"CITIZENS' RELIEF PANEL" CALLED SMOKE SCREEN FOR FAILURE TO ACT
"Citizens' Relief Panel" Called Smoke Screen For Failure to Act Charging that Commissioner of Welfare William Hod son has attempted to "hide the fundamental issues of relief behind a wall...
...In fact, we are convinced that the panel tof 500 is merely a smoke screen behind which the present city administration may hide the basic shortcomings of its relief policy...
...Down the stred is a left-wing shoe workers' unit™ where functionaries contribute t the razzing of scabs and thugs...
...The newspaper men brought s bit of real labor organization anij demonstration into the quiet street...
...Your failure to act can be demonstrated without these panels...
...Richberg himself does not seem entirely clear as to what he is to do or how...
...We must have a board on which the unemployed and relief workers will receive adequate representation to handle the basic questions of policy in relief .appropriations and administration...
...Now, the NKA Is the "new deal" instrument dealing with industrial recovery and General Johnsorf is its head...
...Real strikers' pit*ards were Carried and at night as automobile parade with a sotndi truck and more display signs ire pealed to the people of the coe> munity to help the editors establish the right of employes to 01* ganizc...
...We have informed you again and again as to these basic shortcomings of the woefully inadequate relief appropriations and the brutal and unjust treatment of the unemployed and relief workers...
...tion of scabs...
...We will, of course, work cooperatively and put all of our facilities before them to aid in any task they may encounter...
...Trying to restrain picketing by members of the union, the candy firm denied that it employed sign painters...
...Tierc is history is the making^ ' Naughty Loft's Didn't Tell the Truth...
...According to our information, you deliber* ately killed this board and set up the present ponderous, vague and misleading machinery...
...Some may be abolished and others may Ik formed...
...Harry Weinberg, treasurer, and Comrade Emilv Brown, secretary...
...The charge is made that the editorial workers on the paper had been frightened and intimidated...
...The statement also charges that Commissioner Hodson "deliberately killed a board of this type" which had been set up three months ago by Grace Gogselin, assistant administrator of the Works Division of the Department of Public Welfare...
...We are all members of the Workers Unemployed Union and our interest is in securing a decent standard of living for the unemployed and relief workers," the statement reads...
...In two months, 40 persons joined, comprising the bulk of the possible 55 or 57 editorial staff workers, according to guild officials...
...The citizens' panels," the letter continued, "are merely smoke screens behind which the administration may hide the basic shortComings of its relief policy...
...While it is true that the general, along with Secretary Ickes, Madame Perkins and Federal Relief Director Hopkins, are made members of the IEC, Mr...
...of Jamaica...
...Union and Socialist speakers frequently address the meetings, and the mass picketing has been enlivened by ¦ cheers of hundreds of ^lothS workers filling the many window of the building...
...It is within the bounds of possibility that the IEC may'recommend its discontinuance or such modifications and restrictions as would change its whole nature...
...At the New York delegate Jh sembly meeting of the guild, tJmn men who represented the ehapU at the conferences with the mani agement stated that the only issue was continuance of the organiiation, "and that all (the blah blah about reorganization, space basil, apprentices, etc., issued by the management" was a red herrinf, which was -withdrawn as soon si the publishers thought that the guild had disbanded...
...It is charged that the Press management's action was in defiance of the right of labor to organize as provided under NRA, and also in defiance of the constitutional right of labor organization...
...Richberg is the chairman and .pivotal figure...
...Citizens' Relief Panel" Called Smoke Screen For Failure to Act Charging that Commissioner of Welfare William Hod son has attempted to "hide the fundamental issues of relief behind a wall of f>00 well known names" four members of the Workers Unemployed Union, city-wide organization of unemployed, this week declined invitations to serve on LaGuardia's panel of citizens to hear relief complaints...
...Comrades in ti metropolitan area are urged | come to the Rand School befoi four o'clock daily in order to jol the line, which starts half a bloc away...
...chapter, and that since picketia, has started, fearful staff membes have been sufficiently heartened t rejoin the guild and defy th.ei* es ployers...
...Broun is vice-president of the New York chapter and president of the national guild...
...It looks on the surface as if the problems of industrial recovery had been taken out of the general's hands and given to a man who, until recently, has been one of his subordinates...
...Johnson on the Skids...
...BILLY TAUB SETTLES The six months' strike against Billy Taub's stores at Broadway and ii8th Street and Broadway and 40th Street has ended in a complete victory for the Retail Clothing Salesmen's Union...
...Among the various and sweeping things Mr...
...The hundred t so cops mobilized along 15th Strn every afternoon to help the sea and discourage the strikers N found it impossible to dislodge the sympathizers...
...Editoria Guilt on First Picket Line in Jamaica (Continued from Page 1L) Labor...
...Only through organization and battle can you win decent conditions," was their message...
...It also is the board of final appeal in minor cases handled l»y regional boards or industrial labor boards heretofore created...
...The tact is the whole Richberg setup is as confusing as it was unexpected . The announcement was not made until after Mr...
...Powers of Board The board has power to make investigation, to hold labor elections, to hear cases of discharge of employees and to act as a voluntary arbitrator...
...Richberg to do is study the problem of industrial recovery and make recommendations to him as to what should be done...
...executive order, so far «s g o v e r n m e n t contracts are concerned, knocking the bottom out of the price-fixing policy of the code: set up by...
...Paul and Minneapolis, while reports came in that 00 perrons were injured when farm laborers battled police in Bridgeton, N. J., and that a machine gun had been turned on striking onion weeders at McGuffey, Ohio, before 27 pickets were arrested...
...bers, fresh from their encount...
...and eight members had been given notice of discharge unless they-resigned from the guild at once, according to Broun and Carl Randau, president of the metropolitan organization...
...After they had accepted places on it, the "board was killed and the present ponderous machinery was set up...
...For leaders of organized labor are determined not to let the "new deal" turn into a "raw deal...
...The perrenial rumors that Gen* eral Johnson is going to leave the NRA, which was a regular Washington indoor sport for a long time,, seems about to be realized...
...If we can write into that (economic) constitution," Richberg said, "a representative form of government based on a free choice, a free functioning of the representatives of ail interests, using the sanctions of political government merely to enforce the considered judgments of the majority, we may devise a method of self-control which will last long after the present experiments in political eoitrol ill other nations have disappear d." Some Washington observer...
...aro of the opinion that something new —whatever you call it—-U about to take the place of NRA...
...Those signing the letter were David Lasser, chairman of the Workers Unemployed Union, Robert Smith, Brendon Sexton and Julius Kaplan, members...
...What is necessary in a board on which the unemployed will have adequate representation, to handle the basic questions of policy and appropriations in relief...
...No one knows what is to become of the organization...
...Although tihe news editor, Edward Sterne, admitted thntthe discharges resulted from activity in the guild, both the publishers and the managing editor denied ajj attempt at intimidation or preji dice against the guild...
...Strikers Injured The threat of general strike still hung over St...
...They even point to the wordli of the resolution adopted "di banding" the chapter: "wheresil is necessary to get the eight ik charged members back and whets as they will get back their joe if the guild disbands, therefore I is necessary to disband" as concrete evidence...
...This board, according to the statement issued by the Workers Unemployed Union, was to consist of eight members, of which David Lasser was to be one...
...You have been informed time and time again," the letter to Hod/;on adds, "of these shortcomings...
...New Chapter Formed A number of employes, however, have since formed a new chapter...
...The unemployed stand ready to elect from their ranks representatives to serve on such a board...
...Hundreds Join Caldwell Picket Line as Lighting Union Rallies Workers WITH dramatic and impressive ™ picket fines drawing increasing numbers of strikers and sympathizers and attracting public attention to their seven weeks' strike at the Caldwell Lighting Fixtures Co., about 500 members of the union met in Stuyvesant Casino Wednesday night to lay plans for pushing the strike and organizing the trade...
...Richberg, who at President Roosevelt's direction is seeking to cordinate the government's industrial policies, said the goal of "a planned economy which is neither Fascist nor Communist in character, which is determined by no dictatorship or autocracy" is "in harmony with the ideals of those who first wrote the Declaration of Independence and then the Constitution of the United Statej...
...Employes of the paper had been told that unless they resigned from the guild, they would be discharged or would get decreases in salary...
...This, coming on top of tho president...
...Under the law the NRA automatically expires in June, 1935, unles* given a new lease of life by the next Congress...
...We will continue to fiKht for such a board as we have mentioned...
...William Ettel, delegate to the assembly...
...Vote to Picket After Broun had charged the proprietors of the Press with "an attempt to destroy the guild," a city-wide meeting in the Hotel Times Square voted to form picket lines, hold demonstrations and otherwise carry the situation to the public...
...Both urged the carrying on of the strike to a successful culmination...
...On Wednesday afternoon, several hundred party and Yipsel mem...
...While authorized to use the facilities of the Labor Department, the board is not subject to the fiupervision of Secretary Perkins, who yesterday welcomed its members with this statement: "The organization of the Labor Relations Board is a matter oi extraordinary interest to this department...
...The work of the new board will be watched with intense interest by both industrial and labor leaders because of the increasing seriousness of labor uprisings, which threaten to wreck the whole "recovery" program...
...Roosevelt sailed, and Mr...
...The guild passed a resolution congratulating the new unit and promising full support, and a defense fund was started...
...The editorial staff of the papei organized a unit of the guild in May...
...the general leaves the NRA picture in a decidedly confused state...
...The National Labor Relations Board, which set up quarters in the Mills Building, just across from the Labor Department, is the Supreme Court in labor disputes, with' both more permanence and more authority than its predecessor...
...The guild also voted to take the case directly to the courts, flAwell as to the Newspaper Industrial Board, which handles labor disputes in the publishing industry under NRA...
...One of the first problems to be dealt with by the relations board is that of coordinating the activities of the 30-odd labor mediation agencies...
...The Caldwell shops are located across the street from the Amalgamated Joint Board Building, which has given the strikers headquarters and a meeting hall...
...We do not believe that the present set-up of citizens panels will contribute materially toward that end...
...Hut the union, which is affiliated with District Council !», Brotherhod of Painters, made it plain to the judge that the "plaintiff" was lying...
...Management Refuted j Members of the staff and of the guild, however, give the lie dired to the owners of the paper...
...Louis W'aldman represented the union...
...Roosevelt directs Mr...
...Officers elected were Clayton Knowles, chairman...
...Behind the Scenes--The New Labor Board in Washington (Continued from Page 1-L) men of all regional boards which operated under the NRA Labor Advisory Board to continue functioning until further notice, thus halting rumors that an immediate reorganization was contemplated.* Meanwhile, one of the board's associates, the special longshoremen's arbitration board, was striving to tiring an end to the strike in San Francisco, and the special steel hoard was engaged in a thorough rtudy of the problems facing the steel industry...
...Other houses in tb vicinity where Socialists and sya pathizers live have also done theil bit, cheering the picketers anj booing the scabs...
...Richberg in a speech lrst Monday at Charlottsville, Virginia, where an "economic constitution for the establishment of self-government in industry" was named formally as the fundamental problem of the' recovery program...
...The guild chapter on the Press, according to Comrade Brown, voted by a slight majority to disband after the proprietors had exerted "pressure...
...Thei insist that a definite attempt hat been made to force them out of th workers' organization, that the, have been threatened with die charge if they did not disband the...
...Judge Cuff, therefore, had to refuse the temporary order...
...These were replaced b experienced newspaper men, a; cording to the management...
...with policeNknd scabherders in the Bronx [see radio strike story else] where) joined the picket line an| attempted to block the transports...
...Monthly reports must be made to the president through the sec retary of labor, but the latter will have no authority to correct or change any of these reports...
...The hearing of individual complaints, although necessary, can be handled without this elaborate machinery...
...Exactly what tht IEC will recommend is, of course, uncertain, bu' its personnel makes it altogether unlikely General Johnson's views will prevail...
...Their attendance o the picket line will be a reguli feature froln now on, until til strike is won...
...No Injunction Loft's, famous candy store :-hain with over 160 store links, has been denied the injunction it sought against the New York •»ign Writers' Union in the Queens Supreme Court...
...Formal complaint ha* be» made to the United States AtiO> ney against the publishers of'Jm paper, and Newhouse has' asked to appear in sustfg...
...One of these is the effect upon General Johnson of the NRA...
...Fred Hanson and Brother Duffy of Local 3, Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, were among the speakers, and brought to the Lighting Equipment Union (Local 19427 AFot'L) the" support of the older union...
...Somewhat of a hint as,to what may be expected comes the statement 01 Mr...
...the woefully inadequate appropriations and the brutal and unjust treatment of the unemployed and relief workers...
...The selection by the president of Donald Richberg to act during his absence as head of the new Industrial Emergency Council, Secretary of the Emergency Council and general coordinator of pretty nearly everything in the "aew deal" except the AAA, raises a number of* interesting questions...
...Thcj 4» chared that they had merely he reorganizing their staff upon" metropolitan basis, getting rid < certain provincial features an eliminating "collage kid" sts members...
...Otherwise it is hard to explain the president's directions to Donald S. Richberg to study the problem of industrial recovery and make recommendations...
...One can only guess at its future...
...Gertrude Weil Klein, of the- Amalgamated Clothing Workers' Union, and Strike Organizer Goldberg also spoke...
Vol. 17 • July 1934 • No. 76
