongh many workers confused by their demogogy have written to them complaining of these evils. Only the united strength of the working class can put a stop to this form of exploitation and remedy these evils. RED CROSS AND S. P. UNITE TO FOOL WORKERS Offer Barren Land and a Few Seed to Joblesd (By a Worker Correspondent.) Reading, Pa, Dear Comrade:— I want to inform you that our so~ called socialist party city adminis- tration is again getting on the job to us workers. They are now using old City Hall for an emplo; to make the workers believe they can get jobs. But there are to an agency to give the w ‘land” on which to plant The groung they are giving out in Hampton Heights and the 18tH the land is under water and other half is rock, The things is half a dozen cabbage plants, a mal @ dozen tomato plants which arg little, and a few other seed, which are done up in big packages with I would like to know whether thd socialist party and the red cross thing until these lousy plants will give | them food at the end of the summeg have more than a week of food of it. feat the socialists because they the workers, we will support because they fight for the We Unemployment Insurance —That’g The socialist payty is only inters ested in keeping akay the of ORG, make us believe that they ere tor agency in which they had the jobs available so they turned i exist on at the end of the st Ward. In the lattter place half of they give the workers to plant three feet high and will bear very |red cross all over the packages, that the workers can starve to death ang at that we will not be able The workersof Reading will Communist Party because what we want! from their real wi ZATION. They want to be paid and shudder to think that the canneries will close again soon. ted and therefore they give w gardens that mean nothin i pas ¥ bat } p