And When the Strike Is Over The Boss Begins His Gentle Work
Klein, Gertrude Weil
And When the Strike Is Over The Boss Begins His Gentle Work By Gertrude Weil Klein WHAT hap-" pens after a strike? What does the land look like after the battle, and after an intensive or-g a n...
...Then a moving picture camera was set up and the boss posed in happy comradeship with groups of his workers...
...Pretty much as might be expected...
...It is charged, and there is ample evidence to substantiate the charge, that the revolt and strike were encouraged and financed by big industrialists, monarchists and fascists, hoping to create disorder out of which they might do what was done in 1873...
...I think the aftetmath of an organization drive is more fascinating and more significant than the more spectacular period of the strike...
...But in the out-of-town districts, in tho comparatively new industrial sections, what is happening...
...We are all more or less familiar with the situation in the large industrial cities...
...They have no conception of the meaning of unity as a permanent weapon for better conditions...
...In one of the cities where I expect to be spencing most of my evenings doing educational work for one of the branches of the Amalgamated, we already have one large firm throwing out feelers for the organization of a company "union...
...And their -land caused it to collapse...
...Naturally, it is easy lor the employer, who, after all, is the man who pays their wages, to Bel himself up as the "little white father...
...The anarchists have always been exceedingly active in parts of Spain...
...TTHE Spanish revolt is dying * down, with scores killed and many injured...
...The job is made doubly difficult by the fact girls are not stable members of an industry...
...The majority of them are very young and inexperienced...
...At s recent love-feast free beer and eats were supplied, snd as a special treat the boss circulated among the girls, embracing them and assuring them of 'tis affection snd his interest in their welfare...
...He has even installed a coffee supply service—at 2 cents a cup—in one of his plants, because he "hates to see tho girls eating dry sandwiches for lunch...
...Then at the climax of a speech overflowing with fatherly love he asked why a permanent organization could not be formed so they might continue to have good times together...
...The situation is a dangerous one and the union is keenly aware of all the difficulties...
...Starts sre being made elsewhere...
...To the workers in tho cities, who have been members of unions on and off for anywhere from ten to thirty years, it's all old sluff...
...Only the magnificent solidarity of the Spanish Socialist movement checkmated them and saved Spain from a fascism that would have been more odious than that of the accursed Hitler...
...The opinion Of most union officers I've spoken to is, that there is an almost complete turnover of women workers every five years or so...
...that is, divide the supporters of the republic, and establish a fascist regime...
...There probably isn't a single working day in the year that doesn't see pickets somewhere patrolling their beats...
...But funds are low, if not actually non-existent, and the territory to be covered is wide...
...But the results will continue...
...It means a hard, cruel grind .especially for the people who have to go out in the hinterlands, but unless it is dons all the thoussnds of new union members will dissppssr with the snows of yesteryear ,or with the enthusiasm of the strike...
...The syndicalist are likewise strong, but the Socialist-led labor unions are the really powerful labor organizations, and they stood like a rock against the revolt and the threatened general strike...
...indeed, it was Bakounin, high-priest of anarchism, who intervened in the Spanish republic of sixty years ago and created the dixsentions that resulted in the return of the Bourbons...
...What does the land look like after the battle, and after an intensive or-g a n i z ation drive such as took place this last spring and summer...
...Who Was Back of the Spanish Revolt...
...All at once, this firm, which employs about 800 people, mostly girls, begins throwing parties for its employees...
...To this there was, luckily, no response...
...But the seed was sown...
...Also, since this firm has been unionized, the employer takes an interest in the marriages of his employees and every happy couple receives a wedding gift from him...
...Who was back of the anarchist and syndicalist uprising...
...How do the workers react to this sudden access of interest in their affairs...
...And When the Strike Is Over The Boss Begins His Gentle Work By Gertrude Weil Klein WHAT hap-" pens after a strike...
...The White Goods' Workers branch of the International has engaged Ernestine Friedman to do the job there...
...Hitler burned the Reichstag...
...the hatreds unleashed and discontent with the Republican regime—even though now in the hands of the Right—will not die down so quickly...
...Why...
...And what about the employers, who for tho first time are compelled to deal with their employees as an organized force...
...In this particular case it is doing all it can to hammer home the lesson of solidarity...
...Most of the unions sre preparing to cope with this—their most troublesome, immediate problem...
...Often a firm which put up a bitter fight against unionization becomes the most "regular" and law-abiding member of the industry, after being licked in a good fight...
...The Spanish monarchists bought and paid for an armed anarchist . cvolt in the name of the revolution...
...Wbat about the thousands of young girli who for the first times are members of unions...
Vol. 16 • December 1933 • No. 25
