Conference Called for 30-Hour Week
Conference Called for 30-Hour Week Labor Committee Summon* Meet for Jobless Aid— Unions and Fraternal Bodies Summoned. LOOKING toward the organization of a great campaign among tlie workers...
...According to Dame Rumor, there are tenants In the colony who have not paid their rent for many months...
...Under the leadership of Gertrude Branstetter Stone, a regular schedule was worked out whereby certain comrades were responsible on specified days for supplying lunches to the strikers...
...Building is at a standstill...
...who is also president of the Pan-American Federation of Labor, cabled a request to the officials of the Company of Electricity and Gas of Cuba that they refrain from obstructing the passage of the bill...
...Four-fifths of the votes cast in the referendum were necessary to pass the proposal...
...Of course, I do not aee our way Hear to intervening with the facultiea of the Houae of Representatives, which haa in its hands the enactment of the legislative measure in which you are interested...
...starvation, disease, breadlines and evictions are prevalent everywhere...
...It read: "A referendum passed among the em* ployees and workmen of said company, in which, some sixteen hundred of them (the referendum was privately passed so that the com* pany would not And out and take reprisals on them), categorically expressed their desire to be included in the law...
...The suspicion is based on the fact that Silverberg's belongings were put on the sidewalk by a capitalist City Marshal who was acting in accordance with an order obtained from a capitalist court on the complaint of the Comunists...
...Th* cable alleged that "our brothers aspire to have a pension which will guarantee their old age and their families, but this cannot be obtained with present legislation...
...Green's messsge resd In part as follows t The tactics employed by the Cabaa Electricity and Gas Company to abstract the passage of this law should be condemned, and we will gladly bring to the attention of its officials this fact...
...The union officials say this is the second cut demand within a one-year period, the first cut amounting to 26...
...Formerly these employees received a minimum of 60 cents an hour...
...We are therefore calling a city-wide conference to be held on Thursday evening, February 28, 1933, at the Debs Auditorium, 7 East 15th Street, New York City, at 8:30 p. m., to take up these matters...
...The Socialist Party of New York has begun a campaign for unemployment insurance, the 6-day and 80-hour week, and further unemployment relief...
...According to the Comunists, Silverberg is a Democrat...
...WASHINGTON.—A picture of " the tyranny and dictatorship under which the workers of Cuba are being crushed is implied in an exchange of letters between a group of Cuban electric company employees and the Pan-American Federation of Labor, of which Santiago Iglesias is secretary...
...Mass meetings, demonstrations and petitions are among the activities in preparation at this time...
...A pension law, affecting the workers In Cuba, was pending in the Cuban House of Representatives, after passing the Senate, and President Green of the A. F. of I...
...The union as well as the industry was completely demoralized...
...Purged" Out of His Bronx Apartment The "purging" activities which took place recently among the Communists in Soviet Russia reached the Communist cooperative colony in the Bronx last week when Samuel Silverberg, one of the cooperators, who had strayed from the straight party line, was "purged" from his apartment, it is said, for the non-payment of two and a half months' rent...
...Local 826, Cooks and Countermen's Union, affiliated with the International Hotel and Restaurant Employees' Union, has called a strike against the cafeterias on Pitkin Avenue...
...There'* was no reply from the company, but instead a cable was sent to Iglesias signed by four names as "A Committee of Workingmen and Employees of the Cuban Company of Electricity," averring that it was the workers, not the employers, who were opposed to the pension law...
...The role of the Communists In this case was the reverse of what it usually is in tenant-landlord disputes...
...Labor Committee Notes •THE next meeting of the trade * union membership will be held Saturday afternoon, February 11, at 2 p. m., at 7 East 15th Street...
...but then they are not Lovestoneites...
...After its reorganization, its adoption again into the Amalgamated family, and under the leadership of Meyer Bernstein, L. I.iidowit/, M. Gittleman and sn able and conscientious committee, th* strike which was in reality an organization drive, was successfully carried on...
...Mrs...
...The demands were set forth in a petition presented by a committee of 50...
...When leading contractors announced a 20% reduction for building trades' workers in Rochester, the unions refused to work under the new scale...
...The appeal for the election of delegates—the first step in the campaign—is signed by Julius Gerber as executive secretary of the Socialist Party, and Joseph Tuvim, secretary of the Labor Committee, and reads as follows: "We are now in the midst of the greatest^crisis xthat the people of this country ever have witnessed...
...The Minimum Wage Bill for Minor Workers—boys and girls under 18—has also been introduced, providing for a Minimum Wage Commission which shall, after due investigation, fix a minimum wage which it shall be mandatory for the employers in the industry so investigated to pay...
...At the same time, however...
...Th* Ninth Annual Dinner of THE NEW LEADER , w>n be held Friday evening, February 10, 1938...
...In capitalist jargon, such incidents are sometimes known as "evictions...
...All this work cannot be accomplished by the Party unless the organizations of the workers pitch in and help carry on the campaign to put Unemployment Insurance on the statute books of the State of New York...
...Copies of The New Leader were distributed each week and occasional talks were givon by Winnie Branstetter, Edward Marks, Gertrude Stone and other Party members...
...Altout people go back to work so far, under union conditions and with increases in wages...
...The Mineral Water Workers' Union has been locked out in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn...
...As a matter of fact, there is a suspicion that this characterization is a just one...
...The union has retaliated with a strike...
...One million people in this city are out of work with no jobs in sight...
...A drive to collect one milion signatures is on, and cooperation is needed...
...It Is the desire of the Party to reach every person in New York City with a message for these demands...
...Once, One of the strongest of the Amalgated branches, Local 169 had become a hollow shell...
...The letter states also that "By taking advantage of th* present chaotic situation, the Company compels ita employee* and workmen, under threat, to alga their disagreement to be Included la the law...
...According to Silverberg, be is a Ixwestoneitc...
...itrike of the Wash Suit branch of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America is practically over with the signing up of 80 per cent of the manufacturers against whom strikes were carried on...
...An amendment to the factory law would eliminate the present 78 hours' overtime provision, giving New York State a straight 48-hour law for factories working the six-day week or a 49 Vi hour week for factories scheduling a weekly half-holiday...
...It is significant and cause for great hope that under the most adverse conditions with practicaly no treasury, the great bulk of the trade was unionized, even to those factories which had been scab nests for years...
...The tyranny in Cuba is both political and economic, and both phases are involved in the incident...
...Night workers labor 65 hours a week and are many times forced to work 6G hours weekly, union officials say...
...At the office of the union it was announced that a meeting of the Executive Committee would be held early next week to devise a plan to continue unemployment relief...
...Under a corrupt leadership inside, and with a steady drift of the industry to country towns outside, the wash suit workers had sunk to unbelievably low conditions...
...Typographical Union No...
...The women do not expect the governor to grant their demands, but they do expect the parade to Indicate to state authorities their strength...
...Meetings of trade unions, branches and house-to-house canvass are among the activities to colect these signatures...
...Their march—women's first sctivs part on such a large r--scale in a strike—focused public attention on the plight of the miners, while their union leaders sat in session with the governor attempting to settle the strike which has kept seclons of the state in turmoil sine* last November...
...Agnes Burns Wieck, president of the Women's Auxiliary, read the petition to the marchers at the state arsenal...
...The weak attempt by the city and state to deal with these conditions only creates havoc among the workers who seek aid, and which makes them dependents upon charity...
...Admission by party card only...
...The strike was conducted against what seemed unconquerable *bstacles...
...Cuban Workers Are Coerced Into Opposing Pension Legislation Publicly Sign Protest, but Privately Demand Inclusion in Pension Scheme...
...Officials of the International Association of Machinists, seeking to organize the workers of the Norwood plant of the Remington-Rand Company of Cincinnati, charge that employees in the press room of the plant are being paid as low as 15 cents an hour...
...By Tom Tippett Miners' Women March on Illinois State Capital CPRINGFIELD, Illinois.—Ten thousand women from Illinois mining towns, members of the Women's Auxiliary of the Progressive Miners of America, marched on the state capital to demand immediate restoration of civil liberties in the coal strike area, increased and more, equitable distribution of state unemployment relief, and legislative enactment of an unemployment insurance law financed by industry and the state through income taxes and not a sales tax...
...While the 10,000 marchers and thousands of miners and onlookers jammed the state house grounds, Governor Horner received their petition and replied: "I see no way to escape the sales tax...
...One section of the parade waa composed of widows of the men killed in the atrike and the Moweaqua Christmas Eve mine explosion...
...It is expected that with the cooperation of representatives of hundreds of thousands of workers, organized in unions and labor fraternal bodies, pressure will be brought to bear upon the Legislature and the Governor at least to give ear to the demands of the workers...
...You are hereby called upon to elect two delegates to represent your organization at this conference...
...No extra compensation is paid for overtime...
...Local 2, Waiters' Union, is cooperating, and has caled its members on a sympathetic strike...
...Wearing black uniforms, which contrasted sharply with the white uniforms of the other marchers, they made an Impressive sight as they paraded through Springfield...
...Later on they busied themselves smashing the camera of a newspaper photographer who had come to snap the scene and trying to prevent reporters from talking to Silverberg...
...6 defeated by several hundred votes the proposal to appropriate |250,000 from its defense fund for unemployment relief, it was announced by Austin Hewson, President...
...LOOKING toward the organization of a great campaign among tlie workers for unemployment insurance, the 30-hour working week with no decrease in pay, and more adequate relief for the unemployed, the Labor Committee of the Socialist Party has called a conference to meet February 23rd at the Debs Auditorium, 7 Etfst 15th Street, at which plans will be made and the campaign mapped out...
...In addition, some of the members of the party who had the time came in personally to help in whatever way they could...
...Members of Trade Unions, Yipsels and sympathizers are requested to come to the Party office to receive petitions for Unemployment Insurance...
...Instead of defying capitalist justice and carrying the furniture back into the apartment, as is their wont whether or not rent was paid, they busied themselves helping the Marshal carry out the "purging...
...President Green received a letter with details of the coercion the workers were subjected to to compel them to pretend to be opposed to the legislation...
...WASH SUIT MAKERS WIN THEIR BATTLE Till...
...The plumbers' and electricians' contract did not expire and therefore the proposed cut did not affect them...
...My impression la that such a measure should have the wholehearted support of the Congress of Cnba te do justice and help the great mass of workingmen of the Island...
...In the midst of a constant stream of wage-cuts, the wash suit worker* have won Increases...
...An interesting angle of the fight was the assistance given to the strikers in Lynbrook, L. I., by the Socialist Party of Nassau County...
...Three bills sponsored by the New York Women's Trade • Union League have been introduced in the Legislature...
...Before patronizing any cafeteria, make sure that union members are employed...
...A proposed amendment to the mercantile law provides for consecutive hours of work to eliminate the abuse of stretching the working hour over a long period and giving several hours off in the middle of the day...
Vol. 15 • February 1933 • No. 5
