I.F.T.U. for General Strike to Halt War
I.F.T.U. for General Strike to Halt War AT its recent Brussels congress the International Federation •f Trade Unions declared, without qualification, for a general strike in the event of...
...Under the new classification program the manufacturer must fit his suit into one of the recognized classifications and pay the price agreed upon...
...100% Solid When the strike was called the union had in its ranks only onethird of the workers, about 21,000...
...for General Strike to Halt War AT its recent Brussels congress the International Federation •f Trade Unions declared, without qualification, for a general strike in the event of war...
...From that time on they continued their independent existence...
...The powerful labor movements of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Holland, Austria, and the Scandinavian countries and of Spain are affiliated...
...fHE special Labor Day edi* tion of The New Leader will be an ideal one for distribution...
...The details have not been worked out...
...But that is not enough...
...Thus ends a chapter in labor history and the beginning of a new Chapter...
...The principal gains are: I) Union recognition and collective bargaining...
...Dubinsky and Hochman addressed the meeting on the possibilities of organization work under NRA...
...The response to the call, however, exceeded the most optimistic forecasts...
...Formerly there were as many grades as any manufacture/ could chisel the price down to, resulting in ruthless cut-throat competition, which in turn forced down wages...
...The outcome of the strike more than doubled the I.L.G.W.U...
...Place your order now...
...As soon as the workers, 40 per cent of whom are women and girls, showed that they were going to line up with the International Cigarmakers' Union the firm offered an increase of 15 per cent, with the understanding that there would be no recognition of the union...
...The total number of fworkers involved in these conflicts exceeds 72,000 and the benefits accrued from them will practically revolutionize the work standards and living conditions of these workers...
...In Cleveland and Boston, general dress strikes wero carried out during the past month with similar success...
...U.H.T...
...Everywhere tho war cry must resound: DOWN WITH FASCISM I LONG LIVE THE ORGANIZED WORKING CLASS...
...Its principal purpose was to eliminate sweatshops in the garment trade,' which had' Come back to life during the depression and were threatening to swamp the entire dress industry, the largest and richest single industry in New York with an annual output of nearly $700,000,000, to shorten work hours in order to increase employment, and to establish guaranteed minimum wage scales...
...In addition, the 1,100 truckmen engaged in transportation of dresses from the jobbing warehouses to the contracting shops, recently organized into a local of the I.L.G.W.U., struck together with the factory workers and thereby completely paralyzed every activity in "the industry...
...Julius Hochman, Manager of the Dressmakers' Joint Board, and Max Danish, all of whom were present...
...The strike-bound Arm Is the maker of Golden Dawn, featured by the United Cigar Stores...
...If the decision is made effective, it was declared at the congress, WARS WILL BE MADE IMPOSSIBLE, and by the action of the workers...
...a social war against the working class aa well as a race and caste war which has thrown back the country into a state of mediaeval barbarism...
...Nothing that lias been done in many years in the organization gives the stability and .security to workers in the shop as this classification...
...Comrades, stand up resolutely against Nazi rule...
...Sidney Hillman, for nearly 20 fears president of the Amalgamated, will probably join the Executive Board as a Vice-President of the A. F. of L., and the vast machinery of relief, research and afftiated work of the Amalgamated will become p art of the assets of the Federation...
...A special committee has been organdial under the leadership of Morris Feinstone, Secretary - treasurer...
...Rubin Guskin, President and Louis Schaffer, of the Jewish Daily Forward...
...Further developments In the unity between the two organizations will be reported...
...The continued strict enforcement of this "code" will eliminate one of the worst evils of the clothing industry...
...i Big Gains The union contract, now covering the entire industry, sounds the death-knell of sweatshop production throughout the New York area...
...Wheresover the search after truth begins, there life begins...
...It is reported that the work of Hillman, Dr...
...They have never been, however, a competing organization, The Amalgamated, generally speaking, control the men's clothing workers, and shirts and collars, while the old United Garment Workers control makers of overalls and other work clothes...
...wheresover the search ceases, there life ceases—John Buskin...
...The congress took the view that working class opinion has now reached the point when such a decision can be made effective...
...Upon motion they also requested that the Labor Committee of the Socialist Party immediately organize a conference of the entire labor movement of the city to further the possibilities of the Soc.alist ticket and to organize a trade union c .mpaign committee...
...This attitude has aroused the indignation of the whole world, and especially of the working class...
...The Amalgamated Will Soon Join the A. F. of L. THE Amalgamated Clothing Workers and the United Garment Workers are about to unite...
...Louis, Chicago and Kansas City...
...The Bakers' Strike was one of the important problems discussed at this meeting...
...Leo Wolman and other Amalgamated officials side by side with A. F. of ** chiefs in NRA work gave rise *• the negotiations that will be consummated in the forthcoming •wrger...
...That indignation mutt remain unabated...
...2) a 35-hour workweek...
...Not only did the dressmakers in New York walk out practically to a person, but all the workers in Connecticut, New Jersey and Long Islnnd towns, regarded as .sweatshop strongholds, came out of the Bhops one hundred pur cent...
...World Miners' Body Wars Upon Hitlerite Fascism The following manifesto, issued by the Miners' International Fed eration, is released for publication in the United States through the United Mine Workers: rpiIK German Nazi party, having * seized power by the shameless misuse of an electoral victory obtained by terrorist methods, is subjecting the whole of Germany to a regime of unprecedented violence...
...Cigarmakers Stand Firm _ As a protest against intolerable conditions, with wages averaging from $8 to $9 per week, 375 employees of the cigar manufacturing firm of A. Seigel & Son, 244 East 84th St., went on strike two weeks ago...
...Simultaneously strikes in the same industry are now in progress in St...
...Every worker knows what what grade of garment his employer is supposed to be making and what price he is supposed to be paying...
...The United Hebrew Trades is taking an active part in the organization campaign of the Labor movement in New York City and it has opened an office at 41 Union Square to carry on its work...
...The International Federation of Trade Unions, weakened through the destruction of the German labor movement by the Hitler barbarians, is still a mighty and powerful body, with the tremendous British labor movement as its backbone...
...In a word, Nasi rule has extended over all Germany...
...The trade union, cooperative and political organizations of the working class, built up by the persevering effort of generations and at the cost of considerable sacrifice, have been dissolved and absorbed in a so-called United Front which is simply a vast organization at the devotion of Hitler, Goebbels and other Nazi chiefs, and in which the workers have no right whatever except that of paying and keeping silence.] The leaders and the rank and Ale of the workers are persecuted, imprisoned and tortured by tens of thousands...
...At the Nashville convention of the United Garment Workers in February, 1914, delegates representing the new elements, found their seats challenged, and they thereupon withdrew and organized the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, with Hillman as President and Joseph Schlossberg as Secretary-Treasurer...
...The great union of men's clothing workers, the most powerful single anion—with the exception of the railroad brotherhoods—outside the American Federation of Labor and •ae of the moat progressive unions in the world, will shortly be enrolled under the banner of the A. V. of L„ and a long estrangement will be at an end...
...This work has received the hearty endorsement of David Dubinsky, President of the I.L.G.W.U...
...3) guaranteed minimum weekly wages of not less than $31.50 and allowing the average worker even higher earnings...
...Dressmakers Win, Gain 36-Hour Week A SMASHING victory after a strike lasting only, three days was Won by the International Ladies' Garment Workers* Union for 60,000 dress workers employed in 2,600 shops in Greater New York and in a number of adjoining New Jersey and Connecticut cities which constitute the principal dress manufacturing market in the country...
...bership in New York...
...Any attempt to smuggle -a better grade into a cheaper classification or to reduce the price is immediately reported to the Price Making Department...
...Their separate existence, however, was a standing menace to labor peace, for each at least theoretically claimed the ground covered by the other...
...Che Amalgamated grew out of a series of garment strikes in 1913 in the course of which the radical elements of the U.G.W., led by Socialist trade unionists, grew enormously...
...As a result of the agreement, wages of tho smalltown workers, the worst exploited, have been nearly trebled and they have all been put under the 35hour week...
...The New York dress strike was led by David Dubinsky, president of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, and by Julius Hochman, general manager of the Dress and Waist Makers' Joint Board...
...On Monday afternoon the strikers assembled in fifteen halls, capped by a huge mass meeting in the 71st Regiment Armory, and voted to endorse the terms of the agreement and the workers returned to work Tuesday...
...Under the direction of Sol Kramen of Chicago, head of the Price Making Department, a classification program has been established which details the construction of each garment, divides the garments into grades according to their construction and sets a price for each grade...
...At the Philadelphia convention of the A. F. of L. that Fall their delegates were denied seats because technically they were a dual organization...
...The strike is in charge of General Organiser M. Simon and Jack Melhado, secretary of the Cigarmakers' Joint Board...
...One and a half cents a copy...
...The unions voted that in the event of threatened hostilities the workers in the agresser country are to go on general strike, and those in all other countries are to declare a general boycott of that country...
...and 4) full responsibility by jobbers for wages and earnings in the contracting shops...
...Not content with the destruction of the working class organizations of every kind, the Nasia have outlawed all those who are suspected of non-Aryan descent as well as all intellectuals whose consciences prevents them from bowing slavishly to the Hitlerite ideas, who refuse to think at a word of command like a vulgar herd...
...The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union donated $1,000 to the Rakers'Union for its strike activities...
...The working class of the whole world must constitute a compact whole, determined to Aght Nazi rule which, with its elder brother, Italian Fascism, constitutes a most rerious menace to the working clasaea and to civilisation in general...
...New York Joint Board His Code of Its Owi A "code" of its own has been put into effect by the New York Joint Board of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers...
...Endorses City Ticket of Socialists iT one of the most enthusiastic and best represented meetings held in years the United Hebrew Trades at its meeting Monday evening, August 21, voted unanimously to support the New York Socialist city ticket and its platform in the coming mayoralty campaign...
...Fight it with implacable vigor...
...Two cents prepaid...
...Later, the conciliators met with the strikers and their vote on returning at the firm's terms was 100 per cent "No...
...On the first day of the strike, Grover A. Whalen, New York City chairman for the NRA Re-employment Committee, called upon both sides to meet to negotiate a settlement, and after three days of incessant conferring the strike was settled...
...Conciliators were informed by the firm that they had been paying the workers from $14 to $16 per week and that they could secure at least 150 who were willing to return to the factory...
...The strike, called August 19, was* the biggest walkout of workers in any industry since NRA was passed...
Vol. 16 • August 1933 • No. 9
