The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 29, 1931, Page 6

Page Two DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 1931 talism needs hungry millions begging for work at the factory gates—in order to reduce the wages of those who are at work inside. Jor these reasons the capitalist ruling class and its Wall Street government at Washington will not willingly do anything to bring real re- lief to the unemployed. Only under pressure from organized and determined millions of the working’ class and farmers can any real con- cessions be forced from the reluctant hands of the cold-blooded ruling class and its govern- ment, The masses must act. COMMUNIST PARTY PROGRAM FOR IMMEDIATE RE LIEBE OF UNEMPLOYED § °* The Communist Party déclares that no re- lief can be obtained except by the masses or- ganizing and fighting for it. The first necessity is the organization of powerful Unemployed Councils. Unemployed Councils have already been formed in many cities, They must be ten times more powerfully organized. They must include the wide masses of the workers both employed and unemployed. The Unemployed Councils must -be activized. Working class democracy must have full sway in them. Through the Unemployed Councils the workers, employed and unemployed, must act. solidly together, -immediately taking up every issue arising out of unemployment and suffering of the working class and: farmers. The Communist Party declares that the masses must demand, through the Unemployed Councils: : 1. An ‘intnediase grant. from government funds of $150 to each unemployed worker, with No discrimination as to age, sex:or color; and $50 additional for each dependent of such un- employed worker. This is a necéssary imme- diate emergency relief. 2. The immediate stopping of all evictions arising out of unemployment or out of condi- tions created by strikes, or out of non-payment of rent because of low wages or part-time em-_ ployment. Free rents, gas, lights, water, etc., for the unemployed at expense of the govern- ment. Free distribution of milk for children of unemployed. ; 38. Unemployment insurance by the gov- ernment, guaranteeing full wages to all work- ers unemployed from any cause whatever, this to include agricultural workers, clerks, office employees and all other categories of wage labor. 4, This unemployment relief to be admin- istered by the insured workers organized into self-directing bodies on a territorial basis. 5. The shortening of the present excessive hours of labor by the introduction of the 7- hour day, without reduction of weekly earn- ings, throughout al! industry; except that for mining and other dangerous occupations the 6-hour day; abolition of child labor under 14 and provision of government vocational train- ing with government support; the 4-hour day for youths up to 16, and the 6-hour day for youths from 16 to 20. 6. Adequate relief to all farmers who are without proper food, clothing and shelter for the winter by the government. 4, The stopping of all _discrimination against Negroes; the breaking up of the sys- tem of jim-crow segregation and the preven- tion of higher rent for Negro-tenants; Negro share-eroppers and tenant farmers to receive full relief without discrimination. 8. Against the Hoover schemes of. public works which are designed as preparations for war, as wage-cutting expedients and systems . of forced labor—we demand the inauguration of the program of building workers’ homes to replace the present horrible slums and bar- racks inhabited by millions of underpaid and unemployed workers, building of workers’ hos- pitals, nurseries, ete. All public building to be at trade union wage rates and the T-hour day. 9. Absolute prohibition of all forms. of forced labor or coercion of any kind in con- nection with relief and insurance. 10. Development of trade relations with the Soviet Union (including the demand for recognition of the Soviet Union, not only as a fundamental requirement of international working class solidarity, but also as a vital im- mediate economic need of the starving masses) in order that the idle factories may work, fill the constantly growing demands of the suc- cessful construction of the workers’ govern- ment and its five year plan. The Communist Party demands the financ- ing of all forms of insurance and relief by a° diversion to this purpose of all military, naval and police appropriations, sharp reduction of official salaries, sharply graduated income tax on all incomes above $5,000, graduated capital levy on all fortunes above $100,000. The struggle for these demands shall be organized around the Unemployed Councils and carried on by mass demonstrations in cities, counties and states by hunger marches includ- ing a national hunger march to the opening of Congress; by signature campaigns, delegations to governing bodies, and the use of referendum laws in the various states and by supporting the Communist Party in the coming elections. SOCIAL INSURANCE FOR WORKERS! While demanding the above mentioned im- mediate emergency relief measures as abso- lutely necessary as the first steps to grapple with the problems of starvation and death which face our class today as a result of two years of starvation in which the government has refused all relief—we demand also that the system of Social Insurance shall be estab- lished immediately. What is social insurance? necessary ? That portion of the wealth produced by a wage worker which he receives in the form, of wages is so insignificant that it hardly suf- fices for the satisfaction of his most essential demands of life even in times of so-called “prosperity.” A worker is deprived in this way of every possibility to save from his wages for the event of losing his capacity to Jabor. He may lose his ability to labor through injury in the factory or sickness, old age, invalidism or he may lose the opportunity to labor through unemployment which is in- separably connected. with the capitalist sys- tem of production, Such social: insurance has @lways been a need which the workers should . fave fought for at all times. But now, in the midet of the’ present desperate plight ef the And why is it working class, it has become a lite-and-death necessity. WHAT SOCIAL<INSURANCE IS The best form of social insurance for work- ers igs a federal government insurance, to be constructed upen the following basis: 1. It must insure the workers against ali cases of loss of their capacity to labor (in- jury, illness, old age, invalidism and, for women, in addition pregnancy and childbirth, and should include compensation of widows and orphans from the death of the breadwin- ner)—and must insure all workers against the loss of their earnings through unemployment. 2. Social insurance must include all per- sons who labor for wages and their families. 3. All of those insured. must be compen- sated on the principle of the government re- placing their full wages; and all expenses of insuranee must fall upon the. enya and the government. must be supervised by single insuranee organ- izations constructed on. the territorial- basis, - and managed bes varipes by: ae med une themselves... ih ee "> . Bave the big: ‘aul THE CAPITALISTS SAY “NO”! Of course the capitalist class and all of its spokesmen are against any such real relief and social insurance for the workers. All proposals made by capitalist politicians, so-called “Socialist” reformists and “business leaders” are entirely different and sharply op- posed to these fundamental demands of ra- tionally constructed social insurance. All of such proposals are made not in the interests of the working class, but solely in the interests of the capitalist class. The capitalist proposals are;not proposals for social insuranée, but are intended to prevent and defeat social insurance —to protect the capitalist class from: the neces- sity to provide real social insurance against the most immediately destructive effects of the capitalist wage slavery upon the lives and health of the working class. For instance, these capitalist proposals never propose an assurance of full wages for workers who through no fault of their own are denied an opportunity to labor. They usually touch upon only one or two as- pects of insurance, and adopt the most mis- erable standards of semi-starvation as “good enough” for the working class—victims of the system of capitalism. They usually leave out -0f consideratior the great mass of the work- ing class and especially those who -are-most in need of social insurance (agricultural workers, . itinerant laborers, and even workers in sou industries). CAPITALIST ‘FRIENDS’ OF THE ‘WORKING CLASS AND WHAT THEY PROPOSE REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRATIC STARVATION PLAN A. The Openly Capitalist Spekesmen: The capitalist class and all of its spokesmen adhere to the one main policy. Hoover gives the main lead—no unemployment relief, no social insur- ance, no undertaking by the federal govern- ment of responsibility for the starving millions. But in the complex life of capitalist poli- tics, many other spokesmen for capitalism arise to offer proposals which appear ag in “op- position’ to Hoover's program. Some capitalist spokesmen speak as though they were “in favor’ of unemployment relief by the federal government together with some vague suggestions of social insurance. The Tammany Senator Wagner and Governor Roosevelt of New York and the “liberal” Re- publicans, Senator LaFollette of Wisconsin and Governor Pinchot of Pennsylvania, with croco- dile tears, speak “for” measures vaguely sug- gesting such relief. But above all, these de- fenders of the capitalist system try to break up the mass movement of the workers, they try to prevent demonstrations, to prevent the organization of Unemployment Councils, to prevent any action that will result in winning unemployment relief and social insurance, These supporters of capitalism help Hoover's program of starvation by creating the illusions that the masses, in hopeless disorganization, can idly wait and starve and depend upon the “good will’ of the capitalist government whose program is: the masses rovst starve. It is these same men who suprert and order the clubbing and shooting down of workers who demonstrate and petition for real unemploy- ment relief—the Tammany Hall of Governor Roosevelt and Senator Wagner were directly responsible for the clubbing and riding down of the unemployment demonstration of March- 6, 1930, and the heavy prison sentences'to the leaders of the unemployed, whilst Govegnor Pinchot is now engaged through his pelice in the shooting down of striking miners in Pennsylvania. : No matter what promises, no matter what demagogy may be necessary, these “liberal’ capitalist and “socialist” pcliticians know that with the masses unorganized, with ro mass pressure brought to bear againct the eipitalist class and government, the workers and farmers will be defeated in all efforts to obtain real relief. The demagogue Mayor Murphy of Detroit was put into office by the automobile manu- facturers as the one who could best pose as a ‘friend’ of the workers, who could best de- _ ceive the masses with scraps of “charity,” the 4, Social insurance in all of its phases _ distribution of’ garbage to the unemployed workers: as “food” in the soup line, the cheap herding of thousands of aah | men in dirty, barracks; ‘All: such.