The Labor Front
The Labor Front Organized Leber Comes to WeWyweed » | * H E amazing story of how al* most overnight and without fanfare of trumpet* the motion picture workers organized tbeir...
...of the line-up are nothing short of terrifying...
...The sales tax on bread alone is to yield 21 billion roubles...
...In fact, this is the only course facing the Council if a nat: nai union is formed as the locals cannot be directly affiliated with the A. F. of L. as federal unions and also establish a national union...
...And the "or else" is that the American Fe^de***0 0 is going to be weaker 0''Jt,y the loss of a large and nv fi\t»t section and bruised in t h q / ^ j . d s of sore spots throughout tire structure...
...It doesn't know that ^either...
...Plans were discussed for a n.ase meeting in March to be addressed by William Green, president of the A. F. of L., and plans were formulated to provide every local union with a speaker on fascism...
...tly administered industry, operating under huge deficits...
...A. Stein - ack, treasurer, and A. Zwickel, secretary...
...The agreement for higher pay, less hours and better conditions generally was negotiated for the union by Samuel Woltchak, manager, and Louis Vokovsky, business agent...
...LABOR WILL NEED TO TALK STRONGLY By Cheater M. Wright p f ) . \ ( . i K l > S pi session...
...fascism...
...tflae one" San Her Workers A t * Aid ' • From Kansas comes a moving appeal for assistance to the editor of The New Leader from Clarence Bark, secretary of Baxter Springs Miners' Union, Local 107, affiliated with the International Union of Hisn, Mill and Smelter Workers...
...responsibilities, howling at the very developments that haft saved them...
...Congress probably will be afraid to do very much for the people in this session...
...There is no country in the world where such draconic taxes are imposed...
...Officers and directors include such well-known screen stars as lames Cagney, Ann Harding,"1 Boris/Kar•jff, George Arliss...
...Confronted with the fact that the "dummy" company union had received only 19 out of 980 votes, the Steamship Association signed an agreement with the union...
...David Dubinsky, president of the I.L.G.W.U., submitted the demands of the dress pattern makers for recognition of the union in the collective agreement...
...Laundry Drivers Fight On The strike of laundry drivers enters its tenth week, with the workers as determined as ever to win the renewal of the agreement which employers of wet-wash laundries in Manhattan and the Bronx turned down...
...Fire A. F. of L. unions have negotiated closed shop agreements with all the major motion picture •iodic*, covering 20.000 electrical workers, first cameramen, second cameramen, still men, assistants, property men, grips, laboratory workers aad soundsmen...
...They ought to be quiet...
...Grocery end Fruit Clerks Win Thirteen-Week Strike The Grocery and Fruit Clerks' Union, Local 338, has won a splendid victory, following a 13-week strike against the Weinstein stores at 1411 Ave...
...Dominick DeMattia, president...
...A strike fund is being raised from 'contributions of 10% of each worker's wages...
...Even motion picture story writers are now organised under the Screen Writers' Guild...
...First place among expenditures for 1936 is occupied by the commissariat of war, to which 15 billion roubles is allotted...
...He knows everything...
...20, at 8:30 P. M...
...And unless the workers, through a unified labor m o v e m e n t , equip tLe uselves to make and enforce demands, there is every probability that some demagogue, not of their own class, will speak for them...
...The figures help explain why the cost of living in Soviet Russia is so high—why a pound of bread costs 50 kopecks (half a rouble), a pound of meat 3 roubles and a pound of butter 10 to 15 roubles...
...It seems likely to be cowed by those big brave pirates who were on their knees weeping not s© very long ago, but whs, having once more got a dollar is tneir corporate jeans, are foil of the kind of courage that usuahf marks the buccaneer—the contest that runs with the winds and that oozes in reversals...
...Louis Cassotta, chairman of the Executive Board...
...The courts t;:kin2 pot shots i: laws enacted in rt-yonse to r.iior demand...
...In a battle men move and somt ire mowed down and some march :hrough to the conclusion...
...In order to act efficiently they must act in unison...
...Six billion roubles is to be extracted by the dictatorship from the sales tax on sugar...
...Mooney also travelled on the Red Special train of the Socialist Party in 1908 which carried Eugene V. Debs into many states on his speaking tour as the party's presidential candidate...
...Clothing Cotters Help Needy Memeers The annual report of the Cooperative Credit Union founded by the cutters of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers thirteen years ago in order to help needy members, shows that the cooperative has grown until today it has 1,800 members...
...their .. ; tht: -,frap _heajf a* *: t aidft't -.now waere fc'turn pSt"' - if s, are joining in tht i»SWi igainst labor...
...o Workers ct A. F. L. mands rait"'as^tile basis of union organization dpvelopvd early this week when it became know;-, that some 30,000 radio workers, organized ir ftderal unions directly affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, rejected the request of the Executive Council of the A. F. oi L. that they affiliate with the Biotherhood of Electrical Workers...
...Big business is a political and social simpleton...
...Wall Street wanted to cot tht time in half and it wanted the traditional rate of interest...
...The budget shows also that 18 billion roubles, or nearly one-sixth of the total sum, is to be spent this year on military preparations and the compulsion apparatus of the dictatorship, while the stupendous sum of 32 billion dollars is to be invested in new plant and industrial equipment...
...With labor's, help they are doing business, because without labor's ;up*port the moves that have made for better business never could have been made to stick...
...Promotion of the distribution of the publications of the Labor Chest was also considered...
...Representing the union were Morris Schwartzstein...
...They explain why a Russian worker must spend a month's wages to buy a pair of shoes or a new suit...
...A special membership meeting of the union is being called by the General Strike Committee for Monday, February 17, at 6:30 P. M„ at the Hotel Delano, 108 W. 43rd SU, New York City, for the purpose of issuing a general strike call on Tuesday, February 19...
...Food kitchens were established so strikers and their families would not go hungry...
...Labor \om!ttg at a surrounding ring of eia> r-k...
...Here is a sample of what askw to shape the thing called ophssa...
...penitentiary, asking assistance in locating any photographs of delegates to the International Socialist Congress in Copenhagen in 1910...
...For Industrial Unions, No Split Says Hofses By Raymond Hofses Editor of the Reading Labor Advocate J W A N T to say at the outset that I am in wholehearted accord with John L. Lewis' demand for industrial organization in the mass production industries...
...J and 769 Flatbush Ave., Brooklyn...
...The material for such a b om can be found in a recent report which shows that tram January to November 1st, 1985, State Governors called out She National Guard to break strikes en at least 22 occasions in 15 states...
...High Cost of Living The sum to be expended on schools, universities and other educational enterprises totals 5 billion rouble...
...The committee consists of Mr...
...Siora Fells .archer Workers Strike Move* Months ^ P * Executive Board of the fjhajfrajwaled Meat Cutters and •sttBSwr Workmen of North America, meeting in Chicago recently, mapped out a plan of war in its wren months' old battle with John • ^ P * 1 1 * Oo, packers, of Sioux Falls, South Dakota...
...In the meantime, if any of our readers can send us any of these items The New Leader will be glad to forward' them to Comrade" Mooney...
...Oar wives and children are subject to silicosis, and many hundreds die from this cause dae to the high sflteate content of the air from the cast piles that could and should be enmiaated...
...Many instances of how the state militia Is used to prevent workers from engaging in their constitutional right to picket are cited...
...Ask the Daily Worker and the kept ladies who run it...
...Lawless ftovtnwrt A good companion volume for '•Lawless Judges"* by Goldberg and Levenson would be a book entitled "Lawless Governors...
...One of the two or three big sotnst railroads of the west went to Wall Street for a huge 10-year loan...
...Labor can command and ceSSSet respect for it* just and fair epav . ions and demands...
...Actors and actresses have their union in the Screen Actors' Guild, which has 5,000 members and has joined the Central Labor Council of Los Angeles...
...Forces are moving toward treTtendous decisions...
...Being refused a. nations *. charter, the rcdio workers have decided to organize a national union anyway...
...The L i t t l e Red^ather with the big stick wtti.#et you if he lays hands on you...
...the Dress Pattern Makers' Union, Local 31, LL.G.W.U., was in conference with the Affiliated Manufacturers Ass'n represented by Morris Koichin, a Committee of affiliated manufacturers and their attorneys...
...Since the V*hnsi in March, 1936, J B g f j * ,ky tte score have lost ^•M...
...Bat they have forgotten and they arc today very bellicose...
...The Xew Leader is making a search for the two sets of pictures wanted by the famous class-war prisoner...
...The Actors', Writers' and Directors' Guilds are expected to make a Joint demand for recognition and the closed shop sometime during this month...
...Under the strike settlement agreement the company is compelled to reinstate 11 discharged workers, grant seniority rights, recognize Federal Labor Union No...
...Next'comes the commissariat for heavy industry, with 10 billion roubles...
...know—what Stalin tells them...
...The same tax on kerosene, oil, gasoline and cotton is geared to yield the enormous sum of 9 billion ro ublen...
...Georgia, 27 men, women and children were, confined in barbed-wire "detention" c a m p s. When 280 street-car workers struck in Omaha, Nebraska, 1,800 militiamen were used against the strikers...
...New York Sector Far Dressers' General Strike A general strike has broken out in the fur dressing industry, where Locals 2, 8, 4 and 69 assisted by the Tnf i^r"»t i"n*1 - Fur Workers' Union, are demanding a 80-hour week, a 20% wage increase, the closed shop and the introduction of a union labeL Vice-Presidents Harold Goldstein and Moe Harris have been designated to assist the •strikers...
...The bankers howled and they still howl...
...The average nt> of a miner in this field is eight years...
...I'd go further than that...
...Finally the state militia was ordered out by Governor Berry of South Dakota...
...A similar sum is to be expended for social and health insurance...
...Approximately 8 billion roubles is allotted to the commissariat of agriculture, and more than 3 billion to the commissariat of interior, uhich administers the police, G.P.U., the jails and concentration camps—the entire machinery of suppression, oppression, espionage and terror by means of which the dictatorship maintains itself in power...
...As the date of expiration of agreements covering half the trade nears, a strong contest is expected with the employers, who are demanding longer hours and lower wages for workers, according to a statement by Arthur Osman and Perlmutter, leaders of the union...
...received a letter from Tom Mooney, prisoner number 31921 in San Quentir...
...The implication...
...Illuminating figures on the budget are contained in Izvestia for January 18, official organ of the Soviet government, copies of which have just reached here...
...Although half of the men have" returned to work following settlements with their concerns, 300 men are still out and their unflinching courage has aroused the admiration and support of the whole labor movement...
...So capitalist government, in our time at least, ever dared permit such el degree of exploitation of the people...
...In BosgYille...
...The manufacturers refused, and negotiations were broken off...
...Summarizing these figures, we find that 47 billion, 700 milium of the total budget of 78 billion is to be raised by sales taxes—all of which come directly from the labor of the toiling masses...
...desire to remain in the American Federation of Labor...
...Today there seems to be a vast ining up for struKpie...
...This sum is to be raised by forced loans from tht working masses and by lotteries...
...2 ) to create a b e t t e r understanding in labor's ranks of dangers inherent ir...
...State secretary- of the Socialist Party, a? secretary...
...If democracy is to be .vsy of life, then the chosen ^ sentatives of the workers th ii -ves must do the speaking...
...Under the whip of Stakhanovism, the new Soviet speed-up system, they are called upon to toil harder than ever before, to produce more for no more wage*, the product of their toil to be used, a* before, in maintaining a bureaucratically and ineff icier...
...Labor Chest Is Organized in Pittsburgh P I T T S B U R G H . — A t a meeting I * representatives of the Cenx" Labor Union and the Socin*- j Party, a Pittsburgh committefUd the Labor Chest sponsored by 1 3 A. F. of L. organized here W~ Friday night...
...Stalin calls it ''Socialism" and if you don't believe it, you are just a counterrevolutionist...
...Somebod'-' ",-st speak for the workers o ation...
...Labor is the majority—the bet majority...
...six billions from the same tax on liquor...
...Somebody has to ba-'k down—or else...
...It is building "Socialism in one country...
...The report of the Commissariat of finance reveals that the greater portion of the budget is to be covered again by a sales tax, the most drastic in the world...
...The selection was supervised by a special federal commission appointed to settle the strike...
...SalesTax Chief Income Source Of the Soviet Government Draconic Taxes Imposed on Workers^jidd to Burdens of Low Wages, Speed-Up and High Cost of Living, Budget Reveals T H E Soviet budget for 1936, * totalling 78 billion roubles, reveals the draconic taxation imposed upon the Russian workers and peasants by the Communist dictatorship...
...The men employed in the ssselters are subject to lead poisoning and many die each year from it...
...Similarly, miny corporations that were '•• •' wi '••!>« t-'-.a- three -. • t-awj thruw...
...The Little Red Father All these huge sums are to come from the Sweat and blood of the Russian workers and peasants...
...Charles Miller of the Stationery Engineers, Jerry McMunn of the Moulders, David Rinne, Julius Weisberg...
...three billions on meat and 2 billions 700 millions from t*e eaies^ tax, on cotton seed oil...
...3 ) to awaken within the community a sounder appreciation of the value of democratic institutions...
...Limbach, P. T. Fagan, president of the Central Labor Union and District 5, United Mine Workers of America, Sam Wiehofer of the Bakery Workers, H. McKlosky of the Teamsters...
...manager...
...w Already the union has arranged mass picketing demonstrations in front of fur dressing factories in New York, Westchester and New Jersey, participated in by 1,500 workers...
...Strike Call by Dress Pattern Workers Expected / • y * February...
...For, it must be remembered, the Russian people have no more to say in the domain of education and social welfare than they have in the fields of politics or economics...
...Woodmansee, Mrs...
...Doesn't his kept press say so...
...business, though it doesn't know it, is by its current action building up a reservoir of resentment that may get scalding hot before long...
...The Labor Front Organized Leber Comes to WeWyweed » | * H E amazing story of how al* most overnight and without fanfare of trumpet* the motion picture workers organized tbeir respective crafts in the heart of Los Angeles, a notorious open-shop community, is revealed by Kenneth Thomson in The Screen Guild's Magazine...
...Vnprceedented sales taxes, forced loans, an inhuman speed-up system in industry, gross exploitation o) the peasantry through expropriation of the product of their toil, and rising cost of living—these arc the methods by ichich the dictatorship operates and finances itself Oh...
...Martial law was declared and 32 ware convicted in a military court in" the lumber strikes in WashrntoTi, Oregon and California when 1,000 guardsmen were called in to restore "law and order...
...it seems quite logical to me that other craft organizations— the building trades, the typographical c o m p o s i t o r s and pressmen, for examples — should amalgamate their forces for concerted action toward the elevation of their common living standards...
...Labor, too, sometimes acts as M it were licked, but it never needs to be licked and it never actually is licked...
...The increasing effectiveness of the strike is indicated by figures of the company showing that profits had dropped from $2,091,002 in 1934 to $338,595 in 1935...
...The expenditure planned for 1936 in industrial and plant expansion totals 32 billion roubles...
...Dennis Isaacson, vice-president...
...W . Strauss, business agent, and Matthew M. Levy, attorney for the union...
...hemes...
...That takes erganized effort, but it can be dowt...
...Many of the strikers were brutally beaten...
...At the same time they ieft the door open for further negotiations with the Electrical Workers' Union by declaring that they would consider "any fair and reasonable offer that will enable us to function within their organization as a completely selfgoverning electrical and radio and allied trades department, with full industrial jurisdiction and our own pc'.icies for our government...
...Frederick March and Edward G. "Robinson...
...The radio workers had requ *cd ^ national charter from the Lxccutive C-un.il which would constitute i.t an industrial union...
...The mine and smelter operators organized a company onion and, with the mrptaction of the National Guard and imported deputized thugs and gunmen, started the mines and sMeRers...
...Bii...
...The officers of the credit union are V. Benedict, president...
...Although the Brooklyn drivers have had a union for some years, the union in Manhattan and the Bronx came into existence last year when, after a three months' struggle, they won an agreement which gave these workers, who work on commission, a minimum guaranteed wage of $25 per week...
...There is -nuch fog 'in the air and it may be a long time before issues art dearly stated or line-ups fixed according to true interests...
...Several pictures of delegates and visitors were ta.ken...
...19,169 and the Weighers' and Warehousemen's Local affiliated with the International Longshoremen's Association...
...The support of local residents, who boycotted the stores, materially hastened the settlement...
...KARLIN TO LECTURE William Kariin will lecture before the Men's Club at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, 500 First St., Brooklyn, on "Pages From American Socialist History* on Feb...
...The gathering, w b » - met in the new Postal Employe'* I Cooperative Restaurant, was : n I tended by Gerhart Seger...
...At bottom, the thing toward which we are moving has to da with whether human interests arc to ride superior to property interests...
...Several hundred men struck in May, l»3fi, after attempts at colhsWTitsagaming had failed...
...Hardly less interesting is the report that motion picture directors are now organized in a guild with Kteg Vidor as president...
...There were pictures also taker, of the train and its staff of Socialist speakere and writers...
...Many union men have been arrested, thrown into jail and tried oh "framed" charges in which some of toe nationally known strikebreaking detective agencies have participated...
...i Dry Goods Clerks Celebrate j Third Anniversary The Wholesale Dry Goods Clerks' -Union recently celebrated their third anniversary at a ball held at the St George Hotel in Brooklyn, N. T. Assisted in the beginning by the United Hebrew Trades, they have managed to organize 1,000 clerks in a substantial portion of the wholesale dry goods stores, most of which are situated on Canal, Orchard, Grand, Broome and Eldridge Streets on the East Side of New York...
...Some of these union men are earning over $100,000 a year...
...During the past year 1,500 individual loans aggregating $150,000 were made to members on very easy terms...
...All of these things are caused by the greed of these mine operators, who deny that we are free men and have the right to organize and bargain collectively tvt hours, wages and working conditions...
...The settlement followed the filing of a report by the Regional Labor Board, which found the company guilty of violating the National Labor Relations Act...
...yes, 10 billion roubles is to be spent on education and social services—5 billion on the kind of education designed to keep the Russian people in darkness as to the substance and meaning ot everything Stalin does not approve, and 5 billion on what workers in other countries have long had without terror and dictatorship, and which in Soviet Russia bears all the earmarks of company welfare work...
...At the expiration of the agreement last December, the employers' refusal to renew the agreement threatened to thrust the drivers back into the condition of misery which prevailed when they had to exist merely on commission...
...Longshoremen Vote f e d of Compeny Union The longshoremen in Mobile, Alabama, defeated the company union maintained by the Mobile Steamship Association when by a vote of 961 to 19 they favored the International Longshoremen's Association as their collective bargaining agent...
...This may involve the revocation of the local charters by the Executive Council...
...Uaiees Wis Sea Hie Near Mill Strike After standing firm for sixteen weeks, 300 wethers of the Fisher Flouring Mills Company in Seattle haws emerged victorious...
...H. L. Woodmansee of the Typographers' Union and secretary of the Central Labor Union was elected chairman and Sarah Limbach...
...Why not...
...All good bankers arc supposed to join in a solid front af banking opinion...
...The official budget figures reveai ••hat 4 billion roubles is to be spent during the year on building new ! plants, strengthening the army, | and maintaining the huge bureau! eracy of the dictatorship...
...This business of BOO* keying with interest rates is something terrible and it has to be condemned...
...Edward Miiller and George F. Griffiths for the Socialist Party...
...The dictatorship is supreme in everything...
...We have some of the worst warkiug and living conditions to be found anywhere in the country," says Secretary Burk...
...i J ^ H - The new committee WTlT^cariry out a threefold program: (1) to secure aid f i r , Kiropear, workers striving to overthrow their dictatorial governments...
...To my mind the uncomr- r, > sine hostility of the miners, n<- i-:*ss than the stand-pat attitude o: P.esi iont Green, is loaded with gv.ei to the working class as a whole ar.j not only to either of the battling factions...
...The Liberty League cuu^eaRns, reactionary opinion...
...International Vice-President Joseph McCoy was waylaid and slugged...
...The railroad went to the RFC ind the RFC made the loan at • -ate about l H r ; below the WsJ Street bankers' rate and on a 10v-ear basis...
...Here was I melon looming up...
...Nevertheless, I am not wearinp a smile because William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor, was booed and jeered when he addressed 1,700 delegated representatives of the Unite i Mine Workers of America...
...No sooner are they out of the woods than they begin to act like xild animals again, forgetting all ;ocia...
...Historians will know more about the great import of today's trends »nd doings than can be known today...
...In taking the course they have the radio unions declared that the...
...Mooney was a visitor at the congress and attended some of the affairs arranged by it...
...Taf-n order to speak effectively l'I...
...Looking back on what the banks iid along about 1929 and what hey did during 1930 and 1931, it wouldn't seem that bankers ought to be very loud in their protestations...
...Tom Mconey Asks Aid of New Leader Readers in Locating Pictures The New Leader hat...
...After, wards the battle is giWP its value Sy those who can loek back and ee the whole picture...
...f.workers must speak with a sLigle tongue...
...They, too...
...aocr will need to talk strong!* to this Congress...
...here c S ) a speaking engagement, w h o ' ^ ' v " j in outSning plafc...
Vol. 19 • February 1936 • No. 7
