The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 8, 1931, Page 4

Published by Address and ma The Nat'l RR. Industrial the Comprodatly , New Yor all Publishing Co., Inc., datly except Sunday, at 59 Mest Maily Me Central Onfemeane checke to the Di ily Worker, 50 Hast 15th Street League Calls tor Struggle Fer the Unity of all Railroad Trades, Or- Unorganized, Employed and Un. 2, into One Solid United Front Against -Cutting Program of the Companies the Grand Ledge Officials, and for the 6-iZour Day with 8-Hours Pay. WANGERIN, Secretary-Treas. oad Industrial League cussion ef con- e United Front Industr z at bring- ween all whether yed or un- N.R.LL. and loc from tments— demands and to From the begin- mized that the welfare of ployed is bound up in gle. The “Divide and the companies, which they into effect, must m of Demands mulated the Z pro- aling with con- he different branches c ice, e activities of the MN. R. I. L. shall be developed The fight ag wage cuts. ment of a minimum wage hour en the railroads pay for the 26-day month in yard service and no reduction in present mileage earnings in train service; expenses away from h d by the companies. hment of the 6-hour day with 8 hours pay; time and one-half for all hours jouble time for Sundays and Holida less to co te a day t to be required to ~k more t out being allowed wim? to eat 16-hour law to be amended to 12 hours 5. Unemployment insurance, immediate ze- lief and inst evictions; old age, accident, sickness, and disability insurance to be paid by industry and the government. 6. Abolition of the speed-up, B. & O. Union- Management Cooperation and other speed-up programs. Enlargement of train crews to cor- respond with the lengthening of trains—65 cars, or less, to constitute a train limit, with one ad- citional brakeman for the addition of each 10 cars or fraction thereof. On all trains of less than 65 cars, 'a full crew, to consist of 5 mem- bers. 7. Adequate protection to the safety and health of the railroad workers, 8. Abolition of the Watson-Parker Law. ©. The right to organize in such unions as t2 workers see fit to establish. The right of and free assemblage in all railroad protestion against arbitrary discharge participation in union activities. 19. The organization of the Negro railroad weoerers joint! with the white workers in the NM. R. I. L., with the same rights and privileges; 1 pay and assignment of work; fight against s ination practices on the job. 11, Yeung railroad workers — a minimum wrt of 45¢ per hour for apprentices, graduated {> rechenic’s pay during three years; four ith full pay each year; me- ys veerticn nic when apprentice,displaces a me- a4 19. Women reflvead workers—the right to be- J ell lebor organ: ion equal wages for v en doing men’s work. Special health £24 maternity protection Local Demands T addition to tho foregoing general demands, s eee*orenca wont en record for formulating ) ¢smards in the different railroad de- s besed upon local conditions. These + deal with the strict enforcement of sched- agreements and favorable working rules, provisions, sanitation, and general im- ovement of conditions on the job. The local shovid be applied with the general es avplicable on a local basis e limited to existing union con- nee Ss eS ee tracts, but must go beyond them in establish- ing better workin, In order to drav in the industry gle for the above de- epresentation from all encey worked out into united front is and to secure ps ice, the conf zation ster joint grievatice com- mittees to be formed by all possible workers at % ule 2 ganized as well as the organized in the different shops, roundhouses, yards, terminals and other places of employment zation of minority groups within the s and A. F. of L. unions to win the to the N. R. I. L. program. ues of the N. R. I. L,, recruiting into them members from among the unorgan- 1 anized and unemployed railroad work- and branches at ‘ge numbers of unem- co there are la ailroad workers in o} to draw the million unemployed railroad men into the gle, side by side with the employed, against vage cuts, for the 6-hour day, unemployment insurance and immediate relief. 5. Local united front committees shall be formed co ng of delegates elected by the local lodges of the Brotherhdods and A. F. of L. unions, N. R. I. L. local 1 unemplo} ment b es, ete., in order to completely unify our ranks at each point and conduct a joint fight in defense of cur common interests, Organize the Unorganized y on a successful fight against wage it is absolutely necessary to draw the un- organized ra: ad workers into this united front To movement. Therefore our main efforts must be directed to organizing the unorganized in- to the ional Railroad Industrial League. The over ming majority of the workers on the railroads in the Uni are in no unions. ile the majority of rd and road men the vast majority except on a In the rtment, including sev- dred thousand skilled, semi-skilled, and led wo: rs in the different branches of ther is practically no organization On m roads, other than in the ng depa ent, no unions e: In the ruggle against wage cuts the un nized rail- s will ple portant part, on the one hand because they constitute fully hirds of the total number of workers em- in the industry, and on the other hand, 2use of the steady loss of membership by old Brotherhoods and A. F. of L. unions, these ci neces the the center of our work is to anize the unorganized into local leagues of N. RL L. Work In The Old Unions same time, w inside of A. F. of L. unions on the itmost importance. The mem- unions must be immediately front movem wage reductions and the present sell-out policy of the Grand Lodge officials. During the past few years there has been very litile work car- ried on inside the old railroad organizations, be- cause of the erroneous conception that the mbership of these organizations are all high- and highly paid workers. This point of view is wrong and does not take into ac- count the developments in the industry in the past ten years—the installation in all depart- ments of labor—displacing machinery which not only throws tens of thousands of these men out of work and results in the loss of the value cf skill, but also reduces wages in various forms; the fact that one-thir are unemployed or working part-time, and the fact that schedules, agreements and long standing favorable work- ing rules are being ly done away with by the companies, resulting in the constant worsening of conditions on the job. Work inside of the old unions must, therefore, be taken up as a principal task, side by side with the organiza- tion of the unorganized into the N. R. LL. Neither one can be separated from the other in building the united front against wage cuts. As against the individual action of the old craft unions, our policy must be to set up joint action between ti x and file of these or- ganizati together with the N. R. I. L., for united struggle a the wage cutting pro- gram of the compe’; and Grand Lodge of- ficials, and as a re#’. of this struggle strength- en the left wing forces inside the old unions the the At the the old and build the N. R. I. L. District Conferences In order to draw all sections of the industry into this stri le, the conference selected sev- eral of the most important railroad centers in wh: the I. L. shall concenirate its wo: and ne ities on the basis of the organ- ization steps outlined above. District conferen- ces are to be held in these railroad centers in the immediate future for the purpose of or- ganizing local united front committees and branches of the N. R. I. L. Companies Preparing for National Wage-Cutting Campaign The present situation on the railroads enables us to make rapid progress if our work is or- ganized and undertaken’ in earnest along the lines outlined by the conference, when freight rate increases now demandéd by the ratlroads are denied, the present policy of the companies of making wage reductions in different sections of the country and among the separate trades will soon develop into a huge national wage- slashing campaign. The fight against wage- cuts, must be the center of our work, along with the struggle for the establishment of the 6-hour day with 8-hours pay, unemployment insurance, and better conditions on the job. Railroad workers are urged to get into touch with the National Railroad Industrial League, Room 8, 702 E. 63rd St., Chicago, for further or- ganization instructions and take immediate steps at their points to put the conference united front program into effect. FIGHT STEADILY FOR RELIEF! Organize Unemployed Councils to Fight for Unemployment Relief, Organize the Employed Workers Into Fighting Unions. Mobilize the Employed and Unemployed for Common Strug- gles Under the Leadership of on Unity League the Trade Un New York <Worker’ of Manhattan and Bronx, SUBSCRIPTION RATES: New York City. By mai. everywhere: One year, $6; six months, $3; two months, $1; excepting Boroughs Foreign: one year, $8; six months, $4.50, STOP THE THIEF! By WILLIAM L. PATTERSON. 'HE 17th Anniversary of International Youth Day will be celebrated Sept. 8. This day, which arose out of the struggle of the revolu- tionary working-class youth against imperialist war, will be celebrated by the revolutionary youth at a moment when the danger of im- perialist war was never greater. The call of the Tevolutionary youth must, therefore, be more far- reaching now than ever before. Let there be no illusions. The call for revolutionary struggle against war is a call for struggle against a war, the shadow of which forms the background for | the gigantic economic struggles engulfing the capitalist world. These struggles for control of markets and of sources of raw materials have thrown millions of workers into the ranks of the unemployed. Millions of young workers face death by starva- tion while before their very eyes the bloated lords of finance capitalism lock the doors of warehouses bursting with grain. The starving millions have no intention of dying without waging a desperate struggle. A world revolu- tionary leadership has developed which reveals to the working class a working-class way of escape from the crisis. The economic struggles of the bosses will be transformed by them into armed imperialist conflicts in the face of this threat of revolution. Revolutionary Youth Day has enormously widened its scope. Arising out of struggle against imperialist war, which had already convulsed most of Europe, it has developed into a day for celebrating the continuous struggles of the youth against all of the forces generating the war al- most upon us; against mass unemployment, wage-cuts, all forms of capitalist rationalization which have drawn the youth in ever greater numbers into industry and subjected them to the most intense exploitation. It has developed into a day for celebrating the rising wave of struggle against the brutal enslavement of the colonial youth and of the young Negro toilers. Youth Day of Tremendous Importance to Negro Youth. The celebration of the 17th Anniversary of International Youth Day has tremendous sig- nificance for the Negto youth. If the mrst exploited and oppressed section of the working class is the youth, the most exploited and op- pressed section of the youth is the Negro youth. Its wages are lower than those of the young white workers. Its hours of labor are longer. Its work is the dirtiest and hardest, and plus the economic exploitation it suffers as a part of the working youth, it suffers as well all of the national oppression which American capital- ism has made the lot of the Negro—Jim-Crow- ism, segregation, discrimination, mob violence and lynch terror. The first intensifies the sec- ond and is in turn intensified by it. At the same time the standard of living to which the Negro youth is driven becomes the low level toward which the bosses are constantly driving the entire working class. Alien Influences In Working Movement. The Negro youth is, on the one hand, the dupe of the “Jiberal” bourgeoisie, which beckons him towards its Jim-Crow Y. M. C, A’s, its Jim- Crow Boy Scouts, its Jim-Crow American Legion, which, on the white side, is a fascist ally of the Ku Klux Klan and the strike-breaking, Jim- Crow American Federation of Labor officialdom. It beckons him towards its Jim-Crow sport or- ganizations and “welcomes” him into its Jim- ILKES-BARRE, Pa., Sept. 1—Conditions in the anthracite have become intolerable. Over 50,000 miners are permanently unemployed and 75 per cent work only part time, Since the 5% year slave eontract signed by the U. M. W. A. officials, J, L. Lewis, Boylan, Hartneady and Brennan, with the coal operators, the wages have been reduced more than 40 per cent and working conditions are becoming worse daily. Machinery and speed-up systems have been introduced in the mines and the miners are forced to load more coal for less pay. The tonnage and yardage rates have been reduced. In most mines the bosses do not pay any more for dead work. Many. miners are working for as low as $2 a day. In many mines, Stanton, Truesdale, Bliss and others, the miners are re- ceiving only $2 and $3 pay for two weeks. The mingrs are beginning to learn that the U. M. W. A. officials are with the coal operators and work for a common program to slash wages as low as possible and force the miners to live in.misery and starvation. In the first six months of 1931 over 50,000 miners struck against cut- ting of wages and worsening conditions, But every strike, small or large, was smashed and betrayed either by the U. M. W. A. officials or by the so-called progressives, Maloney, Tom- chak and Davis in District 1 and Daugherty in District 9. When 25,000 miners of the Glen Alden Coal Co. struck against wage-cuts, speed-up and discrimination, the arch-strike- breakers, Lewis and Boylan, could not break the strike. The miners did not listen to them when they told them that the strike “is illegal and in violation of the agreement with *the U.M.W.A. and the coal operators,” but Maloney, Tomchak and Davis, efter 14 days of militant striking and when other miners in Districts 1 and 9 were ready to go out and support the Glen Alden miners, forced the miners to go back to work under worse conditions. In Shamokin, District 9, 11,000 miners struck against closing of mines and sections of mines, against speed-up and were mislead by Daugherty and district officials. It could be summed up as follows: Every strike against wage-cuts, low- ering of working eonditions, etc., were smashed either by thy U. NW. A, @fifte'als or the “pro- Anthracite Miners Issue a Call tor a Tri-District Unity Conference gressives.” Since these struggles were defeated by the coal operators and their agents, they are now starting a general wage-cutting campaign. In those mines which were shut for months and the miners starved to death, new “rate sheets” were signed, In the No. 6 Colliery and Butler Colliery of the Pittston Coal Co. miners who used to get $2.86 per ton now will receive $2.12. This means that wages have been reduced 30 per cent. More than that, the miners start to work without knowing what their rates will be. ‘They find it out next pay day. In these two mines, new mechanical loaders were installed and methods of speed-up introduced. In the Butler Colliery the superintendent told each miner that befor they go to work they must see him. This means that the superintendent will choose the 2 he likes. All of this is done with the help cf the officials of the U.M.W.A. In this situation, we need the unity of all rank and file miners in the anthracite field. In order to fight back the wage-cuts and gen- eral worsening of our working conditions, which the coal operators and the U. M. W. A. officials are for¢ing upon us, we need the complete unity of all the miners. The only way we can accom- plish the unity of all rank and file miners is by organizing mim> committees in each mine in Districts 1, 7 and 9 and fight for our common pregram, which is: Agains: shutting of mines or sections of mines, against topping of cars, against check-off, against arbitration, against the contractor system, payment for all dead work, equal pay for equal work, etc, Against the starvation program of the coal operators and their agents, Boylan, Lewis, Bren- nan, Heartneady, and misleaders like Maloney end Daugherty, we must raise our demands for better conditions, fight against wage-cuts, l-ur, ete. For this purpose the Anthracite Miners’ Unity Committee of Action is calling a tri-district conference on Sunday, Sept. 27, at 11 a.m., at Roselend Hall, 134 N. Pine St., Hazel- ton, Pa. This conference must be composed of delegates elected by U.M.W.A. local unions, and, where it is not possible to elect delegates from local unions, such delegates should be elected by minority groups of various local unions, By BURCK International Youth Day and Negro Youth Crow militia. Coming for the first time in con- tact with the revolutionary movement, emerging from a backward peasant envircnment, coniused by the pressure of these ruling class influences, the Negro youth has made an amazing stride forward in the international struggle of the working class. ‘The revolutionary movement is just begin- ning the development of cultural and sport or- ganiz-tions. Everywhere these organizations are in full bloom and are struggling to crush the white chauvinism tendencies which make their orientation toward the Negro youth so slow a process. The influence of anti-working-class ideology hes been one of the great forces retard- ing the growth of international working-class solidarity among the youth. On International Youth Day the fight against this must be in- tensified. : On the other hand, the young Negro also re- mains to a large degree under the ideological influence of the Negro bourgeoisie and petty- bourgeoicte. The crisis has forced most of these elements ‘ato open support of the interests of American imperialism, The growing tendency of the l-gro masses to struggle, together with the whit2 workers, against the increasing bur- dens of the crisis makes the interests of Ameri- can imperialism and the Negro national re- formists in some respects coincide. It presents a threat to ruling-class oppression and destroys the social basis of the Negro bourgeoisie ex- ploitation. The Negro bourgeoisie calls upon the Negro youth for “race loyalty” and “racial solidarity,” at the same time recommending to the Negro youth the support of the Jim-Crow institutions, the “liberal” bourgeoisie has thrown as bribes into the Negro ghetto. Negro and White Learn Role of Boss Propaganda Institutions, The task of counter-revolution is to perpetu- ate the distrust within the ranks of the Negro youth of all things white. The participation of the white youth in the terrorization of the Ne- gro masses, and, to some extent, in its exploita- tion, has greatly helped to solidify this distrust. Capitalism does not underestimate the value of this in the slightest. The forces exploiting the youth of both national groups are identical. The interests of the working youth are common. But the gulf between them created by the ruling class. has not yet yielded to the unifying influ- ence of common exploitation and oppression. ‘The Negro youth is beginning to realize that the concepts its has of the white youth emerge from the propagande of the ruling class. The white youth is learning, through struggle against objective conditions, that it surrenders its per- manent class interests when supporting the pro- gram of white supremacy. White supremacy is but the domination of the white ruling ciass over the working class. The wall of white chauvin- ism separating Negro and white youth is cre- ated by the schools, churches, press, theatres, etc., of the ruling elass. This day of Interna- tional Youth must mark the beginning of a re- lentless, systematic assault upon it. Interna- tional youth must make the turn from propa- gandizing international working-class solidarity to the mobilization of its members for action. ‘This solidarity emerges from joint struggle. Around the issue of the defense of the nine innocent Negro boys of Scottsboro, Ala., Negro and white youth have rallied. In the desperate struggle of the Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia miners, they fought side by side against the bosses. White you... 73 beside Mego on bloody Monday (August 3) in Chicago. The twin walls of chauvinism and distrust are and will continue to crumble in the joint struggle of the working-class youth against starvation, mob vio- lence and lynch terror, White youth is not only supporting, but is beginning to play a leading role in the libezetion struggles of Negro youth. ‘This is as it should be. The emancipatory strug- gle of the Negro masses is part and parcel of the strugsles of the Amevican working elvss against American imperialism. Tho struggle against ghetto nationalism is also pert of the struggle of the youth, Negro and white. , This Negro boss class nationalism is one of the bul- warks of imperialism. Neither white nor Negro youth can succeed in this struggle without realizing international working-class solidarity. A vulgar opportunist, s oe A Reward for Our Head “Dear Jorge: I see by the Daily Worker of September 2 that ‘A.F.L. Refuses Hear N.T.W.U, Rank, File Delegation.’ This—in a headline on the front page. The news may be quite exciting to one who is versed in the secret code of the mystic order in question, but if this caption should happen to attract the attention of one of the uninitiated workers he would either take it to stand for some kind of chemical formula or else—a dispute between two radio stations, “Not being interested in chemistry and not having a radio of his own, the matter might appear to him purely academic and in no way related to his own problems of wages, hours or unemployment. “Don't you think, dear Jorge, you ought to write a vigorous plece about this code nuisance that stands between the working masses and the news that ought to reach them? “Yours for clear language in the working class press, N. Buchwald.” Yes, brother, and if somebody could invent organizations that did not have a name a foot long, or on the other hand could stretch out our column width that wide, then it would be easier to say something intelligible in a head- line about at least one organization, The capitalist press.has an advantage over us on that. It simply calls the American Federa- tion of Labor —“Labor,” and any revolutionary union—“Reds.” Put the above headline in those terms and it becomes instantly intelligible—but Politically inexact, to say the least. We try to get precision and clarity together, but fail badly sometimes. But, say, did you ever try’to write headlines? We have found that it often takes longer than to write the story. And it is twice as difficult. “Youth in Industry” The celebration of International Youth Day on September 8, should serve to stimulate in- terest on the part of young and adult workers alike in the tremendous role the workers’ chil- dren play in the economic problems and strug- gles which confront the working class. As yet, too few workers know this. True, that hundreds of thousands of workers in the United States know that their children By JORGE oe | suffer various diseases which are due to under- ~ nourishment. But, how many know, for in- stance, that in this richest country in the world nearly one and a half million of chiidren do not attend schoo] at all for lack of food and cloth- ing? That, according to Hoéver’s admission, six million children are improperly nourished? One million have weak hearts? And nearly half a million are tubercular? Not many workers know these facts because they had not been accessible. But recently Grace Hutchins of the Labor Research Associa- tion gathered all important facts dealing with the youth problem and put them into a pam- phlet called Youth in Industry, from which the above figures are quoted. In this pamphlet we also find, for instance, that five million boys and girls below the age of 19 work in fields, factories and mines. Many thousands of them working 12 hours a day at the age of 8. To show how this accounts for millions of adult workers being out of jobs, the writer of the pamphlet quotes this statement: “Personal managers in auto plants state frankly that their policy is to hire workers as young as the law allows and to use them for eight or ten years during the period of their msot vigorous productivity.” And points out further that for this health-breaking exploita- tion the workers get very little pay: the “great philanthropist” Ford employing 12 year old boys, at 15 cents an hour, or $6 a week, and other Deiroit industries beat even that by advertising for “apprentice boys to learn electric motor work, no pay for three months.” Many industries do not bother about the law, we are told in the pamphlet, and employ thou- sands of children who, in 15 states, are pun- ished by not being entitled to compensation when injured on the job—because they are il- legally employed. These millions of exploited, under-paid chil- dren are forc2d to work on jobs from which men and women are fired. To cope with the situ- ation we must know the facts involved. And the pamphlet “Youth In Industry” will be of great help to workers who want to arm them- ‘selves with pointed information. Youth In Industry is one of the 10 cent In- ternational Pamphlets. It should be distrib- uted among great numbers of workem on and before International Youth Day, September 8. It can be secured from Workers Library Pub- lishers, P. O. Box 148, Station R, New York City. wing of the labor movements puts forward the thesis that the struggle of the white workers in America can be ‘successful without the Negro being drawn in. This is but a damnable social- democratic lie. The struggles of the two are inseparable. The maintenance of the “Diack belt” of the South under the iron heel of the ruling class landlords and mill bosses, with its semi-feudal forms of exploitation and oppression, is a tree mendous handicap to the revolutionary advance of the whole proletariat. The white youth must play a leading part in the struggle of the Negro youth for the right of self-determination, for the confiscation of the land of the bloody lynch mob-leading ‘landlords. The land will go to the poor Negro and white share-croppers and tenant farmers. International Youth Day will celebrate the unity of the young Negro and white workers in struggle against the American ruling class. It will testify to their joint struggle for unemploy- ment relief and for social insurance. It will celebrote their joint struggle for a six-hour day and a five-day week. International Youth Day will find Nesro and white youth fighting to- gether for full social and political equality of the Negro masses, for right to self-deters mination on the “black belt,” where they cone stitute a national majority. It will find them struggling together against imperialist war and in support of the Soviet Union. In the unity of struggle of the young Negro and white work- ers, of the native end foreign-born, lies the suce cess of the revolutionary youth movement Long live International Youth Day.