UNEMPLOYED UNION LAUNCHES ATTACK ON RELIEF PROBLEM ALONE THREE FRONTS
Unemployed Union Launches Attack On Relief Problem Alone Three Fronts Suit Started to Compel City to Spend $3,000,000 More; Demands on Municipal, State and Federal Governments Outlined;...
...Spurred by public support, which cut business at the theatres about 80 percent, the inexperienced ushers, doormen, sweepers and cashiers are conducting a fine demonstration of labor solidarity...
...The Ukor is a subsidiary of the United Dressed Beef Company, which in turn is a subsidiary of Swift A Co...
...That afternoon, Warner Bros, inserted large ads in the local newspapers for positions as ushers, doormen, etc...
...Last September, the petitioners declare, applications made for home relief were at the rate of 900 each day, while this month they have increased to 1900 i-ach day...
...Public Rallies to Support of Low Paid Help, Challenging Movie ^Monopoly in Small Town ¦y Louii Yagoda Tired of the dilly-dallying of the management of the A>ur Warner Theatres in this town puts one in Red Lion and disgusted by the shilly-shallying of the labor department, employes have gone out on strike against low wages and long hours...
...They fell for it...
...The order served on the Mayor and Comptroller explains that when the Utilities Tnx was passed last October 14th by the O'Brien adminis. tration, a state of emergency wan declared to exist in regard to the more than 100.000 families on home relief and a like number on work relief in New York City at that time...
...But before the strike could be called Mrs...
...The petitioners declare that "the failure of the respondents, the mayor and the comptroller, to cause to be applied, expended and disposed of, such revenues collected pursuant to the aforesaid local law, is in violation of their official duties as mayor and comptroller...
...This contention was upheld by the appelate court...
...COPS DO RIGHT BY BUFFALO FIRM Police clubs rise and fall, but striking aircraft workers in Buffalo keep on striking despite tear las, and fire hose- attacks by the "peace officers...
...When we have done that then we can approach the United front as an honest joining of forces and wo can have tremendous city-wide and local united actions...
...When the management stubbornly refused to hire members of Local 4 (stage hands' union) the party swung into action...
...The union was given no other answer...
...On one front, the Workers Unemployed Union, through Oavid Las.-er, its chairman, has instituted a suit against the city of New York to compel it to expend for unemployment relief more than $3,000,000 collected by a utilities tax designed for that purpose...
...At the same time, a conference of unemployed and CWA groups (including the league of Office and Professional Employes, the Association of Civil Works Employes and the Association of Unemployed Single Women, in addition to the Workers Unemployed Union)adopted on Tuesday, May 15, a program of demands upon city, state and nation which it will carry on by practical action...
...Crowds of sympathizers stand around the theatres, without solicitation by the strikers, and boo those who attempt to go in...
...and how a united front must be city-wide rather than neighborhood and must be based on honesty and good faith...
...Editor's Note—The letter of rejection in a classic and we urge all interested in united fronts to get a copy of it...
...Above we see a striker who lias seised the hose md directed its stream awayfrom the pickets and tmvard the ground...
...About 200 delegates from a considerable number of CWA projects in addition to unemployed delegates were registered for the conference...
...The union members were arrested and tried before Magistrate Thomas A. Aurelio, who held that they were carrying on an illegal secondary boycott and that their conduct might lead to a breach of peace...
...You can win tens of thousands of unemployed to your banners if you concentrate on the job of organization...
...Comrade William Karlin, attorney for the union, showed that there had been no force, violence, threats or intimidation and insisted that it was the business if the magistrate only to determine whether the strikers were violating section 722 of the penal law...
...There are a million unemployed in New York City to organize...
...Then came the il i Urn BUTCHER UNION WINS REVERSAL ON THREE CONVICTIONS The conviction of three members of Butchers Union Local 174 for picketing a delicatessen store with signs proclaiming the fact that it sold non-union made products has been reversed by the appelate term of the court of special sessions...
...See story on P(agc One of this section today...
...The branch recommends constant participation in local industrial disputes at a means not only of helping the workers but w - — ¦ also of building membership morale...
...William Sontage, Charles KennerIang and Joseph Garmen have therefore been discharged...
...Max Reissner, business agent, states that the picketing is being conducted in connection with its union fight against Ukor in an effort to compel that firm to employ union labor to produce kosher delicatessen...
...She promised the union to arrange a conference and asked to hold off the strike...
...f Do two thing*, build the Socialist Party and get soke fer The New...
...When some of them began carrying signs upholding the Warners, the crowd became enraged and "requested" the discontinuance of this practice to such good effect that the police, in the interest of public safety, helped the scabs get out of town...
...The city, through Mayor LaGuardia and ComptrollerMcGoldrick, must show cau.-e liefore a Supreme Court Justice on Friday, May 18, why it should not be compelled to spend immediately the money it has collected...
...The management imported professional strikebreakers...
...Despite attempts to arrest and otherwise intimidate them, and the breaking up of several meetings, they continued the fight, inspired by a labor committee including Jack Kaye, Sam Schwartz, Al Meyer, Natalie Schwartz, Edna Seligman, Sophie Weisberg, Anne Posner and Bertha Bass, and aided by the Brighton Yipscls...
...A victory party is being held Friday night (May 18) at the cen, ter, 1118 Brighton Beach Avenue, with dancing and refreshments free...
...The theatre help were getting code wages of 25 cents an hour...
...After getting the "run around" for a week, they were informed no committee would bo spoken to...
...Comrade Weinfeld, Lemchick and Saltzman were in charge of the open air meetings...
...The Workers Unemployment Insurance Kill HR7598 was endorsed and will be supported...
...It was in a riot incited by the police at the Curtis airplane plant that the Rcz'erend Herman Halm, Socialist leader, was clubbed and gassed...
...The shifts were staggered so that many earn six and eight dollars a week...
...Indignant at the refusal of the mayor to grant public hearings before the Board of Estimate on relief appropriations, the four organizations of unemployed and CWA workers met in a conference of Greenwich House...
...And as soon as you come to look upon the united front as an honest uniting of organizations for common demands and not as a 'strategic maneuver,' as your Communist handbooks tell you to do, then we can really unite...
...A parade was held Saturday which aroused much interest...
...Comrade Lasser is chairman and Saul Parker, organizer...
...They were referred to District Manager Schlesinger of Philadelphia...
...The few who had been earning more of course had their wages reduced to that figure as soon as the code was approved...
...With their living standards so miserably low, it is treason to these unemployed to spend time simply trying to break up"*raeh other's organizations...
...The demands call for $15 a week home relief for a family of two with $3 a week for each additional dependent, and a minimum of $20 a week for work relief...
...The Warner monopoly, on the other hand, enables the theatres to charge as high as 40 cents* for a second run picture...
...Today, the petition reads, quoting from a public statement of Or...
...The Workers Unemployed Union is a city-wide organization of unemployed and CWA workers with 114 locals in New York City located in settlement houses, churches and libraries with a regular membership of over 10,000 workers...
...None Used for Relief The emergency utilities tax, which raa from September 1, 1933, to February 28, 1934, called for the payment to the comptroller by companies operating under the public service commission, of a tax of l'*i',v upon their gross monthly incomes...
...Local 306 refused to send its men into the theatre, and branch members were out every night distributing literature, picketing and holding open air meetings outside the theatre...
...Eastern Conference to Plan Gathering to Push Unemployment Insurance AN attack on the unemployment problem from three fronts has been started by the Workers Unemployed Union and the joint committee of unemployed and CWA organizations of which it i.s a part...
...Then the boys and girls decided to attempt to deal with Warner Bros...
...BRANCH CELEBRATES MOVIE UNION'S VICTORY The strike against the Oceana Theatre in Brooklyn has been practically won and union officials declare that much of the credit belongs to the Brighton' Beach branch of the Socialist Party...
...o> Local 4 was more than pleased by the cooperation of the branch and several joined the party as a result...
...They poied as customers, changing their clothes in the theatre and then sneaking out to buy tickets again, but the public was on to that trick...
...The total amount of this tan received by the city is $3,109,340.01...
...John L. Rice, Commissioner of Health, the situation has been intensified by an increase of 100,000 families on relief rolls, with over 150,000 additional families requiring but not receiving unemployment relief and that "such condition is thereby inimical to the public health and welfare of the residents of New York...
...So can we...
...The results were one more week of fares to Philadelphia...
...As long as you simply try to win our members and not organize the great mass of the unorganized, you are holding back united action...
...The union then issued a statement setting a definite date for a conference or a strike would result...
...None of this sum, claim the petitioners, has been expended by the City of New York for the relief for which it was collected...
...Leeder to help MM Mb...
...When the union started a couple of months ago, the most prominent member was fired...
...Rose Forrester was sent in by the Labor Department...
...We started negotiations with all the- alphabetical combinations of the government, with no result...
...The united front of locals "below 14th Street only" petitioned for hy the Communist unemployed reuneils was rejected in a detailed letter explaining how the council's demands were in many cases less favorable to unemployed than those of the Workers Unemployed Union...
...On the third front an Eastern conference of unemployed and CWA groups is planned for the week end of July 1st to prepare for a national conference in the fall, to make demands for adequate relief and for the passage of the Workers Unemployment Insurance Bill upon the federal government...
...Citing the history of past attempts at united fronts, the letter concludes: "We mention this past history to show that we have worked sincerely for real united fronts...
...Warner's "labor adviser" met the union committee and said no to everything, offering them an elaborately worded agreement which said nothing but assured the workers of the friendly relations existing between employer and employes...
Vol. 17 • May 1934 • No. 62
