THOMAS WARNS AGAINST EX-CHIEF; B'KLYN BRANCH ANSWERS SLANDERS
Thomas Wans Against Ex-Chief; B'klyn Branch Answers Slanders LETTERS TO THE EDITOR opposes "comeback" May 1, 1934 , Tp the Labor Editor. It is with apprehension and amazement that I hear that...
...He had his troubles later on, with King George, but I never heard that any considerable number of Americans desired on that account to reinstate him as a; general in the American army...
...Vacations, sick leave, holidays with pay, etc., have tended to blind them to the need for organization, while their power trust employers were grabbing profits at high as 40% a year...
...Some of the employees, according to the union, work from 70 to 80 hours per week...
...No answer was ever returned to this offer, proving conclusively that all that the Communists desired was to make political capital out WASHINGTON.—Mprrls Greenglass.^f the Button and Novelty Workers Union, Local 18§, and Philip Lubliner,of the International Pocketbook Workers Union, were Swlnted labor representatives on code authority for the covered button Industry and she women's Handbag industry wepeotlvely...
...they are willing to overlook the past and let Wolinsky come back...
...Don't heed the usual Communist lies and slanders I Support the organized workers in the bona-fide union, lighting not to make political capital out of workers' struggles but to better the conditions of the workers...
...Comes concerned are the Clydelory...
...Eastern mship, Savannah and Dominion a, President Ryan conferred various executives, holding their heads the threat of a :e here unless recognition is rded the longshoremen's union >okesman for the pier workers...
...All the efforts to spread terror and Intimidate our ranks will fail...
...They say that once Wolinsky was a good labor leader, which is true...
...The men have pteS membership with us and » asked us to speak for them...
...So, for the matter of that, to use an extreme and exaggerated illustration, was Benedict Arnold once a good American General...
...The taxi men got wis* to them and rejected them and we call upon the workers of Bensonhurst to treat these "revolutionary" scabs in the name manner...
...Robert C. Berry is provisional president, Gordon Mitchell secretary, and Jerome Count general counsel...
...GENERAL STRIKE OF LONGSHOREMEN IN N. Y. AVERTED . general strike of longshorei on the piers of the eostwise nuhip lme fn* Mew York City just been temporarily averted...
...of the entire matter, earing aetfcmg about the live* and welfare eftheee enisled mm...
...South Pacific...
...7 Sincerely yours, ,NOEMANt«0»*S.: karp bros...
...United Public Utility Workers of Kentucky, Narraganseft and Southern Division of the New England Power Association, and the Edieon Employees Equity Association...
...The Retail Dairy, Fruit and Vegetable and Grocery Clerks Union, Local S88, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, has been carrying on a highly successful organising drive in Brooklyn, enrolling over 1,000 new members during the past three»months...
...If the companies aching for a fight, we'll show » that we DO represent the cers on the pier...
...The offer of the Labor Committee ef the Socialist Party is still open...
...Furthermore, Altman informed them that he would arrange a conference between Local 888 and the strikers and also a committee of the Socialist Party and representatives of...
...And there are supposedly strong elements in this radical union with so little sense of labor's solidarity, of the meaning of the 'class struggle or of labor's standing, that...
...I am aware of recent difficulties in that union and sympathetic with the sufferings of the rank and file in an industry with a a unsatisfactory code...
...Concerning some of the charges against Wolinsky, what might be called a Scotch verdict of "not proved" had to be rendered...
...Holding companies have been pyramided on their backs until now the average operating company must of necessity have its profits siphoned to maintain, holding company dividends...
...No group of employes in the United States have been so paternistically treated as the power employees...
...This is a repetition of their conduct in the taxi strike where they played with the fate j>t 40,000 men and their families...
...Our final verdict was carefully drawn up and was unanimous...
...a decrease in hours from 86 to 90 hours a week to 10 hours a day, six day week, 13 legal holidays with full pay, and no discharge without union consent...
...The leather goods workers' union may have been more prosperous when Osslp Wolinsky was their manager...
...The wage scale for ushers, doormen, janitors, matrons and fire prevention men, calls for $10 to $14 per week...
...the Communist "union...
...also the Tivoli theatre of Brooklyn which was responsile for the indictment of Levey...
...It is this same Wolinsky who after years of loyal service to the employers seeks to stage a comeback in the union...
...The following organizations art now amalgamated with the brotherhood: Brotherhood of Edison Employees of America, Federation of Public Utility Workers, Amalgamated Utility .Workers of America, Municipal Utility Workers' Union, United Utility Workers of Pennsylvania...
...On March 10, after a vigorous organizing campaign among the Karp stores, an agreement was signed with Karp Bros, involving all seven stores of the chain...
...The BUEA embraces all classes of utility employes and includes professionals, clerical and mechanical help...
...I know that Mr...
...the ftrike will still be called he shipping executives persist tieir refusal to recognise the Innational Longshoremen's Assoion as official spokesman for the >loyees, President Joseph P. n declares.' yan left for the South to look ' the field of battle in Lake rles, Louisiana, and seven •S ports where longshoremen on strike...
...Wolinsky is a man of ability and was at one time one of the most promising leaders in the labor movement Alas, he was one of the victims of the cynicism and false standards of success of the gambling epoch of the 1920's...
...they will And thai they do not even get a good mess' of prosperity pottage for this sal* •f their birthright...
...The reason was mainly In the difference of the time in which hi functioned and not In what he himself dfd or left undone...
...The efforts to organize the RKO and the Loew theatres will continue, say the officers of the union...
...The whole labor movement Is threatened by this tendency, of which Local 306 of the Motion Picture Operators, has also given en illustration, to take former labor men who have gone over to the employers in an executive capacity back into the ranks of labor unions without any sign of contrition from the renegade labor leaders thus restored to power...
...The union, of course, had to live up to the agreement it had signed with the firm involving all its stores —otherwise the livelihood of dozens other workers would be at stake and the entire agreement with its higher standard of living for the workers, would be violated and rendered null and void...
...C. .Levey, secretary of the Theatrical Employees Urrion, Local 118, on the charre of coercion...
...COMMITTEE, SOCIALIST PARTY OF BENSONHURST...
...It was accepted by the union...
...Jack Altman, secretary of the Labor Committee, told them that the facts did not warrant such retraction, but, he added, the columns of The New Leader would be open for any statement they might choose to make...
...I was chairman of a committee which long and patiently looked into the affairs of the pocketbook makers while he was their leader...
...Wolinsky gave away his own case by promptly identifying himself with Morris White, one of tHe largest employers in the industry, with whom he had previously had overfriendly relations...
...The New Leader, official organ of the Socialist Party, carried a'news story about the successful drive of the AFofL union all over Brooklyn and about the attempts of the Communist "union" to obtain an injunction against the bona-fide union...
...There was, however, no question at all but that at the latter end of an administration which he had begun well, he did not give his abilities solely to the work of the union and that he seriously compromised himself by his relations with some of those men who have been a curse to the American labor movement and by his undue friendliness with at least one of the employers in the industry...
...The wages of those who work under the "stagger" system, opening and closing the houses, is $10 per week...
...Workers have been switched from one theatre to en* other, women employed at cleaning work all night are receiving a wage that Is lower than a bare subsistence level and the provisions 6f the code for theatres have been flouted...
...ur, demands include, beside gnition, one that the practice mploying 'car groups' on loadcontracts at wages below the ilar longshoremen's pay be disinued and that gangs of workbe organized at 7:55 a.m., 15 p. m. and 7 p. m." GETS INDICTED IN DRIVE TO UNIONIZE MOVIE HOUSES The determined effort being Made to organize the workers in the moving picture houses has brought about a campaign of .intimidation by the theatre owners, the latest move being the indictment of Chas...
...Utility Union Developing As Workers Learn ¦y Jack Schulter The Brotherhood of Utility Employees is waging a concerted campaign to organize electric light and power employees under its standard of industrial unionism...
...If .they sell their Integrity as labor unionists by taking Wolinsky back...
...My 'crime*," says Levey, "Is that I am trying to bring the worst exploited workers into the ranks of the union...
...A committee from the "industrial union," together with one of the strikers and a committee of the Bensonhurst Socialist Party branch, came to the Labor Committee of the party in New York asking that the Labor Committee retract the story which a'ppeared in The New Leader...
...have told Mayor LaGuardia," ident Ryan declared before ing for Texas, "that while we tot want to embarrass transition on the waterfront, we prepared to tie up shipping pletely unless the lines grant demands...
...It is with apprehension and amazement that I hear that some groups in the Fancy Leather Goods Workers Union are seriously considering the return of Ostip Wolinsky to power in that organization...
...strike To the Labor Editor: We are submitting to you a leaf let we have been compelled to issue in our section of the city in answer to statements contained in innumerable pamphlets and articles Issued by the Communist Party and in their press attacking the Bensonhurst Braheh of the Socialist Party: TO THE WORKERS ON BENSONIIURST: The Socialist Party of Bensonhurst has been attacked and lied about and its position distorts In regard to its stand, in the so-called strike, at the Kara Bros...
...The efforts of Sol A. Rosenblatt, district administrator of the NRA, was blocked by the theatre owners, the latter spreading the report that the Workers who voted for affiliation with a bona fide labor union would be fired...
...The coastwise lines ! already made a concession as result of bur organization's b—they increased wages from tents an hour to 75 cents an ¦ when the union obtained the ly wage of 85 cents from the sea lines...
...r quite a while the iongshore'» union has been demanding gnition of the coastwise lines tout recourse to a strike...
...The Theatrical Employees Union urges members of unions and their friends to patronise theatres like the old Roxy which are 100% fair to organized labor...
...I am understating rather than overstating an opinion formed on the patient hearing of the evidence...
...When strike broke out in Texas and isiana, the union took advan? of the difficulties of the lines ress its demands under penalty i walkout here as well...
...What are the facts...
...The Transportation des Council, which consists of •esentatives of teamsters, truck, loaders and longshoremen, take care of the situation in r York City while Ryan is gone...
...store here...
...The Communist dual union, the socalled Food Workers Industrial Union, which by its strikebreaking tendencies and activities had been partly responsible in the past for some of the bad conditions in the industry, started a lying campaign among the workers in the store at 2221 65th St., and on March 20 pulled these workers out on strike for no other reason than the political aims of the Communist Party...
...In many cases the workers have four hours work five days a week, at 25 cents per hour...
...The conditions won by the union included a raise in wages, which were as low as from $18 to $20 a week, to $35 a week...
...Buy only at union stores...
...Initio ated last August by Robert Berry, a $22-a-week clerk in the New York Edison system, it has developed so rapidly that it now numbera 18 locals from coast to coast...
Vol. 17 • May 1934 • No. 60
