Waterfront Strikes Tie Up Shipping; Police Nurse Scaps;N.Y. Victory Near
Waterfront Strikes Tie Up Shipping; Police Nurse Scaps;N.Y. Victory Near With perishable good* on docks fn New York and on the Gulf and Pacific coast in danger of rotting and with complaints...
...JAMES ONEAL, Editor, THE NEW LEADER...
...As it was obviously impossible to operate the yards with scab labor, Bardo had to come'to terms with the union...
...Norman Thomas and Leo Krzycki, chairman of the National Executive Committee of the party, spoke to mass meetings during the course of the strike, as did numerous other comrades from Philadelphia and Camden...
...The stories of "constructive , improvement" brought about by New Deals and Blue Birds came from Secretary of Labor Perkins, guest speaker, and" previously weye reflected in the address of Sidney Hillman, president of the Amalgamated and member of the National Labor Advisory Board, and in the speech of William Green, head of the American Federation of Labor, who flayed the industrialist opponents of the collective bargaining provisions of Article 7A...
...Have forced employment office of University of Southern California to end cooperation with employers by supplying student strike breakers...
...The union is now firmly established in the yard of the New York Shipbuilding Company and can carry on the struggle for better conditions with increased vigor...
...25 minimum a week...
...A five-year old child crumpled, hurt by a bomb, but that didn't daunt the brave officers...
...The office of the Student League for Industrial Democracy here, which wired all its sea coast chapters to cooperate to the fullest extent with the strikers, has received the following wire from Katherfne ("line, Pacific student representative of the LID...
...At the same time, other workers' organizations joined the striking longshoremen—the Sailors Union, with six to seven thousand men, affecting crews of all coastal and intercoastal vessels, and the Masters, Mates and I'ilots Union, Local 90, involving Gulf and Atlantic ports...
...But through it all mounted also the swelling tale of the achievements of the Amalgamated in organizing workers in new and old fields and gaining better conditions for great masses of clothing craftsmen...
...But Ryan is sitting tight in New York, waiting for the Clyde Mallory lines to bow to the inevitable, the result of the plebescite to determine if the ILA...
...The ship* yard strikers are victorious...
...From the first day of the strike, March 27, the workers held their ranks without a single desertion...
...But the official records won't show how a riot in which twenty workers were injured was incited by police brutality and disregard of the fundamental rights of workers...
...N.w W -. ad.r Hails Itonv.ntlon •yUE following telegram was sent by The New Leader to the * opening session of the convention of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America at the Hotel Seneca, Rochester, N. Y.I THE NEW LEADER, Socialist and Labor national weekly, greets the tenth biennial convention of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers...
...in Frisco three suffered head injuries from patrolmen's clubs...
...Communist attempts to discredit John Green and myself proved completely ineffective...
...And side by side with this pride, and implicit in the resolutions presented, was evident the consciousness of power and the mandate issued to all officials, from top to bottom, to go on to new fields, to win new victories for the clothing workers, and then for other workers...
...a •jacquard and novelty membership meeting, a national jacquard conference, and an open meeting of the broad silk executive board in which all workers were invited to participate and offer criticisms and suggestions on Wednesday...
...The ruling charge's that the strike was called in violation of an arbitration pact and that the workers failed to agree to the suggestions pf the regional labor board...
...One comrade (Miriam Morris, local YPSL organizer) earned for herself the soubriquet of the Red Menace among the police and deputized fascists masquerading as guards by her activity on the picket line and in scab-thwarting...
...Perkins painted a glowing picture of recovery sharply at variance with much that was testified to by delegates...
...Freight can't be moved in the big city by truck or lighter, union truckmen and lighter captains refusing to handle any of it as long as the strike is on...
...Governors have appealed to the labor board, which in turn has pleaded with - Ryan, to rush to the coast "to pre. vent violence" and help settle the strikes...
...Seven weeks of struggle, featured by the complete and continuous tie-up of the yards of the New York Shipbuilding Co., won for the union formal recognition, reclassification of wages with increases of 10 to 20s per cent (average, 14.6%), all men to be taken back immediately, preference for union members in future rehiring, and arbitration on other disputed points...
...All set to move the goods by scabs, the companies are meeting with staunch resistance on the part of the stevedores, despite the fact that the lines arc using the police in every way to help smash "the strike...
...Neither did the appearance of Reverend Herman Hahn, popular preacher and radio speaker on economic topics and Socialist leader, who stepped forward right in the path of the police attack, and remonstrated with the officers for their tyranny and ruthless tactics toward the workers...
...really represents the stevedores being a foregone conclusion...
...MASS INDUSTRIAL UNION BUILT IN CANNING INDUSTRY CAMDEN.—Details of the settlement whereby the Campbell soup strike was ended are not yet available, but the union has held its lines firm...
...at the University of California: "LID active in longshoremen's strike...
...a mass meeting and organizers' meeting Thursday...
...During the week of the holiday, silk workers joined in the parade Saturday with demands for a 30-hour, 5-day week...
...Hahn, Buffalo Socialist, Clubbed Defending Strikers BUFFALO.—With clubs swinging and fists flying at defenseless workers, policemen here followed up a tear gas and fire hose attack on pickets at the Curtiss Airplane Motor Co...
...The New Leader goes to press too early to recount the whole story, which will have to wait a week...
...Perkins added, but the optimistic sentiment found no answer in the hearts of many of the delegates...
...Ferryboats in San Francisco Bay may also be tied up by striking crews...
...In Allentown, Where Mrs...
...general organization of the whole cannery industry...
...Comrade M. H. Goldstein, attorney for the union, figured importantly, not only in negotiations but as adviser to the leaders in the conduct of the strike...
...Usually :hose hurt in "riots" are the strikers...
...With practically every worker in the yard now signed up in the union, a closed shop is virtually assured...
...Editor, Labor Section...
...In Galveston one union man was killed...
...Meanwhile word has come from Washington that the National Labor Board, after a hearing at which the union officials were absent, has ordered the strikers to return to work and submit their ¦wage demands to arbitration...
...And if the strike isn't settled soon, more men will be called out and more lines tied up, Joseph P. Ryan, president of the ILA., threatens...
...I feel the accomplishments outweigh the defects," Mrs...
...In Pennsylvania especially is the drive being concentrated...
...Rev...
...During the course of the strike, President Bardo of the company was steadily forced up in his offers to 6%, 10%, 13%, and finally 14.6% wage increases...
...No comment is made in the decision on the tactics of the lbcal police...
...For the scene of action was now a "riot," and so the police blotters will state...
...unemployment insurance...
...Our workers are sped up and then discharged," one midwest delegate declared...
...The young Socialist movement, which was so active in waging the militant strike carried" on by the workers, can take credit for having been instrumental in building the first mass Industrial union In the cannery industry in this country...
...Continual pressure on the Roosevelt administration by strikers' committees in Washington finally bore fruit in a preemptory order from the Navy Department to Bardo to reopen his yards or suffer the loss of the half-completed cruiser Tuscaloosa...
...By unanimous vote at their meeting in Camden, the 3,200 members of the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America, Local No...
...Many of our people have suffered more since the New Deal than before...
...Pinchot and Comrade Emil Kieve, hosiery workers' nationaUpresident, spoke...
...Others told of dual codes used by manufacturers to befuddle and cheat the workers...
...Five nun-' died coastwise strikers met Wednesday at the offices of the International Longshoremen's Association and voted unanimously not to return to work until wages and hours were settled—and settled right—in New York, Galveston and Houston by the Clyde-Mallory lines...
...Conditions since the general strike in August have amply proved the justice of the union's demand for the .'10-hour week t and two-loom system, officials point out, citing the second curtailment since the strike...
...On the Monday before the settlement was agVeed upon, a mass picket line of over two thousand men demonstrated conclusively to the boss the strength of the work«rs and their determination to maintain the hundred per cent character of their strike...
...Victory Near With perishable good* on docks fn New York and on the Gulf and Pacific coast in danger of rotting and with complaints of great losses and potential food shortages coming in from as far as Alaska, the longshoremen's strike continues here and in other ports...
...a mass meeting, a hat band executive board meeting and an organizers' meeting Tuesday...
...This renewal of militant organization work was the answer of the American Federation of Silk Workers to the virtual lockout by the employers, sanctioned by the National Silk Code Authority...
...Delegate after delegate rose and spoke of poverty and unemployment, of code violation and employer chiseling, of speedup) and falsification of record*, of kickbacks, overtime amounting to many added hours and sweatshops competing with and outdistancing the union shops...
...Grievances will be handled by union committeemen and the business agent...
...The national body wants the strikers to go back to work immediately, with basic wages to be determined by an arbitration board...
...In appreciation of the local Socialist Party's services, the union membership at the meeting last Saturday voted (again unanimously) a substantial contribution to the North, Philadelphia Branch, which had lent them the services of its organizer throughout the whole course of the struggle...
...The New Leader and the entire Socialist movement stand ready as in the past to fight with you for clean, militant, classconscious unionism, alive to both industrial and political needs of working class...
...But the strikers claim, reasonably enough, that the bosses wil get all the trouble they want...
...The enthusiasm and the resentment came from the floor, where four hundred delegates from all sections of the men's clothing industry gathered and spoke their hearts out...
...Newspaper despatches have reported all week that "mobs riot (dung waterfronts," which means that workers are determined not to let scabs take their jobs and livelihood away from them and won't permit the police, either, to *erve as scab herders...
...But there must be space enough to picture the enthusiasm of "New York Day" at the convention, with bands and parades and hnoplah and bnllyhooing for New York and for Hollander, Catalanotti and Wcinstcin, the metropolis' candidates for the general executive board...
...for labor representation on the silk code authority, for pick clocks on the looms, and for wage increases instead of cuts...
...1, approved the str|ke settlement as recommended to them by acting president Joh"n Green and the negotiating committee...
...But the town is aroused, and the strikers, members of the Aeronautical Workers Union 18,286 of the AFoL., are gaining renewed strength from the sentiment resulting from the police tactics...
...Although there were never more than 000 dues paying members despite the very low scale of dues, 1247 workers voted for affiliation with the Cannery Workers' Industrial Union, most of those voting for the company union doing so as the result of bribes or intimidation...
...against company unions...
...To this task the officials are now devoting their attention...
...The Camden strike was noteworthy not only for its perfect discipline, but also for its Socialist leadership...
...ACWA Convention Hears of Victories and Violations (lly Special Stan" Correspondent) ROCHESTER.—Wild enthusiasm over the union's achievements in the past two years, coupled with deepening resentment at reports of widespread chiseling, violations and privation, vied with semi-official tales of NRA magic—at least on paper—at the record-breaking biennial convention of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America in session here...
...SAMUEL H. FRIEDMAN...
...Comrade Frances Hunter served efficiently as secretary...
...a broad silk membership meeting Friday and a meeting of jacquard organizers' committee Saturday, in addition to individual shop and committee conferences...
...The questions of piece-rates and other concessions to the union will be arbitrated by a^boaid composed of one representative from each side and a third member chosen by the other two...
...So far the answer of the Pacific waterfront employers is that they will hire more scabs and shout ahead...
...Only in regard to growth in union numbers and power was there anything like an accord, and the first woman cabinet member was compelled to admit that she was "seeing only the accomplishments of the NRA, while you workers may see the defects...
...Bronze placquea were presented by an appreciative membership to Hillman and to Dorothy Bellanca...
...the unanimous character of all votes on important questions from the beginning to the end of the strike demonstrates this...
...His intercession for the strikers resulted only in his being clubbed and gassed...
...Most of the strikers in Galveston —out since May 1—have gone back to work at the Inter-Coastal GulfPacific Line and the West Indian docks under an agreement calling for 80 cents an hour, $1.20 for overtime and a 44-hour week...
...Many students among picketers...
...Although they failed to win their original demands for a 'lh'/a increase and a closed shop contract, the strikers realize the importance of the gains they have made by their seven weeks' fight...
...The mayor of Seattle has sent a frantic call to Secretary of the Interior Ickes for Federal troops to help smash the strike on the coast and move the 37 ships tied up in Elliot Bay...
...On Monday, the union held a meeting of the shop chairmen and delegates, and of the joint executive board...
...Meanwhile the strike in California, Washington and Oregon is awaking the apprehension of shippers there...
...In Paterton, the Associated Silk Workers, led by Eli Keller, held a number of mass meetings addressed by local and .New York speakers, including Socialist party members...
...May your sessions be full of hope and inspiration to organized and unorganized workers in garment and all other fields...
...Most important of all, the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers, with locals already established in Camden, Chester, Wilmington, and Bath, Maine, and with a widely publicized strike victory to its credit, is in a strategic position to go out and organize the rest of the shipbuilding industry on the Atlantic seaboard...
...in Easton, in New York City and other silk centers, the campaign spread, and all day Thursday the executive committee of the AFofSW met to consider plans for strengthening this new country-wide union, which is an affiliate of the United Textile Workers...
...Summing up the figures claimed for re-employment in all the apparel trades, Mrs...
...Camden Shipyard Workers Victorious After Blocking Construction for 7 Weeks ¦y Philip H. Van Gelder PHILADELPHIA...
...Plans arc being vigorously pushed for organization work at the Chicago Campbell" plant and for...
...Silk Workers Use Payless 'Holiday'Jto Build Union wBy Samuel H. Friedman Roused by the callousness of employers in tfi*e silk industry who shut down their 900 mills and shut out their thousands of employes on a joyless unpaid "holiday" in order to mop up the overproduction inherent in the inefficient boss system, silk workers responded magnificently during the past week to the call of the American Federation of Silk Workers to turn the "holiday" into an organization carnival, General demonstrations and protest and unionization meetings were held to rally the silk workers to condemn the stupid and heartless holiday system and to strengthen their own organizations...
...and Abraham Miller, idol of the New York Joint Board, was given a magnificent oil painting by his fellow-workers...
...a fine set of valuable books was bestowed upon General Secretary-Treasurer Schlossbcrg...
Vol. 17 • May 1934 • No. 20
