Waves of Strikes Indicate That Labor Is on the March
Waves of Strikes Indicate That Labor Is on the March IpHE labor movement is on the inarch! Every section of the workers, under the National Industrial Recovery Act, is seeking to rebuild its...
...President Green of the A. F. of L. declared that uy recovery from the depression bated upon this program must regain 86 per cent of business activity, recapture consuming power of $30,100,000,000 lost since 1929, and over 12,600,000 jobless persons must be reemployed...
...Needle workers and railwaymen, leather workers and textile workers, miners and seamen—everywhere the workers are on the go...
...the Majesty of the Law The law in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.— Anatole Franca Czechoslovak German Unions Flay Hitlerism Vl/HILE the Hitler terror is going...
...Every free political activity has been suppressed...
...Labor Government...
...President Hillman explained that in out-of-town markets wages in some instances had fallen considerably below New York rates...
...Men and women whose only 1 fault is that they have striven in j their trade union or political or; ganization to promote a better future for their class are being abused, ill-treated, and physically and mentally put to torture...
...President McMahon is contending for a 86-hour week and a $14 minimum wage for both North and South . In all the labor rates proposed" at has various industrial codes the minimum is small enough...
...In 1927 it was $325,000,000...
...Increased Output "Now, we find that while consumption fell off 22 per cent the 1 number of employes fell off 31 per 1 cent, which is proof thst the em' ployes who remained were increasing their per capita production during that period from 1925 to 1929...
...Anti-HitlerBody Established by Socialists FORMATION of a Uague Against German Fascism, with its chief function to help finance German Socialist opposition to the Hitler regime, is announced...
...The German trade unions, in their resolution on the Nazi situation, declare: "The German counter-revolution, amply financed by, the Junkers, large landowners and iron and steel industrialists, has attained its evil goal: it has smashed democracy...
...This aroused a storm of protest...
...Frey presented the following survey...
...It is hoped that with a 100 per cent organization the evil will disappear...
...The League will be affiliated with the Matteotti Fund, the fund of the Socialist International set up eight years sgo to aid the labor and Socialist movement in countries without democracy...
...The textile masters at first proposed a minimum wage of f 10 a week in the South and $11 in the North and a 40-hour week...
...The number of employes in the textile industry indicates that they fell off 31 per cent from 1925 to ; 1932, but these are not the most accurate statistics to indicate just what has taken place.' There is another matter of equal importance, and that is the consumption of cotton in the textile industry to ' produce its manufactured goods, and I find that between 1926 and 1932 the consumption fell off 22 per cent...
...They fell off ?8 per cent from 1925 to 1932...
...John P. Frey of the Metal Trades Department pointed out the changes in the industry since 1925 with increasing exploitation of the workers...
...The Position of the Worker in Industry...
...A number of these fly-by-night, cut-throat employers have fled to small towns to evade sanitary and wage requirements insisted upon by the union in the larger cities...
...Count He vent low speaks: "We call ourselves Christians, but we are not and cannot be...
...In their name, in the name of the picked troops of the German working class, we turn to you with a request for friendly assistance...
...Imperial and Colonial Policy...
...Employers who have already agreed to the higher wages, Sidney Hillman, president of the union, stated, will have their employes returned to them within a few days...
...A Foul Ulcer Organized workers are fighting perhaps the foulest ulcer in the history of Americsn industry...
...Headquarters will be maintained al 112 East 19th Street, New York City...
...Socialism and the Condition of the People...
...It has dethroned right and set up in its place brutal might...
...In 1925 they amounted to $85,000,000...
...In 1925 the total .volume of wages paid in the textile industry was $354,000,000...
...In 1932 that had been reduced to 307,000...
...In 1925 there were 445.0OQ employes in the cotton goods industry...
...The International Situation...
...They were producing more and more during the same hours of labor...
...The full sympathy of the Gerslovakia goes oat to the working man trade unionists of Czechoclass of Germany, which is now .struggling and suffering under the terrible conditions of a tyrannical dictatorship Wo feel with our brothers and sisters in Germany and are ready to help and promote their resistance, if In any why possible...
...It is confidently expected that as a result of the strike the entire industry will become 100 per cent organized in every center of the industry in the country...
...the Third Empire has rid the employers of a trade union movement which, up to now, it has been obliged to consult or consider...
...Pocket book Workers In order to wipe out sweatshops in their industry, secure shorter hours, better wages and eliminate unemployment, several thousand pocketbook-makers have been on strike in New York under the leadership of the International Pocketbook Worker** Union, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor...
...The textile industry has decimated hundreds of thousands of workers and their families since its origin and it is still a diseased industry...
...I Pupils in the upper classes of I the schools are required to mem! orize Hitler's speeches as exercises , in German literature...
...In 1932 they had gone down to $27,000,000...
...Now, we find that our exports in the textile industry play a very important part...
...That is $29,000,000 less in wages paid in 1927 than the textile industry paid in 1925, which is about the same proportionate reduction that took place in the manufacturing industries as a whole...
...The appeal indicates that Socialist opposition outlawed by Hitler is far from squelched and resigned to disintegration...
...President McMahon of the United Textile Workers demanded a minimum wage of $14 and a 36-hour week and the struggle raged around these conflicting demands...
...News coming from every part of the German world outside the jurisdiction of Hitler, Ley and their associate blackguards shows a rising tide of protest snd opposition to the Nazi madness...
...Through its secretary, Edward Levinson, the League has made public an appeal received from Prague, the new headquarters of the proscribed German Socialist Party...
...The working ciaas, organised and unorganised, have aa uphill fight and the Recovery Act will yield nothing te them without a struggle...
...To do this, we must first make the most determined and ruthless opposition to any Fascist anti-democratic activities in our own country...
...Reflecting the revivified spirit of American trade unions, the Amalgamated took the lead in its drive which is primarily directed against sweatshop employers who debase wages and standards...
...Moreover, the problem of absorbing the jobless is a staggering one...
...The million* which have been poured by the iron and etfel industrialist* into the eoOsrs et the Brown House* have not been wasted...
...Hitler has found his doctrines as popular in Czechoslovakia, especially the German' section of the Republic, as Rosenberg found them in London...
...This stand is the more significant because Hitler has sought to impregnate Czechoslovakia with Nazi poison, hag -sent official propagandists there, and has tried to create the groundwork there of a Nazi putsch...
...Capitalism is now triumphant in the highly industrialised German Empire...
...Without democracy there eon be ne uplifting for the working class...
...Amalgamated on Strike * To compel wage increases from 10 to 30 per cent, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America called a temporary stoppage Thursday of r>0,000 men's clothing workers in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and New Jersey...
...The maintenance of democracy, and the preservation of a democratic basis for the trade union movement it the gravest and most urgent task *>f the present...
...The letter signed by the five Socialist leaders urges support of the German Socialists "who have already established nuclei in foreign countries to combat Hitlerism by means of an extensive underground press and other effective methods...
...Our youth is reI ligjous, certainly, but it is likewise heathen so long as it is not Ger1 man...
...It denounces German Fascism as responsible for "the most brutal terror, bitter distress and heavy sorrow...
...Labor Minister Fritz von Seldte, on a visit to Naumburg, placed I wreaths on the graves of Fischer rand Kern, Nasi heroes, the murderers of Walther Rathenau...
...The Crucified One is a god for old men and invalids...
...The command is forward...
...The latest blow struck at Hitler's Tnsolent claim that he speaks for all Germans everywhere comes from Czechoslovakia, where close to four million Germans live peacefully and happily under democratic rule...
...The Socialists have also received advices from the Labor and Socialist International calling for mobilization of international Socialist efforts to aid the German Socialists* In response to these appeals, the Socialist Party appointed Norman Thomas and Morris Hillquit of New York, Mayor Daniel W. Hoan of Milwaukee, Assemblyman Darlington Hoopes of Reading, Pa., and Powers Hapgood* of Indiana as a committee to set up a larger and inclusive antiNazi committee...
...British Labor to Meet For the 33rd Annual Conference of the Labor Party, to be held at Hastings, October 2nd to 6th, the National Executive Committee proposes to put forward the following subjects for discussion: Report of the Year's Work...
...Daily meetings are held at the Rand School and at other places, and picketing is reported highly effective...
...By the use of the most merciless terrorism, by taking full advantage of the might of a Fascist State and of the powers of the present German dictatorship...
...From one section of the labor market after another comes news of labor's aggressive forward march...
...Succumbing to the pressure of the Amalgamated, the New York Clothing Manufacturers' Exchange, comprising 415 manufacturers employing 35,000 workers, have agreed to the 10 per cent wage rise...
...CULTURE NOTES Notes indicating progress of culture in Hitler's Gleichschaltunys Third Reich: In a German town Goethe Park has been re-named Adolf Hitler Park...
...Every section of the workers, under the National Industrial Recovery Act, is seeking to rebuild its fences, regain lost ground and to win new conquests...
...Though Socialist in inception the League plans to enroll supporters of democracy in all walks of American public life on the basis of opposition to dictatorship and in behalf of German freedom...
...The German workers there, organized in their own German Social Democratic Party and the'r German trade unions, have declared in unmistakable terms that they are at war with Hitlerism and will never compromise with it, and that their hearts are with the sorely-tried German working class...
...The National Recovery Act has stirred the workers in the industry to fight for a better labor code than that proposed by the owners...
...Administrator 'Johnson submitted a textile code | for the industry embodying this j concession of the bosses and it is I now under consideration...
...One of the evils it is particularly sought to bring to an end is the habit of "reorganizing" shops every year, by means of which employers are able every year to intimidate and terrorize workers into accepting lower wages...
...It is estimated that some 6,000 men and women are out, and maintaining magnificent discipline...
...systematically ahead savagely beating down all opposition and proclaiming to the world (through its own press services—all others being suppressed) that the whole German world is deliriously, in favor of Hitlerism, German workers in sections of the world where freedom still exists are making it quite clear that those who have been gleichgeschaltet or "coordinated" into the madhouse state have yielded to force only...
...Facing these facts the textile bosses gave way and conceded $12 in the South and $13 in the North j but this does not appear to be the . end of the struggle...
...Report of the Parliamentary Party...
...In these cases, he stated, wage increases totalling as much as :t() per cent will be demanded...
...The committee has extended invitations to 100 leaders in political, trade union, educational and other fields to act as sponsors of the League Against German Fascism...
...It promises a vigorous struggle "in the spirit of the millions of German workers who are today condemned to silence by an incredible terror, but whose Socialist convictions cannot be shaken by the most brutal rule of force...
...Housing...
...Christianity is incompatible with our race...
...That is a reduction of 31 per cent in the number of those employed...
...The League was set up by the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party in response to request for aid received from the reorganized executive pf the German Social Democratic Party, and from the Labor and Socialist International...
Vol. 16 • July 1933 • No. 2
