In the World of Labor Struggles
In the World of Labor Struggles Headgear Unions Amalgamate In Great Industrial Union A NEW international union organized on industrial lines and covering the entire field of headgear,...
...The announcement of the projected merger has been met with the greatest enthusiasm by the members of both unions, Zaritsky said...
...Marshall Field A Co,, big Chicago department store, is being picketed by members of A. F. of L. unions as unfair because all known union men in the maintenance and repair departments were discharged...
...The union bases its demand for s wage increase at this time upon rising prices snd upon the fact thst it had taken four wage cuts sinse 1929...
...Judge Shientag repeatedly asked the Communist counsel for the law j ustifying Communist...
...This request I emphatically refused to consider unless proper assurance* as to unionization were forthcoming...
...A.—Are the Marine and Navy bands still prohibited from broadcasting in competition with union musicians ? A.—No...
...Picket Marshall Field CHICAGO...
...The Master Plumbers have renewed their agreement with the Plumbers' Union and put men back at $1.05 an hour...
...A request wss transmitted to me thst the strikes in Reading be called off," Rieve stated...
...One of the firms whose workers are on strike tried to form a company union but the workers walked out .and joined the Federation in a body...
...Q.—What is the present deficiency in workers' buying power...
...The same scale has been restored by electrical contracting firms and members of tho SteamPtters' Union aro working at that wage...
...It will be the 34tb annual convention...
...The Headgear workers, as the former union is generally known, will meet under the presidency of Zaritsky at Beethoven Hal), 210 East Bth Street, while the U. H. of A. will meet under the chairmanship of President Michaei F. Greene at the Broadway Central Hotel...
...Stockyards Workers Organize CHICAGO.—Stockyards workers, whose solid war-time organization fell to pieces in 1921, are beginning to stir...
...They are from many countries—Poland, France, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Denmark and Spain...
...An organizing campaign was immediately launched, with Jacob Roberts in charge in Elizabeth, N. J., and with Zaritsky himself or| ganizing in other centicra...
...Sweatshop standards must go...
...Krzycki will play a leading role in the organising campaign this group will push in alt parts of the country...
...Rieve was called to Washington from Reading to meet with Secretary of Labor Perkins and representatives of General Johnson...
...In Elizabeth the Amalgamated Clothing workers have promised the fullest cooperation to the drive...
...The demsnda will be made by s union delegstion consisting of Louis Fuchs, manager of the United Neckwear Makers' Union, and Jacob Panken, counsel for ths union, who will seek to have the wsge increase incorporated into a supplementary labor agreement, since existing contracts do not expire until September...
...The United Hatters is one of the oldest and most respected of the old line unions of the past century...
...The other affiant, Mr...
...He denied thai a ruling against such intervention between two parties to an agreement would be "merely a technicality" as claimed by the Communist lawyer...
...group, read from terms •f the labor contract the Communists seek to abrogate...
...Several leaders of the locals have gone on record publicly for or against the proposal of supplanting piece-work by week-work...
...The order of former Secretary of the Navy, Adams, prohibiting broadcasting by the two bands, was revoked recently by Secretary Swanson...
...A.—Beginning August 21, at Baltimore...
...Louis, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other cities...
...The unusual spectacle of Communists rushing to the aid of employers anxious to break a collective agreement with organized labor was staged before a group of admiring Communist adherents who crowded the court room...
...Amalgamated Workers Win The organisation drive of the Wash Suit branchy of the Amslgsmated has captured the Atlantic Romper Co...
...Under the amalgamation agreement reached after six months of negotiations the new international union will consist of two departments, each to have its own departmental president...
...The Communist defense, as presented by Louis B. Boudin, counsel, Was that the labor agreement is only a "paper" agreement and that the A. F. of L. Fur Workers' Union is non-existent...
...The rank and file of the membership appears to.be about evenly divided on this subject and the vote is expected to be close...
...Q.—When and where will the next convention of the Interna- < tional Photo-Engravers' Union of North America be held...
...L. E. Brookshire of Greenville, president of the State Federation...
...Ten arrests have been made in police efforts to crush the strike...
...President Greene and Secretary Martin F. Lawlor were prominently connected with the famous Danbury Hatters' case of a quarter of a century ago, one of the most bitterly-fought labor struggles in American history...
...aOAKMAKERS VOUNG ON PIECE-WORK SYSTEM MORE than tt.OOO New York City eloalrmakers voted on Thursday in a general ref rend una en the question of week-work vs...
...The merger," said Max ZariUky, President of the Millinery Workers, "sets a shining example to American labor...
...whoss plant in Elizabeth, N. J., looks like a fortress, and was almost unconquerable until recently...
...A.—Workers' total income in April was only 43.9 per cent of the 1929 average, a deficiency in buying power amounting to nearly' $2,600,000,000 a month, the American Federation of Labor estimates...
...To get full pay all wages must be i spent in company stores...
...The Headgear Workers' International is an outgrowth of the splendid Capmakers' Union of past years when joined by ths Millinery Workers...
...One department will look after the conditions of the workers in the cloth hat, cap and millinery shops, while conditions of ! workers employed in the men's felt, J straw and Panama hat shops, now under the jurisdiction of the United I Hatters of North America, will be ! taken care of by the other department...
...They point to the generally admitted fact that n most of them piece-work is practiced illegally...
...Leo Kryscki snd Hugh Glover of the United Hatters addressed 'lie meetings...
...Ths entire working force of 50 of one of the smaller firms walked out...
...Boudin characterized the A. F. of L. union as a company union and the contract ** a "yellow doff contract...
...Hosiery union officials are also helping strikers who walked out of a cotton mill in Reading...
...Samuel Markewich, replying for the A.F.ofL...
...The ehief malady in the trade, they contend, is lack of responsibility for work conditions in the contacting or "outside" shops by Jobbers and wholesalers...
...intervention to vacate an injunction against the manufacturers...
...J!__ RIEVE WON'T CALL OFF STRIKE IV" cun"deration will be given * ' to any request that the strikes in Reading and Berks hosiery mills be called off, unless absolutely binding assurances are given that the right of peaceful unionization will be respected," Emll Rieve, -president of the American Federation of Full Fashioned Hosiery Workers declared in a wire from Washington to Edward Callaghan in charge of the strikes in Resding...
...It is illuminating that Communists are attempting to fish in the muddied waters of this controversy by appearing as champions of week-work despite the fact that only a few months ago, when their so-called "industrial union," the dual outfit in the garment trades, attempted to raid a number of organized cloak shops, they openly offered the employers piece-work ¦S a basis of settlement if the latter would only repudiate their contracts with the Cloakmakers' Union...
...Those who oppose its retention nay it is unenforceable in the majority of shops operated by submsnufscturers and contractors...
...The settlement includes a \VA% Increase In wages, a 44 hour week and recognition of the union...
...The Communist Needle Trades Workers' Industrial Union, afflliated with the Red Trade Union International in Moscow, sought to intervene as a co-defendant with the employers after the manufacturers' association had admitted that its members had violated the anion* agreement wholesale...
...The Ironworkers' Union is at peace with all but the Master Builders, and It Is believed this group will i not hold out much longer...
...The joint session, to be addressed by President William Green of the American Federation of Labor, will meet at some place to be selected...
...The new amalgamated union, whose name and officers will be selected at the joint convention, will be one of the largest international unions in the American I Federation of Labor, and one of i the largest industrial unions in the field of labor...
...The supporters of week-work maintain it is the more preferable work system, that it could be enforced if the union were to force employers through a strike, if necessary, to live up to week-work .regulations and scales...
...The union's program includes a drive against tenement "home work" in the city and non-union sweatshop competition from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, both of which have debased wages and standards of union workers...
...but on the same day the Swastika flag was flying alongside the red flag with the hammer and sickle on the German Consulate in Moscow without a protest from the Bolsheviks...
...But we have so far not heard that dock workers of Leningrad and Odessa have refused to unload boats from Hitler's Naziland...
...Q.—Who is president of the International- Allied Printing Trades Association ? A.—John B. Raggery, who is also president of the International Brotherhood of Bookbinders...
...NECKWEAR WORKERS MAKE WAGE DEMANDS tXEMANDS for a 25 per cent wage increase fo 7,000 neckwear workers of Greater New York were made St a preliminary conference Thursday at the offices of the Men's Neckwear Manufacturers' Association in New York...
...He pointed °«t it calls for the 40-hour, five-day **ek, $40 and |60 minimum wage stales weekly, time and • half for •vertime pay, legal holidays and the i-lused union shop...
...In the World of Labor Struggles Headgear Unions Amalgamate In Great Industrial Union A NEW international union organized on industrial lines and covering the entire field of headgear, employing some 55,000 men and women, will be formally launched early in August, when the conventions of the Cloth Hat, Cap and Millinery Workers' International Union and of the United Hatters of America will adjourn their separate sessions," and meet as a united body...
...They, asked a senatorial investigation* The charges were made at a meeting attended by j representatives of textile unions in Greenville, Spartansburg, Rock1 Hill and Aiken County...
...j By the merger of the two inter- ] national bodies a new chapter will j be written in the history of the A. F. of L. For the first time, two I important unions, each with a long ' and honorable history of labor struggle, have decided to amalgamate in order to avoid juris- . dictional disputes am to unite all the workers in a great industry upon the basis of industrial unionism...
...Longshoremen Won't Unload Ships Flying The Swastika Flag -The Tagwacht, the Socialist daily of Berne, Switzerland, in its issue of June 10, recites a number of cases where longshoremen refused to unload German ships flying the Nazi flag...
...Markewich said that two Communists who had signed affidavits in support of the Communist union's plea are now under indictment, one of them, Chris Yioras, out on bail on a perjury charge, an outgrowth of bis testimony in a homicide case in which an A.F.of L. furrier was stabbed to death...
...The new group consists of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, the Hosiery Workers' Union, the Cloth Hat, C'rfp and Millinery Workers' Union, the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, the United Hatters of America, the Pocketbook Workers' Union, and the Neckwear Workers' Union...
...Vincent Messina was the organizer in chsrge...
...South Carolina Peonage ROCK HILL, S. C — Charges that South Carolina textile manufacturers impose peonage, illegal working hours, discount fees for cashing pay checks and other forms of victimization on their workers are made here by mill workers...
...Krzycki Is Now with Apparel Alliance MILWAUKEE...
...Henry I. Adams of Brooklyn, member of the natlor.al executive board of the hosiery workers' union, has been sent In io Reading...
...of Labor, said that in seme mill I communities workers are paid by check and forced to give a 20 per . cent discount to get them cashed...
...Peoria Buiding Trades Win PEORIA, III.—The building trades lockout in force hose several weeks has been broken and all contractors except the Master Builders' Association sre putting union men back on their jobs at the old scales...
...The same paper also reports that on May 1st the workers of Liege, Belgium, pulled down the Nazi (Swastika) banner flying from the roof of the German Consulate...
...The editor remarks that news of the refusal of dock workers to unload Nazi ships is printed with glee by the Communist press...
...Markewich charged in court, is Jack Schneider now under indictment for felonious assault...
...The week-work System has been in operation in New York cloak shops ¦ince 1919...
...piece-work in the industry...
...Justice Shientag reserved decision...
...The firm's plants In Roselle Park and in Linden, N. J., struck 100% and carried the Elizabeth plant along with it...
...Leo Krzycki, member of the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party, has resigned ss permanent secretary of the Milwaukee party Organization to take up work with the newly formed alliance of needle trades unions...
...Strikers held meetings in various halls and were addressed by officials of other unions...
...Communists Sue to Break Furriers' Union Agreement /COMMUNISTS appearing in the ^Supreme Court asked Justice Bernard L. Shientag to set aside an injunction obtained by the Fur Workers' Union of the American Federation of Labor against the organized 'fur manufacturers of Greater New York...
...All the ! officials of every section of both unions sre throwing themselves into organizing work with enthusiasm, campaign being scheduled for St...
...The newspapers carried full page adi placed by eleven hosiery mills, asking the hosiery workers to remain at work...
...Union wages have dropped from 90 to 53 cents a dozen hand-made ties, while "tenement" workers supply their labor for as lo / as 20 cents s dozen ties...
...Originally promoted by the left-wing group, the strike has been taken over by the A. F. of L. union...
Vol. 16 • July 1933 • No. 1
