The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 26, 1931, Page 3

MINERS WIN DEMANDS MINERS AT MAPLE HILL SHAFT STRIKE 14 DAYS; WIN PARTIAL DEMANDS UMWA Officials Fight With Mine Operators Against Rank ahd File of Miners Miners Override the Lewis Machine Forcing Bosses to Terms On Two Points (By a Worker Correspondent) SHENANDOAH, Pa—The Maple Hill mine is located 30 miles east of Shenandoah..-For years this mine worked every day with 900 miners. It was always difficult to get a job in| this mine without a pull with the boss. The exploitation has always been terrible, we have had several wage cuts and the miners are discharged for the slightest infraction of the rules. | Work Naked in Heat- Men work naked in the terrible heat and black damp. The mine is full of dust and water. HUNDREDS OF HOMELESS WOMEN SLEEP IN PARKS Chicago Welfare Head Does Nothing But “Investigate” (By a Worker Correspondent) CHICAGO, Ill—Hoover’s unem- ployment relief plan is sure working out wonderfully here. Since Hoover appointed his committee with wage- cutting Gifford at the head of it, the unemployed army has increased here and there are hundreds of homeless women sleeping in the parks every night. I quote from the Chicago Daily News: “Several hundred homeless wo- men and children lie down to sleep in the parks of Chicago each night, Mrs, Elizabeth A. Conkey, commis- sioner of public welfare, disclosed today. Some of these women say they were saleswomen, nurses and public school teachers before un- employment exhausted their sav- ings.” ‘What does the public welfare com- mission do for these homeless wo- men? Mrs. Conkey, who spends most of her time riding around Chi- cago in an expensive car spending the welfare commission’s money, says: “Women who when they fitst came to us were well dressed and presentable, after a number Of nights of sleeping in the parks, showed marked effects both upon dress and health,” always been the povrest. The lights supplied us have The U. M. W. A. gave us no protection and when the miners complained, the bosses, upon learning the names of those complaining, fired them. Four miners were working in one section of this mine where the tracks were raised from the pressure of the mountain. The bosses ordered the miners to lower the track without taking off the rails or removing the ties, It was really necessary to use dynamite, but the bosses compelled | the men to use axes instead. The boss then bawled the men out | for making no headway and told them to get their tools and go home. The miners complained in the local of the U.M.W.A. but the officials sided in with the boss. Nothing was done. Strike Develops. Three miners were working on shift lowering lumber. They were told by the boss that they were only to work two days a week. is matter then became the basis of a local grievance out of which a successful strike de- veloped. On August the miners of the local called a meeting to decide on strike action. A struggle devel- oped—the rank and file of the miners against the officials. We miners de- manded that the three miners be al- lowed to work 6 days a week. We demanded new lamps. The strike started August 17 and lasted until the 31st of the month. Fakers Try To Smash Strike. Several times meetings were called at which Brennan and other fakers tried to deceive the miners and bull- doze them into resuming work and not pressing their demands further. The UMWA Officials also cogdemned the strike in their statemenfs to the’ press. Miners Win. The mifers fought on, however. The police were called, but there ‘were no arrest: aade. Every meeting It is plain to be seen that the ‘that we held was a stormy one with welfare is doing nothing. They are merely interviewing the homeless women and sending them away to sleep some more in the park, -All the welfare seems to be doing now ts remarking on the effects this out- door life has on the homeless women. BLAST DESTROYS “KY. MINE. SCALES Used To Gyp Miners For Years the miners fighting against the U. M, W. A. officials and Lewis, who signed a 5 year contract which Meant that the miners must work for prac- tically nothing. In face of this the bosses were compelled to make con- cessions to us, They gave us new oil lamps and also employed the three miners on full time. On the first of September the miners re- sumed work, The miners here do not believe Lewis, They are all talking about the new union, the National Miners’ Union. SEATTLE JOBLESS ||Deny Miners Richt | To Receive Mail) | Harlan, Ky. | Daily Worker: || The bosses here have given or- |ders to some of the miners who | | were fired from the mines that | must keep off the company s and not come tothe post fee again. | The post office is in the com- | pany commissary store and the| |company gunmen are posted} around the place to keep the | miners whom the bosses placed on | the blacklist from coming in and | | getting their mail, These miners have been told that if they come | in the post office they will be ar- | lre:ted and thrown in jail. | I wish the outside world knew |about the conditions that exist inside the Harlan County Coal Co. camps. The coal miners here | today have no more freedom than | |the Negroes did before the Civil | | | War. WAGES CUT TWICE IN ONE MONTH IN Two Delegates to the Metal Conference (By a Worker Correspondent.) STEUBENVILLE, O.—The guagers and loopers in the bar mill at the Wheeling Steel mill here used to get paid 67% cents an hour when work- | ing 8 hours, and 60 cents when work- | ing ten hours. First’they cut us from 10 to 8 hours with the 10-hour pay —that is, to 60 cents an hour on 8 hours (this was August 23) and now we learn that we have been working since the first of September at an- other 10 per cent cut, down to 54 cents an hour—eight hours work, The company has taken off the butt-catcher and left the guager do two men’s work, and also taken off the scrap-hole man and left the greaser to do two men’s work. They took off the steel-makers from each turn, put the bosses-in the mill re- corders’ place, put the mill record- ers’ in the tally-boys place, and put the tally boy’s in the steel makers’ place. On the 35-inch blooming mill they took the manipulator off and put turn-foreman in his place. They fired the crop-shearman, putting the slab-shearman in his place, replacing the slab-shearman with a new man getting less money. The result of the general switching around is further reduced wages for several of the men, and extra work for several with the scrap-holeman and the buttcatcher gone. Some of the men in our mill whom I talked to before this cut shrugged their shoulders. Now they are anxi- ous to learn more about the Metal Workers Industrial League. We will have several delegates from La Belle at the big conference in Pittsburgh next Sunday, A HARLAN MINER. | | WHEELING STEEL! |Work Doubled; ToSend we IN PA; STRIKE FE SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1931 AR INTO VACANT LOT Scene in a vacant lot at Monroe and Sansamon Sirects, Chicago, workers live facing a winter of starvation and n organizing into Unemployed Councils to fight evictions and demand unemployment insurance and relief. ery. where over fifty unemployed Workers can put a stop to this degradation by STOCKTON, Cal.—in an effort to smash the Maring Workers Indus- | trial Union the boat owners of Stoc! {ton backed by the Chamber of Com- merce have called into play their taken off 4 boats Saturday ervice and held for deportation for belonging and having membership cards of the M. W. I, U. The entire action has been made ‘clear to the rivermen. After the M. W. I. U. led a success- ful strike against a 35 per cent wage cut—this success was due to a great extent because of the solidarity be- tween the foreign-born workers and the Américan “workers, the boat- owners tried many schemes to split our ranks. Trying to start a com- petitive-fight between the workers for jobs by playing one against an- other proved unsuccessful. The river- men were wise to this tactic and refused to play into the hands of their enemies. The boatowners attempt to break green men who were placed by the bosses so as to weed members of the M. W. I. U. off the boats alsa proved unsuccessful dué to the fac! j that quick.action was taken by fore- ing the boatowners to hire members jof the M. W. I. U. first and then if rivermen could not be obtained al- lowing these men to break in. Find- ing themselves dealing with a union leadership that could not be bought like the A. F. of L. the boatowners then brought the Immigration Serv- ice into play. MOSCOW WORKERS’ CLUB gs tool the U. S. Immigration Service. | Ten workers, all foreign born were | the un! and | but despite the terr junday by the U. S. Immigration | the immigration inspectors the ranks | rushed into Higgins office and said, Marine Workers Industrial Union Defeats Wage-cut in Stockton, Cal. (By a Worker Correspondent) *Boatmen’s Ranks Solid | Resolutions condemning the gov- Despite Deportation Threats of Bosses All this with one purpose to break nm and institute a cut, ds of ernment immigration and Sccretary of Labor Doak as part of the bosses’ apparatus were adopted unanimously, | the role of the capitalist state as a was made clear and when the men went back to work the ranks were solid and when “Nicholas” |of the Nickols Transportation Co. KEN Page Three TUCKY BOSSES BOSSCLASS DREADS NEW WAVE OF WORKING- CLASS MILITANCY IN KY. | Mine Bosses Spend Sleeples | Stop Spread of ‘Dai | MineManager Endorse: | Miners Union Is Into (By a Wo HUEYSVILLE, Ky. ern Kentucky. County dreadin izations now defer er so that k down thos ng the Supt., he | Y ing to trac mines. to fire a He and ot ler of rby nber employee BT A PAY |A, F. of L. Puts Stamp |Of Approval On Latest | Attack .On Wages | Wy | WORKERS 6 (By & Worker Correspondent) through the local DI d's pri | diately the “crea of soc with donations and the ¢ |Commerce took it over | special charge. Imme- jare pretty solid all due to the fact |“Nows’ the time to cut while the| With this the first sufferers were | | s and mobilizing the workers inst this, At 2 opcp air meetings these tactics of the bossts were exposed. Ss been able to ex- iron is hot.” The determination on | naturally | the part of the rivermen to offset this |by strike action was pretty’ evident pone the boatowners decided to post- pone the wage cut. LEGION LEADER VONITS. VENOM ‘GOV'T EMPLOVES FIRED WHOLESALE lTrots Out Red Bogey Many Workers Let Go | To Hide Boss Crimes | From U. S. Payrolls | | New York. The Daily Worker: Commander O'Neil of the American | Legion, in an article in the N. Y. Times dated Sept. 15 endeavors to link up Communism with lawless- ness. The republican and democratic parties are examples of lawfulness itself personified, eh? Judge Sea- bury’s findings show this. Hauling ef hootch in the city dump scows, bribing of judges, framing, jailing and clubbing to death of unemployed workers for daring to ask for relief, were not of Communist suggestion, were they? How about Senator Gates’ of the widow's pension and unem- ployment relief funds? Was he a Communist? As I now recall it— clan- | destine debaucheries at the expense | | WASHINGTON, D. C. | Daily Worker. | While the Hoover government puts out press reports and appoints com- | missions and committee to inves- | tigate this and that and stabilize the | right here in Washington at this moment this same batch of four- flushers are reducing the working | staffs in the various government de- | partments. It works somewhat in the following manner: A certain department head | is notified that he must reduce the | forces in his department within a | certain length of time. He is in- | structed to reclassify, or does so on | his own accord, the employees under him. He proceeds to weed out the number he has been instructed to drop through the medium of mark- ing their efficiency rating below the required minimum, which automati- cally release them to join the over- | unstabilizable (the capitalist system), | peas, (By a Farmer Correspondent.) GARRETT, Ky.—The scales of the Standard Elkhorn Coal Co were blown up last week. After inter- viewing a few workers, I find that the only loss lies in the destruction | of the weigh house, etc., as the scales were hardly ever used, even though the mine runs very steadily and thousands of tons of coal are dumped monthly. ¥ ‘This mine struck not long ago for a miners’ checkweighman, but being flat. demands as the county offi- this instance they people of Floyd assured that today @ government official America that will aid Teast—and that the only through the powerful tion of the Trade Union ity League and their industrial Get linked with the Na- tional Miners Union and organize Boss Beats Up Miner_ 1H eae | je a i 2 i i ge 5 g a 2 & e i : At Shennadoah Shaft + (By a Worker Correspondent) — SHENANDOAR, Pa.—I was passing _ by the Shennandoah shaft and 1 _/ heard a noise which came from a _. shanty occupied by the boss. I stopped and ust then the door opened | and a miner came out with a bloody _ face. I did not see what happened, but learned that the miner was un- ‘The miners were| if there ‘had thru the Unemployed Council have SERVE DEMANDS Force Relief for 22 Families (By a Worker Correspondent.) SEATTLE, Wash.—The Unemploy- ed Council of Seattle has increased its’. activities manyfold this past week and are progressing rapidly with an organizing campaign. ‘The unemployed msases are rally- ing in many parts of the city and forced organized charity to provide, Telief for 22 acute cases (families), The Council held a mass demon- stration at the charity flophouses, and demanded: 1, That beds be installed instead of. benches. 2. That more and better food be issued. 3. That the overhead be greatly reduced of abolished. Organized charity officials who draw fat salaries, are trying to tell workers’ committees that it is not necessary for them to bring acute cases up to their office for relief, It is clear to the workers that this ‘is only an attempt to make them less militant and is a roundabout way of telling the workers that what is be- ing done with community funds by organized charity is none of the workers business, A. F, OF L. UNION CUTS SCALE TO SUIT BOSSES (By a Worker Correspondent) SHELTON, Wash.—Although Aus- tin and Co, engaged in building a {this concupiscent pervert recently | (according to Hooverian standard) the workers. Employes |received a wage-cut. Men waiters laid off and now the girls are hired for snecial dinners at $1.50 for four |hours’ work. What the cut of the jother employes is I cannot say def- | initely. Before the workers received union wage scale, thoush the hotel was a non-union establishment. Does the Cooks, Waiters and Wait- resses Local 31 put this place on the unfair list now? (Of course this is the only method used by the union to “fight” for union wages.) Of course not. The Chamber of Com- |merce could not be so embarrassed. |Only smaller places and those not |meaning much are occasionally put jon the unfair list and a dummy | placed with a paper printed “Unfair” in front. But this method cannot {be used against the Hotel Oakland. Oh, no, not a word said about it by | the officials—and further that is the |pet stopping place of the officials ywhen they are in Oakland, just as |today the U. S. mail carriers, or- | ganized into the National Avsocia- |tion of Letter Carriers (affiliated with the A. F. of L.), having a con- ference in Oakland, are patronizing the said hotel. Such hypocrisy this and other A F. of L. locals perpetrate. This |should be exposed. Workers pay dues and officials play us up with making believe they fight for union- |izing non-union houses. It is time we workers would take a hold of things ourselves. If we are capable of doing the work inthe fighting for our rights. We must tell culinary trade, we can be capable of | While the bosses in America are building jails the workers, the for Soviet government is building clubs and cultural centers. This new building ts the municipal workers’ club, Each industry has its own clubs and recreation buildings, 4 suggested that the red movement be | smashed. We would do well, wouldn't | we, to take advice from this typical republican racketeer, robber of | widows and starving children? Commander O'Neil acts as pump- |man and the capitalist newspaper | | the pipeline for the vomiting out of | | this odorous cesspool of lies andfalse interpretations. An ex-buck private of the last commerical war (1917 issue), Build a workers correspondence group in your factory, shop or neighborhood. Send regular letters to the Daily Worker. 5 crowded army of unemployment. " the high-paid officials what we want I discovered this unique process of done. They should cater to our erans. The chairman of the meeting, Mr. Babcock of the U. 8. Civil Serv- ice, outlined the above in explaining to the disabled veterans why some of | them, had been fired from their jobs. | Of course Mr. Babcock did not say that the Hoover administration was doing this in order to reduce the amount of employes. The forces are being reduced however. The Hoover plan of starvation is being carried out among the government workers. A Government Employe and A Red (By a Worker Correspondent) ANACORTES, cortes Lumber and Box Co, has cut the wages of its employees 30 per cent. This is the most vicious wage attack in the lumber industry in a i a » | Strike Led by: Lumber Workers Industrial | Union; Rank and File Strike Committee Gains Support Of All Mill Workers number of years. The lumber bar- employed and was beaten up by the| large warehouse at Shelton, Wash., boss. The bosses attack many miners | had hired and been paying all their they learn that they are or- | union carpenters the Olympia scale : ons’ greed for more profits has driven them mad, and the workers are the victims. Vote Strike One hundred forty-four workers immediately walked out of the mill and formed a strike committee from the rank and file. Taking a vote out of the sixtyfour workers that attend- ed the mass meeting called by the National Lumber Workers Union there were sixty-two votes cast for strike and two to back to work. The demands were drawn up, and a de- mands committee was sent to the the company had maneuvered for a the mill owners of Anacortes gave vote to be taken at the mill, which | full support to the workers of this the demands committee agreed to. The vote was cast and the ma- jority vote was for strike. Then the foreman of the company also voted which gave the conipany the majority, but the workers did not consider this and a picket line was auichly mobilized and thrown arzund the mill. The follwing morning the mill attempted to run, as there was an order that had to be put out. The mill was crippled and they tried to run with a few of the workers, to strike against the intol- i f $8.50, for 8-hours, local Shelton conditions. They generally | called a special meeting and notified out one miner at a time and/the contracting company that their get_him into an isolated spot where | scale was only $7.20, which they beat him up. £ mill to present them. The superin- tendent stated the company would | mill owners’ lies. After a day and not fight with the workers, that if;a half the mill owners saw that they did not want to work for this!they were fighting a machine they wage they would close down, Aiter' could not buy or mislead, as all of should pay, Some Union, eh? s mill, They fully realize the neces- sity of all workers fighting together. They knew if this. cut went through they would ben ext. Gain Support The committees are functioning full time and are meeting with great support. The business men realize they must support these workers, as they owe bills that they can not pay at the wage before the cut and if the workers do not fight this on¢ they will-even lose what little buy- who are weak enough to fall for the | ing power they have left, ‘The scandal sheet that is controlled by the bosses was faced by a demon- stration in front of their office. The editor, who had seen the picket line ANACORTES LUMBER WORKERS WALK OUT ON _STRIKE AGAINST 30 PER CENT WAGE CUT lined up at once on the bosses side of the struggle. The workers, resent- ing the tactics, immediately formed a delegation backed up with one hun- dred workers. When he faced a group of determined workers he immedi- ately chanred what the bosses told him to publish. Must Build Union This action is the action that all workers must take protecting their rights, These workers will fight They will not starve producing ~prof- ,its for the bosses at their own ex- pense and misery in a land of plenty The workers have adhered to the line and program of the Nations Lumber Workers Union as they fully realize the correctness of a rank anc | file control. Lumber workers of the Northwest, you must build this wea- pon in order to gain your conces- sions from this greedy, vicious, capi- talist controlled industry. Join today and answer the wage cuts with resist- ance as the A, L. and B. Mill work- ers have, i it a ein | firing the government workers at @/ wishes and not have us do their | recent meeting of the Disabled Vet- | if bidding. Let's hear more about this. ‘EXPERIMENT IN Jobless Slave Hard in Wood Yard “for Tasteless Meal (By a Worker ¢ Correspondent) OAKLAND, Cal.—The plans of the city government to put delinquent FORCED LABOR, Nights Trying to ly Worker’ in Mines ; UMWA: SaysNational lerable (for the Boss) to x ate East- f s of Harlan of workers’ organ- iners of that county. ( led val Co., dri good night’ le for its apr the leep try- rance at his went so far as Mr. ‘si superinten s for x | Nat i Bosses Fear NMU “They (the M. M. U. are rested in just t int a wage raise, a wave of wa ises and the final overt w of c: lism is their | object e. “Well in the Soviet Union j there is a wave of wage es and |complete harmony with the Govern- iment, why? Because the workers con- trol the Government and the Goyern- ment controls everytMing else, So, kers of the U. S., what move do ant? Capitalism’s leaders admit Communist Party is your working for the complete an- nihilation of your enemies. And since it cannot be bought they dread jit. They know there is only one chance in a million’ to wipe it out and that is through a‘combined war upon the masses. To be plain about it there is no chanceto wipe it out The capitalist is simply overawed at the gaining. influence of Communism that he just imagines there is a chance. If on the other hand the ‘s Will awake to their dire nec- ity of organization they can and will make a quick end of capitalism. Strike while the iron is hot. Press onward while the pressing is good. We admit; the capitalists admit that the Communist Patty is a Party to be reckoned with—because it ir against capitalism and all that cap- italism represent. So what other proof do you need of the sincerity of their purpose. * Must Throw off Boss Poison I have heard many, many queries ; about the sincerity of the Commu- nist Party: Are they sincere? Are they above selling out on the workers? We in canitalist America are hard- ened by the eternal vigilance of the capitalist educational system that pounds the false doctrines of private ownership and private incentive into our children, so that when they grow up, they are so blinded that they are in complete ignorance of the truth. It is in that state which we find the workers, always mistrustful, knowing of course that, they have never got a fair deal out of life from | no source, they are skeptical of a party hitherto unknown. ers of America, shed that old bashful feeling of distrust and get busy. In every respect the Communist Party measures up to its purpose; that .f defending the work- ers. In every respect the Communist Party is the first one to back up your de ids of a right to a decent wage jscale. In every case their affilate |organizations are the first on the field with relief and defense of you. You have squandered generations and generations of young manhood and womanhood to the cause of capitalism and what have you to show. Like two workers heard bee neath the shadow of Los Angeles movie colony. One remarked to the other that labor had fought (of course he meant under the false A. F. L.) years for one loaf, and per- haps if they fought another 5,000 years they would get two. loaves. But replied the other, “Maybe, brother, the world is waking up, something tenants to work in order that the | is going to happen—something has to landlords may not suffer, causes us happen, something will happen damn | to cast an eye over the municipal) soon. And they were seen to march woodyard the city’s initial experl- over to a street meeting being con- ment in forced labor. | ducted by a Communist speaker, So Here workers are given a bed for | comrades I am one of you, I too was 30c the first night and 25¢ for sub-| once a “fathead.” I had imbibed sequent evenings, provided they ar- heavily of the poison dope peddled ‘ive before p.m. They are provided; by our institutions. of _ so-called with a knee length “nightie” and learning. ‘Let us be convinced and at 6 a. m. in the morning thrown’ let us convince others that the time out into the cold as ¢hey amusingly for a grand awakening is only in oxpress it “to look for work.” the offing, and that it is our duty For those that have no money the ‘ed and a “breakfast” of mush and asteless hot cakes with no butter is enerously given for two hours labor n the woodyard. And I mean labor. The unfortunate who is forced to submit to the sarcastic and insulting oullyragging of those in charge is al- awed only three nights ‘of such gen- crous hospitality, and then is not vermitted to return to the “hotel” or 90 days. Needless to say, few ake advantage of the opportunity a econd time. Capitalist rationalization is not} to press onward to a free liberty loving Soviet U. S. A. | ploited at the most miserable starva- | tion wages—the bed maker works most of his waking hours 17 to 18 a | day for TEN DOLLARS A MONTH! —the superintendent cleans up to | the tune of $250 a month plus “exs penses,” a city automobile and the usual clean up in graft. There was a deficit of over $1,500 this year despite the fact that thouse ands of dollars more was taken in vbsent. The so-called yard foreman | for wood than previous year. Evie vas fired and the truck driver forced | dently forced labor is profitable exe ‘o do his work wihout any increase | cept for the forced laborers. JOIN 1 his miserable wages of $2 a day. While all the employed here are ex- THE UNEMPLOYED COUNCIIa DON’T STARVE FIGHT