The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 15, 1933, Page 6

rage Two DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK. 1933 DEMAND INCREASES IN WAGES AND ANN BURLAK, Secretary of the National Textaic Workers Industrial Union, who demanded an end to deportations of militant workers. share-the-work basis or an average of 2-3 days per week. Total wages, according to the National 'ndustrial Con- ference Board, have been reduced to 33.4°%% of the 1929 total. : WAGE CUTS The capitalists have utilized the present crisis and huge unemployment to cut wages in practically all industries, ‘Yhe A. F. of L. policy of collaboration with the em- ployers, their no-strike policy, has resulted in the wages of even the most highly skilled and best organized workers being driven down to the starvation level, This ean be seen from the earnings of the miners, the building trades workers and other organized industries. Unor- ganized labor and especially woman labor, is today em- ployed at wages that can only be’ matched in the textile factories of China and Japan. In Fall River wages in one women’s garment shop were found to be from 5 to 15 cents an hour, ‘The Pennsylvania Department of Tabor reports that of the women workers in the clothing and textile industries of that state, 20% receive wages less than $5 per week, You, Secretary Perkins, have yourself given instances in New York of girls receiving 3%4c an hour. In the South wages are even lower. Child labor, which is quite prevalent, is even more cruelly exploited. In Allentown, Pa., several hundred children have struck against wages in sweatshops as low as 15c a week, ‘This is the picture of the American standard of living which we are told to be proud of, ‘The workers of this country who are facing the most devastating unemployment, are also learning that to pos- sess a job today is no guarantee against starvation, ‘There are untold cases of miners and steel workers in Penn- sylvania and Ohio who are compelled to ask for relief from the charities in addition to their miserable wages in order to secure a mere existence, ‘This same condi- tion prevails in the textile and other industries. ‘That the loss in total wages is not compensated by the relief given to the unemployed is to be seen at once from the fact that, according to the admissions of relief experts (Dr. Rubinoff of the Ohio Unemployment In- surance Commission) that relief paid out throughout the country amounts to only 1% of the wages lost by the working. class as a whole, ‘I'he overwhelming majority of the unemployed receive no relief at all, The highest estimate is that 32% of the unemployed receive relief in any form. This relief varies for different cities but im no case i3 sufficient to buy even the barest necessities, ‘Vhe relief paid for a family of five in some of the most important and larger cities is as follows: Pittsburgh, $3.42 per week; Canton, $2.94; Syracuse, $3.23 in food; Illinois mining towns, $1.25; Tulsa, Okla., $1 a week in food; Detroit, $3.85 in work and groceries, Negro workers everywhere are discriminated against in the handing out of relief and especially in the South. Even of this miserable charity part of it is wrested from the low paid workers through forced collections for the local community funds, and is paid for by the unemployed through forced labor. DISASTROUS EFFECTS OF LOWERED INCOME What effect this reduction in income has upon the health and well-being of the workers and their families js not difficult to surmise. Homes are destroyed. Families are broken up. Homeless workers and homeless youth wander through the streets of our cities and towns. Mil- Jions have already been evicted from the homes which they rented or thought they owned, ‘The workers live in overcrowded tenements. In Chicago alone 4,000 a month is the average of eviction cases—and the figure reached 7,600 in March, 1933. Workers live in flop houses or are homeless while millions of rooms are vacant. Suicides have greatly increased. Every 26 min- utes, night and day during 1931, an individual in the United St The Iiinois Health : 4.3 \ Seheus at Messenger of December 15, 1932 reports the highest enicide rate on record in Illinois in 1931, 1,412, com- pared to 1,302 in 1930, and double that of 1918. ‘The rate was highest among the starving coal miners—61 per 100,000. Sickness and disease is everywhere on the in- crease. Undernourished children will grow Up as a living heritage of our present brutal svstem of exploitation and oppression. THE CAUSE IS CAPITALISM Why do these conditions exist in the face of an Gvyer- abundance of all goods, in the face of the rich natural resources of the country, in the face of the existence of a plentiful and highly skilled working class, in the face of the most advanced modern machinery? What is the cause of this catastrophic crisis which is not limited to the United States, but which exists in every capitalist covntry in the world? The cause is capitalism itself! Capitalism is based upon the exploitation of labor by a handful who own and control all the machinery, the Jand, the wealth produced by the workers, ‘They are willing to run these machines only if they can thereby make more profits. ‘The driving force of capitalism is profit. The masses of toilers are sacrificed on the altar of profits. If no profits can be made, the factories are shut down. And this is what we have today. Such a condition has taken place from time to time throughout the existence of capitalism. ‘he exploitation of labor, the robbing from the workers of the greatest portion of what they produce, inevitably breught capitalism from time to time to the point when there was produced an overabundance in relation to what the workers can buy with the wages they receive. ‘The crisis was a means through which capitalism, on the backs of the workers, was able .by the destruction of a portion of the accumulated capital, through the in- troduction of new industries, to enter into a new up- swing. But the point has been reached today when the crisis is world-wide, when capitalism is already old and shaken and unable to withstand the severe shock which 2t is now experiencing. ‘I'he high productive capacity of industry, the crisis in agriculture, the very existence of monopolies in the present stage of capitalism, make impossible the solution of the crisis as of old. But in place of the old competition, the present gigantic mono- polics, and they, through the capitalist governments of the varios countries, are now carrying on the old com- petitive struggle in new forms — tariff wars, currency wars, race in armaments, leading to 2 new world impe- rialist war. Capitalism today, confronted with the most severe crisis, is in each country attempting to get out ef this situation by making new attacks on the living standards of the masses in order to lower the cost of production, to place each country in a more favorable condition on the world market, and is building up huge armaments for a world slaughter, In our country we have seen the workings of this capitalism in the last years of the crisis. We have seen the promises of a returning “prosperity” go up in smoke, We have seen a constant lowering of the living standards, The capitalists have taken every advantage of the situ- ation to reduce wages. ‘They have had no concern for the sufferings of the unemployed. Nor have they suc- ceeded in alleviating the crisis. On the contrary, with every measure they proposed, the crisis grew deeper. The only thing that the capitalists have accomplished je to put over their attack on the masses. TERROR TO ENFORCE ATTACKS ON MASSES ‘This they were able to do only with the full support of every branch of their government. ‘The government refused adequate relief, The government used the courts, the police, the militia, to issue injunctions, break strikes, deport militant workers. In the mining fields of Penn- wivania, Ohio, Kentucky and Illinois, hundreds of -FRANCES PERKINS, the “liberal” Secretary of Labor, who had nothing to say to the Real Represen- - is I. FOTASH, Secretary of the Needie Trades Work- ers’ Industrial Union, spoke im behalf of the Needle Workers’ Demands. miners are still i jail for daring to fight against wage ents. A terror that will net be put to shame even by Hitler was instituted in ‘Tampa, Florida, to break the strike of the tobacco workers. In ‘Talapoosa, Alabama, share croppers were forced to accept starvation through a lynch terror aided by the government of that state. ‘The Labor Department is used to break strikes and deport militant foreign born workere, ‘The government. set the pace and encouraged wage cuiting by cutting dewn the wages of the government employees, ‘The government refused to introduce :com- pulsory federal unemployment insurance. It not, only refused to undertake extensive public works to give em- ployment to the unemployed, but even cut down public works, Public works expenditures throughout the coun- try in 1932 were $1,918,000,000 and estimated for 1933 at. $1,700,000,000—less than in 1928 (the amount then was $3,480,000,000—from Engineering News Record). Instead billions were given to the bankers, to the rail- roads and to the rich generally, to help them to save their huge fortunes and to increase their profits. Bil- lions are spent for war preparations. ‘Che policy of the government throughout the crisis has been subsidies to the rich and not a cent to the nnemployed. THE A. F. OF L. BACKS THE GOVERNMENT ‘The A, F. of L. leadership has been an instrument aiding the capitalists in putting over the attack against the masses. From the very beginning of the crisis, Presi- dent Green of the A. F. of L. arrived at an “agreement” with President Hoover that throughout the crisis there are to be no wage cuts, and no strikes for wage increases, The A. F. of L. have kept more than their bargain. While the capitalists everywhere cut the wages of the.workers, the A. F. of L. assisted the bosses in breaking the strikes of the workers who fought against the wage cuts. ‘The result of the policy of the A. F. of L. leaders is clear from the present living standards of the masses of the employed and unemployed. The A. F. of L. carried on a persistent and militant fight against unemployment insurance for three years. Workers inside the A. F. of L. who organized the fight for unemployment insurance, who resisted wage cuts, were expelled from the organization. The A. F. of L, encouraged and supported gangsterism in the unions in the use of force against the militant workers, and made common cause with the racketeers who have spread their clutches into the labor movement. But the argument is advanced that while these con- ditions and the indictment against capitalism and the government may be true before the Roosevelt adminis- tration came to power, it is no longer true today, ‘That the Roosevelt government is really trying to solve these questions in the interests of the workers. We are even told that Roosevelt has already accomplished so much in so little time. Let us deal with this question now. Jet us examine the operation of the promised new deal. THE “NEW DEAL” ‘The Roosevelt new deal is now unfolding itself in all its nakedness, The first stages of the Roosevelt pro- gram has already robbed billions of dollars from small depositors, cut the veterans’ allowances by more than 500 millions, cut the wages of the low paid government em- ployees by 15%, introduced forced Jabor camps at a dollar a day wage, while at the same time it consisted of strengthening the position of the big bankers through additional subsidies already handed out during the Hoover administration through the Reconstruction Finance Cor- poration. All of these acts were clearly class measures in the interests of the rich and against the toiling masses. ‘I'he Roosevelt plans for “relief” to the farmers and the small home owners are of the same character. Under the guise of helping the farmer and the small owner he is in reality planning to hand over billions to the bankers, the insur- ance companies, the mortgage sharks, to compensate them for valueless paper in their possession, and to disrupt the ar ; * & ies OER Ns Fe «Srowing. sugges. again Fezeclognter: 4p ich -hifve ann i ’ ¥ Pass ee e we?