The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 6, 1931, Page 4

Page Four * the Comprodafly ew York City, N. Y Publishing Co. checks to the Dai pt Sunday, at 50 East DAIWORK.” ew York, N. ¥. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Streetcar and Shop Men On Strike In Havana By PEDRO MORALES also been on cents an wage! A orkers got v particul: ager of r as Consul General of the States in Cuba, in 1906, t the second: milita: r the United States (1906 to 1! @ Test aid to the Stei eived from General Mag chise for the extension of the lk of, vana Railway, Electri and Power Co. y is now the most important public s ies corporation in Cuba, with a capital ey lion dollars. In addition to street car ser’ in. Havana and suburbs, electricity and po’ fér Havana and surroundings, the c owns iets great piers in the harbor talks of protecting the investors who h claims are almost entirely Cuban and Span: is protecting his own wealth, the reward from his imperialist masters for enslaving the Cuban masses. Twenty-two cents an hour—to make Steinhart rich—to starve the street car men and their families. The resentment and rebellious betrayed early in the officials, whom they then ved from office, for preventing 2 sttike gainst a former wage cut, this spirit of strug- gle and defense of their bread and butter burst out in strike. At the membership meeting of the motormen and conductors on Thursday, July 30th, it was decided to strike immediately (no car left the barn that midnight); and if the wage cut was not withdrawn within 24 hours, to prolong the strike until victory. A list of demands was ap- proved for Sar pan? to the company on Priday, w the main demand as against the wage cut was for: Equal. pay for equal work—40 cents an hour, and in addition, many others, including: (2) Double-pay for time when company charges double fare; (3) Full pay for time spent in court, on accident; (4) Payment by the company of court fines for accidents. The shop and maintenance of way men, who are in a-union called the “Havana Electric Union,” also affiliated with the National Work- ers’ Confederation, put. forward. the following demands: (1) Rejection of the proposed wage eut. (2) Refusal to work with. strikebreakers. Ifthe wage cut went into effect, they would strike. The refusal of the company to with- draw the wage cut put them on strike as well (there are five hundred of them, and about 2,000 of the conductors and motormen) Cuban Government Preparing to Break Strike. “The Secretary of the Interior, Zubizarreta, @nnounces that a member of the Central Dis- trict Council, representing. the “women,” has of- fered to get women scabs to run the cars and that several Negro workers have offered to man the cars. The government evidently plans to make use of women against men; and Negroes against whites. head, is rumored to have said that he “would tun the cars, if he had to call out all the sol- diers of the Republic.” Steinhart has an- nounced that tomorrow morning, Sunday, Aug. Qnd; workers are to report for their shift, failure to report implying dismissal. He expected to bring about a division in the strikers’ ranks, by rescinding the wage cut for all shop and main- tenance of way men now earning from 20 to 24 cents an hour. The press reports that this Guba b occupation, on a fran- the w) offer has been rejected, and the shopmen stand - pat. All signs point to a sharp struggle. The company is putting up.“Help Wanted” signs tonight. The daily “Heraldo de Cuba,” the gov- ernment mouthpiece, weeps crocodile tears. for the workers, but it pretends that it cannot de- cide who is right, since it does not know in- timately the financia) position of the company, er if the repeated wage cuts are in proportion to the decreased income. But it recommends to the strikers “calm” “not to permit them- selves to be swept into taking violent action, and not to permit their question to be mixed-up with political and social questions of another character, as some elements pretend.” It adds, “There are ‘many people who look to others to grab chestnuts out of the fire for them. There- fore be warned.” This warning coupled with the government campaign against August Ist, and mobilization of police for emergency use against demonstrations, indicates that “reds” must be avoided. In another article, it opposes the general strike of 24 hours. It refers to rumors of a general strike throughout the Re- public “which can result in a state of national unrest and disorder, especially to be regretted, when the government is now putting all its energy in solving the serious crisis which op- presses us,” but staves that it relies on the pa- triotism of the Cuban workers to keep their movement -frem being used for political pur- poses by opponents of the Government. The action of the government can not only be judged by its being a tool of American im~ matialism, the hangmen of the Cuban Supe Carrera, National Police Chief. | \ but concretely in the passive strike against the | high cost of electricity in over 50 cities and ast the Cia, Cubana de Gas 1 Gas and Electricity Co.). sted now in some places onth ¢ | over an sive strikes in the main). The | government accepts the statement of the man- | ager, Mr. Gatlin, that they cannot reduce the rates; bars and breaks up demonstrations; and led the action by the authorities of , who had lowered ‘the gas and elec- 2s by official action of their town ‘The strikers will e to face the com- , and the government. Rising Wave of Struggle in Cuba. Na tional Workers Confederation (Con- Nacional Obrera de Cuba) last night secret session (the Centro r, was ordered closed by night and during August 1st) at decided to fix definitely the reed upon strike of 24 number of points in the inter- response of solidarity date of the hours. From a centers, ar- arge of “military trea- rtations. Additional demands loyment, against wage cuts, for the 8 hour day, etc. Now, with the out- break of the street. car strike support to r objects of the hours comes at a time when e received repeated wage cuts. ny determind stand against he Street Car Men g point in the his. ng class, in the strug- demands. period of than ir a mass tur! n of the masses of Cuban in evidence. They respond ruggle appeal w the Confed- now making to them. Even the action of the ‘eet car men was brought to a head, just when the Confederacion orgenizing the masses for the 24 hour strike, was linked with the struggle against wage The Confederacion outline of the cam- paign 2: ‘or was posted on the ste- tion boards for the men to read. The Confed- eracion instead of drifting along was now tak- the workers he There had been preparatio! March, 1930, but out. The sists eracion cuts was made all the more neces- of the huge increase in prices of bread and meat. The dejegates of the Motor- men and Conductors and of the Havana Elec- tric Union had voted in the Confedeéracion for the 24 hour strike. Their strike against the wage cut was the next logical step. The Confederacion has now avoided some major errors made last year. 1. It is not form- ing any Comite Conjuntp (United Committee) with reformist leaders, as was done in March and October, 1930. The leaders of the Cigar- | makers in March, 1930, accepted openly a strike | decision, but secretly sabotaged it. In October, one of their leaders made a patriotic speech before Machado in the Presidential Palace, and accepted a National Flag from Machado as a pledge of class collaboration and betrayal of the working class. This error was the result of lack of confidence in the Confederacion, lack of faith that the masses*would break with their reform- ist leaders and support the revolutionary strug- gles of the Confederacion. The Confederacion is the leader of the strike preparation for Au- | gust 4th. 2. The demands as already explained above are not confined to slogans against the terror, but reflect the every day life of the masses of workers. Social Fascists Prepare for Scabbing The Union Federativa Obrera, led by the traitor Juan Arevalo, who is making a bid for the job of Labor Secretary in the Cuban Gov- ernment, instructs its unions not to strike on August ist. The Communist Party in its prep- arations for August Ist planned a street demon- stration, but no strike. In order to weaken the 24-hour strike announced by the Confederacion, the Union Federativa Obrera links it with August ist. The newspapers here played up the possible August ist general strike of 24 hours. Arevalo, in an article in the Heraldo de Cuba, denounces the August Ist “strike” as coming from Moscow, justifies the closing down of Workers Center (Centro Obrero) as a center of “Communist agitation” and opposes the street carmen’s strike, granting the justice of their demands, but “be- fore striking they should exhaust all means of government intervention and conferences with the company.” Which means they should have let the wage cut go into effect, while they wasted their time in conferences. He says the strike came “in an unexpected form.” How the labor fakers hate the timely use of the strike | weapon! His organizations will not take part | in the strikes, because “they mean the victim- ization of the working class.” The damned hypo- crite! The Union Federativa Obrera has sent a | cotymunication to their organizations, instruct- ing them not to strike on August ist. But this means August 4th as well Help Support the Strike! The strike of the street carmen will undoubt- edly be a bitter one and will last quite a while. It will be followed by many more bitter struggles against wage cuts in other industries. The Con- federation will and is mobilizing the Cuban working class for this struggle. The Commu- nist Party of Cuba is giving every possible sup- port to this struggle. But what of the home country of American imperialism? What will the American working class do? The revolu- tionary proletariat of the United States must make up for its previous neglect of the strug- gles of the revolutionary workers of the colonies and semi-colonies of American imperialism, and particularly of Cuba, which is in the first line trenches in the struggle against American im- perialism. The workers of the United States must immediately express their solidarity with the street car strike, with the demands raised in the 24-hour strike, raising these demands in the United States, before the United States Gov- ernment, before the Cuban Consulate in mass demonstration. Pass resolutions supporting the strike. Pass resolutions of protest against the terror, against the misery and starvation of the Cuban industrial and agricultural masses of the Cuban Government and the American ambas- sador in Cuba, Chile Coppered Guggenheim. Particularly New York, where the revolutionary organizations have accepted a “patronato” over workers, } the Cuban revolutionary movement A well- ing hold of things, asserting its leadership. The | IF THE RELIEF HAD COME! MARY S YEARS | disease caused by hunger. Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. By JOE DALLET. | Piss. next time they march they should turn | into the mill gates instead of going past | and we'll all go along with them,” said one worker in the tube mill of the Wheeling Steel Company, Steubenville, at the Ohio Valley Con- { ference of the Metal Workers’ Industria] League held in Yorkville, July 25th. He alluded to the hungér march 6f 1,500 striking miners and un- | employed steel workers, their wives and chil- | dren, who marched upon Steubenville, capitol of Jefferson County, to pres:nt their demands | for the right to live to the county commission- | ers. Other men assented vigorously. “I wish we'd have known about that march; I'd have | layed off work end gone with them.” Are these remarks, chance expressions of {so- lated steel workers, or are they based upon the conditions under which the masses of the steel workers labor? Those who know of the speed- up under which offe man is forced today to do the work of 2 tc 4 men, know that these were no isolated utterances. They know that, re- marks such as these are often made in the mills today, and that they run through the minds of countless thousands of steel workers who dare not give utterance to them for fear of losing their jobs. ‘The Ohio Valley conference of the Metal Workers’ Industrial League held July 26th in be NEWS ITEM: riindheds of Kentucky striking miners, women and children, are stricken and dying with the flux, 2 Rush relief thrugh Penn-Ohio Striking Miners Relief Committee, Room 205, 611 Penn Steel Workers in Conference Prepare for Struggle Against Hunger Yorkville, with representation from Wheeling, Steel Company mills in Yorkville, Steubenville, Martins Ferry and Wheeling, in addition to workers from the hot mills of the Weirton Steel Company in Steubenville, and the Follansbee Bros. Company in Toronto, Ohio. Although it was organized in one week’s time and reflected the lack of preparation as all of the weaknesses of the Metal Workers’ Industrial League, it gave striking proof that these above-quoted lines aré not the thoughts of one or two odd steel workers, but that the conditions in the steel mills and the mood of thé steel workers are such that if the Metal Workers’ Industrial League takes advantage of its present oppor- tunities, real strike struggles can bé developed and a mass union built. Wage cuts, part time work, speed-up, new machinery causing disemployment—these were mentioned in the reports of every delegate. Some of those present are still members of the Amal- gamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers, affiliated to the American Federation ‘of Labor—the one union that has more to do than any other with the present lack of or- ganization of the steel workers today. Unhesitatingly they expressed their belief that the overwhelming majority of the mem- pers still remaining in that narrow .corrupt union would come over to the new industrial | By CAROLINE DEEW. HERE are about 80 company houses in the Molus, Kentucky hollow, owned by the Har~ lan Mollus Coal Corp., which operates mines at Verda, Ky. and other towns. All of them stand empty today with the exception of four which are occupied by scabs. The other fami- lies were all set out. Deputies with high pow- ered rifles, machine guns, breast plated from neck to knee came and threw the little furni- ture the miners had into the field. Some of the families moved into garages, barns, old houses. Some families doubled up and in some houses three and four miners’ families are liv~ ing. Other families scattered all over the coun- try. Before the strike the miners were earning on an average of $1.75 a day. When pay day came around every two weeks they found the follow- ing. deductions listed on their statements; house rent from. $6.00 to $12.00 a month; doctor $2.25 a month; insurance $1.50 a month; burial fund $1.00 from the first pay and then 50 cents from every other pay, school 25 cents; besides the regular cuts for blacksmithing, supplies, etc. When the miner looked at the bottom of the statement he often found he was in debt to the company. Although the miners pad, the company doc- tor $2.25 a month they found he was good for nothing but testifying for the compensation company against them. He refused to come when he was called in cases of illness. The cut for the school did not mean that the children would get their books, a bus to take them to school, shoes, clothing, and lunch. It was for the privelege of attending the company school. Last winter very few children were able to attend school because they had no shoes. Those who did go were weak from hunger and could not learn anything because their Uttle stomachs ached for food. When the miners went on strike, one teacher especially urged the children to send their fathers to scab. He told Consulate is the best means of agitation at the present time. Workers of the United States— of that imperialism that is actually murdering and starving the masses of Cuba—remember your revolutionary duty to the colonial and semi- colonial workers—as stressed by the Internation- al Congresses and. Programs of the Communist International and the Red Trade Union Inter- national Show it in action. Now! planned mass demonstration before the Cuban Kentucky Miners Fighting Star- - vation and Deductions them he was going to scab as soon as school closed. ‘The company did not allow the miners to elect a committee to take care of the insurance and burial funds. They decided they would rather keep their clutches on those thousands which they checked off in the form of insur- ance. During the last year two children died in Mo- lus and their parents were allowed $25.00 each. During the year at least $2,000 had been collec- ted from the 150 miners working in the mines. The burial and insurance funds have been in existence for five years and have accumulated at least seven thousand dollars of the miners hard earned money. The striking miners de- cided that it was about time they got their money back and have started suit for recovery. ‘They do not stand very much chances in the bosses’ owned courts. This same system has been in force at other mines owned by this and other companies. ‘The company forced the men to trade at their store. At one time they would redeem the script at 80 cents on the dollar, then 70 cents, then they refused absolutely to give the miners any American dollars, The miners were getting more for the 70 cents at an independent store 300 yards away than was possible for the dollar at the company store. One miner worked in this mine for 5 years and said the biggest pay he had drawn was $12.00. Another worked seven months and lived in a private house. He had to borrow money. each month to pay his house rent and found himself $85.00 in debt when the strike came on. The biggest pay he had drawn was $3.00. ‘vet the “Harlan Sentinel,” owned and controlled by the mine operators, in an editorial on July 2ist, talked about Communism in the form of the Na- tional Miners Union spreading over Kentucky and reducing the American standard, and warned the miner against accepting Commu- nism because it would bring with it starvation as it did in Russia, The Kentucky miners feel the operators have given them about all the starvation they will accept. They are deter- mined to stick solidly together and win this strike. They are fighting against extreme ter- ror and starvation. They appeal to the work- ers all over the country to help them, to keep their children from starving. The U.M.W. sell out did not break thelr spirit, they tore up their cards and joined the National Miners Union, and look to the solidarity of the working class to help them win, i union. “Everyone in my mill is ageinst the con- ditions and agrees with organization as the only way out,” said 2 Yorkville worker. Most of the mills in this section belong to the Wheeling Steel Corporation. Cuts on ton- nage rates amount to about 35 per cent over the period of the last two years. In one of the plants at Wheeling, West Virginia, only 6 out of 12 mills are operating. Here the men were told that they must put out 350 pair a day or quit. About 4,000 were employed there “nor- mally”—that is, in the old days, when the mill was running full blast and before the cutting of every man not absolutely indispensable began. Today about 600 are working. In another mill 300 are working out of 400. But new machin- ery is being introduced which will enable 200 to put out more tonnage than the 400 did be- fore. In Martins Ferry the men are getting 2-3 days a week—those that work. But many haven't worked at all in a long time, and may never work again A delegate from Yorkville told of the auto- matic feeder which displaced men who used to feed by hand; as a result one man now pulls plates from 4 machines—800 boxes of tin plate every day. From 1916 to 1920 a man on that job, doing much less work, averaged $10 to $12 a turn. Today he gets $4. On the “open floor” they used to have laborers, working 10 hours at 45 cents an hour. It was “worse than slavery.” But today the laborers, “company men,” have been done away with. Their work is done as extra work, without pay, by the other “men working on @ tonnage basis. But if you tell the boss that it isn’t your job, he'll tell you, “There's the door. Go when you want.” “I talked to 50 men this week. Every one was in favor, but only one joined. The others said, ‘Alter a while’ ‘They are afraid to lose their jobs,” one delegate reported. So, of necessity, the conference dealt with methods of combat- ting the terror—small, semi-secret meetings, meeting places changed frequently; small groups, connected together through specially trusted workers; use of different names in the union. Carefully planned work as opposed to loose and noisy propaganda and recruiting. “I worked in the tube mill at Steubenville 8 years. Every day now there are fewer men put- ting out more tonnage.” said another delegate. He told me how, in the winter, they used to take off the spell men, replacing them in the hot seasons when workers become more quickly ex- hausted. : “Now it’s,hot and they have taken them off- altogether.” He told of the white-shirted “ef- ficiency men” who stand by with watches, pencils and pads, looking for every “wasted” motion, for every “idle” minute. “Last month there was a walkout—sort of a strike. But the men were not organized and the next day most of them came back to work—the strike was broken. Three of the men are black~ listed.”. Even the small bosses are afraid of the “efficiency men”. When they come around the bosses bustle and yell, and yell at their slaves, ‘Get busy there!’ They are building a restaurant inside the gates of the Wheeling Steel Company at Steubenville and every worker knows what that means. No, they’re not worrying about our stomachs’.” An Amalgamated Association member from the Follansbee mill at Toronto told of a good scale— he gets aboot $12 a turn when he works—but it’s only about 3 days a month, and he has a! large family. “We'll have to get something started in the company’s other mill at Follans- bee”, said another. In Follanstve the mill works one week, and then is down for one to two weeks. The men there can be organized now.: Hear the report from Martins Ferry: “Three days a pay ... automatic doubler in the hot mill... fired all day men in the open floor department .. . work ‘3 high’. . . tin house cut some men .. cold rolls, 50 percent of men fired, same production maintained . . . knealing floor laid off 75 per cent of the men... tin house used to work about 300 men, now 50. Used to be 50 on the shipping floor, now 5 to 6”... A striking miner who was present told of sel- ling Daily Workers among the steel workers. He had the names of two American steel workers who wanted to learn about the new union, Ar- rangements were made to visit them... ° The tin mills at Steubenville are working steady—-6 days a week. But it'e"all the time \\e By mail everywhere: One year, $6; six months, $3; two months, $1; excepting Boroughs of Manhattan and Bronx, New York City. Foreign: one year, $8; six months, $4.50. Conducted by the Org. Dept. Central Com- mittee, Communist Party, U. 8. A. PARTY LIFE | How to Build L.S.N.R. Groupt By RINA EVANS. (New Brunswick, N. J.) Vad of the reasons why our League of Strug- gle for Negro Rights groups do not grow as rapidly as they should, in the face of all the objective possibilities at present, is the fact, that among our white comrades there is still a prevalent idea; that for white comrades alone, i. e., without help of the Negro comrades, it is very difficult to approach Negro workers, and that without Negro comrades we do not mow how to build L. S. N. R. groups. From the experience we had in our city, I will endeavor to prove to the comrades that their conception is entirely wrong. Because of definite historical and economical reasons in the development of capitalism, the Negro worker was, and is, more oppressed than the white worker, also'the white worker has learned first how to fight our common enemies. The duties of the white worker is therefore two- fold. It is the white worker who must be ths one to come to the Negro worker and explain unity of struggle and solidarity. And the put- pose of these lines is to tell the comrades what happens when the white comrades go out (with- out Negro comrades) and speak Unity of Strug- gle and Solidarity to the Negro workers. Of course, the comrades mustn’t draw ths yidiculous conclusion that, wherever we do have ‘Negro comrades they are to be excused, or not actively engaged in this work. On the con- trary, Negro comrades should be very active in the building-of L S.N. FR. groups. But our point concerned here is: How to begin the building of these groups, wherever we have no Negro comrades at all. ‘The Party here has a membership of new and inexperienced comrades, with no Negro Party member. We have quite 2 Negro popu- lation here, and as elsewhere oppressed - and discriminated against. During our various Party campaigns we succeeded in getting a few Negro contacts. Now that the Scottsboro cam} is on, we set ourselves as 2 major task the build- ing of an L. S. N. R. group. During the sams time we were organizing 2 Scottsboro conference. We visited 2 few contacts in the same neigh- borhood with the Liberator and literature. The response was’ good. We found out the worker who was the most popular in that particular neighborhood. When we were through that eve- ning, a meeting in the popular worker's homs was arranged for a few days later. About 25 workers came to tlie arranged meeting from ths same neighborhood. We spoke at the meeting about the program of the L. 5. N. R., about the reasons why the capitalist system wants to lynch the 9 boys, the need for organization, etc. ‘We also elected delegates to the conference which was held a few days later. The confer- ence was a good one, and the delegates were enthused. At the next group meeting everyone joined the L. S. N. R. and for the first time we had a representative of the L. S. N. R. at the meeting. The group is now a functioning organization, carrying on every day work, and planning to really struggle for Negro Rights. Leadership is being developed in the group, which is already taking the initiative in organizing another neighborhood group, and this time with the help and joint work with white comrades. The re- sults of all our activities so far, was a splendid mass meeting held in a church here recently. About 35 workers applied for membership inte the L. S. N. R. and out of the pennies of the workers $18 was collected. A large percentage of the workers in our city have heard of the program of the L. S. N. R. ineluding some misleaders’ organizations, where we succeeded in breaking in. ‘ Until we began this work not a Negro worker was seen in our headquarters, and. naturally there was no cause for White Chauvinism, and as we had expected we now find signs of White Chauvinism here and there, which only marks lack of clarity and understanding of the Negro question. We are now carrying on ideological work to wipe out White Chauvinism before it be- comes a serious hindrance. In this work, as in any other work of the Party we find plenty of difficulties. But we talk so much about the white worker not being able to free himself without the Negro worker, about the necessity for building and preparing our apparatus, because it takes subjective and objective forces to make a revolution, etc. But one of our main weaknesses is in our fear to come to the workers, especially Negro workers, and when we do, we do not follow up our work properly. Let us do away with this fear, and learn to pay more attention to detailed organ- izational work. After all, at the present mo- ment, our main task is: to come to the workers, © lead them in their every day struggles, until we become @ mass power. b speedup, speedup.” The boss says, “If you don't like it I can get plenty of good men outside.” In the Weirton Steel Company’s plant at Weir- ton a man was sick, and stayed home a couple of days. When he got back his job was gone. Another worker who was sick and wanted to stay home, knowing of this, reported sick to the “If you go home, stay home”. ders for Ford. The job terminated with a bang —one 24 hour shift to end it all up—now shut Steubenville while unemployed steel . workérs starve. You have no choice. You work it, or get” your check, ‘A Negro‘from the Carnegie Steel plant at Mingo Junction spoke; “Last year we worked good. This year two or three days a week. I have a large family.| If we don’t get busy we'll have nothing left.” The conference elected a section executive committee of seven.| Those local organizations not| represented are in the process of being formed, were instructed to each elect one repre- sentative to the committee.| Motions were passed unanimously supporting the strike of the miners, and instructing miners on the order of business’ at every meeting. The August 1 demonstrations to be held in Wheeling at 3 p.m, River View Park, and in Steubenville, 2 p.m. at Court House Sq., were unanimously endorsed. “When we fight against war we fight for the world working class,” one delegate put it.| The question of uniting employed and unemployed was taken up and unemployed councils planned for Toronto and Steubenville. From the conference the delegates returned to their homes and their mills, there. to put into practice the things they learned at the confere Ss a ae aes Married & 2