Trade Union Membership Reaches New Peak of 13 Million in AFL-CIO
SHORT, GEORGE
Trade Union Membership Reaches New Peak of 13 Million in AFL-CIO Few Anti-Labor Bills Now Seem Likely of Passage By GEORGE SHORT Special to The New Leader WASHINGTON, D. C—A series of CIO...
...The second type is that of expansion by industry itself, because of the heavy contracts let by the government...
...Now, Wheeler has become Gropper's favorite caricature...
...This corporation is the only agency of the government providing for the financing and construction of production facilities...
...Many hundreds of thousands are being added regularly as NLRB elections follow each other into the labor record...
...native hunter is the l>w*hTine, or duck hawk, that **»bi along the cliffs of the Hud-!°4wd preys on park pigeons, "orking on ihe dive-bomber principle, the falcons swoop down and kill the victim with one powerful rake of its talons...
...The attendant who jumps to the tank with his hose, and to the windshield with his squirt-gun, is our contact man with the whole region, For him there is noi such thing as bad business or a doubtful future...
...Army's Signal Cdrps pUng- to use falcons to intercept tutmy pigeons...
...Venezuela, 138,000...
...Defense Committee which was organized by Orson Welles...
...For the use of the fluid that pre-tenet the surface and so saves all, is measure of thrift, of pride, if,, foresight...
...The takers-in of tourist defldrj from -unworthy economic motives would imprison the free of Georgia which have roamed in search of succulent nourishment for many a century-^ So the mighty argument echoes through tht tidte, and no New Yorker wbuld dare to say that its importance not entitle it to all the space which it fills...
...Ho Blackout Here .There hasn't been a strike or lockout in the stove industry in the last fifty years...
...Florida.—To many New Yorkers the South is a hel/ IWwhere sheriffs are always shooting Negroes, or a romantic heaven where soft-voiced maidens, pick mint juleps and magnolias, but there are'also a million other things...
...It is a thatter of importance that young Negro men are now among ihe$e disseminators of energy, these prognosticators of hope...
...I would be totally unfair were I not to record here that in the tidewater sections of Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina |hfre are towns that look half northern in bright new pigment...
...Don't let anyone tell you that their attitude is mere inborn belligerency...
...helloed the caller...
...and the Metals Reserve Co...
...The three are subsidiaries of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, but the stocks are run under Harry Hopkins' lend-lease program, for Britain has already access to these stores...
...Dop't let anyone tell you that this is a thing of the past...
...John Lewis told a San Francisco audience, during the 1939 CIO national convention that his organization would have 10,000,000 members within a few-years...
...And the figures v0UUi have hasic significance...
...The mass production propaganda wa« decided on before the German invasion of Russia...
...The patient Negro and the patient mule—upon the endless toil of these two has been (wred whatever civilization the South has created...
...Just seven day* before the Nazis moved in the Progressive Committee to Rebuild the American Labor Party ordered 500.000 anti-war pamphlets printed for distribution throughout New York State...
...There are at ^present about 8.650 AFL employees out in 13 AFL strikes...
...Lewis will move where Murray could not...
...It was Lewis who originally convinced Roosevelt to appoint Ed Smith...
...I The next thing you note will be the lack of paint, which is the niversal sign of poverty...
...This is strange...
...Many, like Confessions of s Nazi Spy...
...Labor board stimulus is expected to add three to four- million more to AFL-CIO rosters as the war production boom continues to rocket...
...Warren Madden majority the Board ignored or rejected appeals for election along craft lines...
...The U.S...
...This provides the Hollywood motion picture, guild* with a field day...
...was forced to acquire vital defense minerals and metals and to provide for their safe and practical storage without, disruption of normal marketing conditions...
...So eager is Moscow fer these films the negatives will be flown directly to Russia from New York to avoid the long and dangerous boat and rail trip via Vladivostok...
...This virtually banned the AFL from many factories, although it had craft majorities in many sections of these plants...
...The state director calmly, perhaps innocently, proposed to build • thousand miles of wire fence...
...They want to do their ow,n Sghting...
...Civilizations may be rated by many criteria, by food, by bathtubs, by native music, by honesty—or by hi*t...
...falcon squadron will be the first such military force in the world.¦-*Patriotism Unincorporated The sale of defense bonds and stamps is noticeable in the...
...The talk was to explain the reasons far his sudden militarist* attitude...
...have all but pushed Nazi shortwave blasts out of the receiving sets of South Americans...
...CIO tovarischi have bluntly passed word on to John Lewis that unless he changes his anti-war line, they are going to make it impossible for him to take over CIO next November...
...CharlesjDickens judged towns by the inns and posting stations...
...These factories will be organized systematically as the NLRB calls plant elections...
...The only danger now of production delays lies in jurisdictional scraps and raids...
...This ranges from powder factories to blankets...
...Moat of the boys have gone along with the switch in line—*>ut Congressman Vite Marcantonio...
...The Workers Library...
...Since the German invasion of Russia, defense strikes in this country have been an academje subject to the initiated everywhere but in Congress, where the anti-strike bloc is ready to legislate curbs through revision of the selective service act, and passage of "cooling off" legislation like the proposed Vinson bill or May bill...
...edftor of the New York Freibeit, Jewish daily communist sheet...
...In tbe first place, you see these black men working on roads, haiMings, military camps...
...the Columbia Record, the Brunswick News, the Daytona Beach Evening News, and the Miami Daily News . I can report that great injustice has been done the papers from the medium-sized towns of this country...
...Regardless of foreign policy, the mine chief wili have the backing of Murray...
...To meet the urgent need for expansion of productive capacities the RFC has set up a Defense Plant Corporation...
...In one case, no single private corporation could do what the government needs: accumulate huge stores of raw materials, both to take these stocks out of the market so that the Axis couldn't secure them, and to assure necessary reserves once the sources are cut off by blockade or submarine sinkings...
...There is discussion of Hie utilities, of traffic problems, of school affairs...
...It was all started by the WPA, that disseminator of discontent...
...When I was a 'boy on a farm in Ohio we would not have dreamed of housing our pigs so badly...
...They are men of might and courage...
...With AFL and CIO reporting 6,000,000 members each, with more than 750.000 in the railway brotherhoods, with some CIO unions reaching for potential memberships of 1 ,"000,000 and more, political realignments are in the air for 1942's congressional poll and 1944 presidential elections...
...Btfldle is accustomed to bringing his own men Wfth him into new jobs—as he did when he named Lemuel Schofeld immigration chief...
...Or he can come from Idaho, or California and see things in proportion...
...What...
...No* he has delayed it a week...
...Have their free cattle restrained behind rude barbs of wire ? Never...
...Childs' estimate was from the reports of the Princeton Listening Center, which in the closing monthsfef 1940 chartered heavy barrages of shortwave propaganda from Axis European stations...
...At Fort Monmouth, New Jer-"l^ the signal corps has more tjHW 2,000 pigeons in training, 'twins are near at hand too, for webest U.S...
...Smith has been close to John Lewis for years, but the change in line wffl probably keep the mine chief from exerting Influence in Congress for Smith...
...The situation in the teamsters is complicated by the dangerous scrap looming in Minneapolis where the Trotskyite Dunne brothers swung their truck drivers into the CIO Construction Workers Union when Dan Tobin threatened to reorganize the local...
...The NMU has official CIO sanctfon...
...The purpose of the first is to acquire and carry a reserve stock of crude rubber...
...Peru, 68,000, and all other Latin-American countries below that figure...
...These totals are the lowest recorded for any week this year...
...They menace Amrica...
...In any one of, these papers you will find carefully reasoned editorials about the causes of the war and the meaning of this or that move in the conflict...
...Full and unconditioned support to Britain, the Somct Union and all others -who tight UitUr...
...Still to feel pressure from union organizers are the fields of aluminum, chemicals, farm equipment, food, meat packing, metal mining, oil, retail and wholesale trade, tobacco...
...Army the Wrd The U.S...
...No Carry-Ut-Back-td\Ole-Virgimty about this act...
...lhJORM.AN THOMAS'S position remains consistent...
...But there comes an answering cry...
...As the National Labor Relations Board moves into its sixth turbulent yeas, union dues collections run from $300,000,000 to $500,000,000 annually, according to an unofficial survey made recently in Washington...
...He has what it takes...
...and Four Seas, for which deals have already bees closed, will be reviewed again in the tovariah press here...
...In addition the Workers Library Publishers will now print 500.000 copies of Stalin's radio speech, to be Sold at 1 cent...
...For a long time McDonongh was a member of the Massachusetts Labor Board With the elimination of Smith, the NLRB for the first time stnee' h was created will have no pro-Communist Influence on it...
...and several AFL unions which have just signed the entire Pacific Coast Shipbuilding industry to a closed shop...
...They spring to attention with perfect military alacrity, tip whits man could be sharper, quicker, more correct...
...Now that's over...
...Many friends fa the North will be delighted to learn that in the public journals of Georgia there is now hot argument about wayward •ad incautious cattle on the highways...
...As you motor southward the first thing you note is that the gooth starts much farther north than most people think...
...Today' I passed hundreds of dwellings, Inhabited by humans, which art unfit for' any sort of domestic animal...
...t^OISE out of Washington next Tuesday and Wednesday will probably emanate from the United Mine Workers' headquarters as CIO's six rice-presidents meet with PhU Murray ana" John Lewis...
...The pictures of the shacks falling apart, and of the people ajmost falling apart, are still too fresh back of my eyethe M«fro'« Struggle From the Pes* to the Future VffESE paragraphs record glimpses on the way from Norfolk, \t...
...The Labor Board's reversal of its previous policy of calling elections, for an entire plant has brought renewed effort on the part of the AFL...
...White-Man, the Negro is on his way...
...which the American Labor movement has grown...
...No protest from any proud southerner can make me retract a word of this...
...Only between five and ten per cent of the adult population listens to even one radiocast a month and about one per cent listens regularly, it was found by Professor Harwood Childs, director of the American Institute of Public Opinion...
...These three forces are quietly reshaping classes and political parties...
...This session is preparatory to a larger one set for the next day to be attended by all 50 members of the National Executive Board...
...Two affect defense...
...Now Morris Watson'' and fiugetie Connolly have all the scrap paper they wiH need...
...This may affect Jan Valtin, author of "Out of the Night," for Mr...
...Previously, under the Edwin Smith-J...
...are working the slick shakedown threatening to report the donations to the FBI if the movie folk don't come across with more money...
...Much of this strength is now due to the closed shop which AFL, CIO and the independent Railway Brotherhoods have won in brewing, construction, cement, transport, mining, fur, hosiery, maritime, the needle trades, hats, printing, aircraft, automobile, electrical equipment, glass, lumber, newspapers, pulp and paper, radio, rubber, shipbuilding, shoes, textiles, amusements, acting, movie, and some technical industries...
...Tha US...
...The result will be increased union membership, and increased jurisdictional fighting...
...It begins is Delaware, in Maryland—even in southern Jersey...
...Afforded the chance to organize in what was practically closed territory, the AFL has launched a series of drives in many industries which CIO previously thought was exclusive territory...
...R/|P- (ED) SMITH won't go to Washington after his term as National Labor Relations Board member expires on August 5. President Roosevelt will not re-appoint him...
...Communist demonstrators were finally scattered by police...
...IT now appears that the United States will hawe a new chief * Snooperman when Francis A. Biddle is named Attorney General...
...His statistics show that almost 200,000 men and women are working in Navy Yards and Army arsenals turning out guns, ammunition, battleships, torpedoes, uniforms and tents...
...Let it be recorded, let everyone read lit, let us put to sleep forever the old lies: These Xegroes living in good bouses are just as neat and respectable tad orderly as any people you could find anywhere...
...Since the pact this group has been on* the outside looking in...
...Later in August the United Auto Workers will meet in national convention after one of the most successful years any union has ever enjoyed...
...Until recently Smith was being groomed as one of the leaders of a left-wing peace party...
...Battle lines are being drawn between President R. J. Thomas' administration foFces and the leftwingers...
...T*e South Against Hitler ' QM) Carter Glass does not stand alone...
...Popular American program...
...Miami, Fla...
...The first sign ii the sight of Negroes working with mules...
...They shovel and pound and lift like nation-taiilders, Tkey are as good as any frontiersmen .who ever went forti^-in covered wagons or any other sort of wagons...
...Il has been proved once and for all in the fine southern city of Savannah...
...I heard in North Carolina that old bromide, "Even if they had good Homes, they wouldn't have the gumption to take care i : of them...
...Today CIO's National Maritime Union is completing plans at its Cleveland convention for a nation-wide "one big union of ship-workers...
...As these unions grow, rapid changes are being effected in the political and industrial face of the nation...
...Not so long ago he posed with Walter Scott Neff, APM New York secretary, and other comrades for a Daily Worker photographer At other times he cooperated with APM "pilgrimages" to the capital...
...Vast fields are open to UAW: the entire automobile industry, miscellaneous machine factories like Allis-Chalme'rs, and the aircraft factories from Queens to Inglewood...
...Reports show-that 7.580 persons are out in 13 CIO strikes...
...Some day I ¦«y have space to quote enough to prove my statement._ Heard on the Left By VICTOR RIESEL COME of the lads whose sole exercise comes from jumping at conclusions prepared by the tovarischi, haven* quite cleared the hurdles yet...
...Chile, 160,000...
...Trade Union Membership Reaches New Peak of 13 Million in AFL-CIO Few Anti-Labor Bills Now Seem Likely of Passage By GEORGE SHORT Special to The New Leader WASHINGTON, D. C—A series of CIO national conventions this summer will reveal the almost gargantuan size to...
...T?OR THE INITIATED— * The mystery is over...
...It is now understood in important Washington circles, that despite denials, Jose R, Espinosa, head of the "alien unit" of the Immigration Department, will succeed J. Edgar Hoover as chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation...
...You good-hrnothing, lazy-thinking white-folks, why can't you recognize aw simple truth that these black people are all right when mtj have half a chance...
...In the first category are such federal organizations as the Rubber Reserve Co...
...The closed shop contract with Henry Ford- gave the Detroit organization 130,000 members in one fell swoop...
...Only this time they were shouting: "To win old-opr security, defeat Bitleriem and Hitler stooges like Lindbergh and Wheeler...
...Private Industry Won't, So U. S. Builds, Owns Munitions Plants Special to The New Leader WASHINGTON, D. C—The government once took over the post-office because private industry couldn't do the job...
...Jim Carey and others, most of whom are lining up forces to oust the comrades at coming-conventions...
...This may be the case in the maritime and teamsters' fields during the next few months...
...As a result of the Harry Millis appointment to the Board this policy has changed...
...Lewis because of the party line, there will result the open break in CIO...
...The declaration by President Roosevelt, after-consaltation with CIO President Phil Murray, that he is opposed to compulsory arbitration of labor disputes, and to the May bill authorizing the use of the armed forces to break strikes in defense industries, virtually sounded the death-knell of the measure...
...They don't work like discouraged, defeated people...
...Boston lawyer, prominent New Englander and an old friend of Harry Hopkins, will succeed Smith...
...Most of these fall under the jurisdiction of CIO...
...One of the important issues will be CIO's foreign policy—which until today has been isolationist...
...HIGHLIGHT of the week is Freddie Woltman's World-Telegram screamingly funmy analysis of the Daily Worker...
...The Metals Reserve Co...
...the Marine and Shipbuilding Workers Union, which has just signed many plants on the East Coast...
...Don't make any mistake about this matter, Mr...
...It must be the spirit bf Governor Oglethorpe, whp set the convicts free in the forest which speaks again in this mighty protest...
...I am not talking about syndicated ¦tuff...
...And then I went into Savannah, Georgia, and saw Yamacrav Village...
...the day the German-Russian war began...
...Government economists envisage even more radical changes as the "managerical revolution" is daily affected and complicated by the rapid extension of the closed shop and increasing amount of government ownership...
...It lovld be more accurate to say that ia each case about half the town looks northern, and the other half gray and slatternly beyond the power of words to convey...
...Only last year he permitted the use of his frank on a mailing of Corliss Lamont's article praising Soviet Russia...
...Distribution was scheduled to start on Saturday 21...
...The NMU's action is the first bid for the type of huge vertical unions Lewis envisaged when he counted his checkoffs before they were hatched...
...Here are hundreds of Negro families living k fine, substantial homes pat up by the city's bousing authority with the help of federal funds...
...The United States government today is the largest single producer of defense equipment, the largest employer of defense labor, according to one Washington magazine writer...
...And just one telephone did it...
...Here facilities were needed far beyond normal considersrtions-and private business refused to expand...
...It appears that the message was so inspiring that Epstein sat right down at what passes for a type-writf/r in the Kremlin and wrote an inspiring dispatch for ttie Freiheit and the Daily Worker...
...U. S. Programs WinListenfcrsfrom Reich ShortWave With psychological and propaganda techniques rapjoHy becoming some of the most important • weapons used in war the United States is rapidly taking the lead in radio offensives, it is reported by the broadcasting chains...
...t * A RTIE SHAW, the*swing king, has dislocated himself from the American Peace Mobilization and the Harry Bridge...
...jT The local news, which I read in these papers is quite ¦as dignified and important as what...
...I have not seen one V southern citizen or one southern newspaper which does not •tand with him...
...That is, in New England, paint is ased by rich and poor, but in the South it is stiH the insignia of IB upper class...
...If the left-wing unions persist in warring or...
...You see, there is nothing to argue about...
...A man ejn come from Ohio to South Carolina, where these lines are being pounded out, and see jusit about what is here...
...We judge them chiefly by the filling stations...
...In the audience were his old friends from the Buffalo Peace Mobilisation...
...But tug picture-^d'ould be totally false without the signs of the future...
...Sanguine reports from all union international federations show that close to 13,000,000 have been organized...
...There Is *™ new talk that he will co-star again wfth Charles Lindbergh some time this month at an America First Rally fed the Coney , Island Velodrome...
...Now Russia First business is booming again...
...These people down here don't talk as much as we &w Yorkers do about aiding England...
...They all carry the Associated Pjftss dispatches,, and what/>ur New York journals carry in addition to these is mostly paOMing or human-interest stuff...
...Total commitments for the financing of emergency plant facilities—including the acquisition of land-buildings and necessary machinery—aggregates $600,000,000, while an aviation program involves an additional billion dollars...
...beat Hollywood reporters rautkas that some of the left-wing organizations to which stars once contributed "heavy dough...
...I find in the society columns of the Times and Herald-Tribune...
...Uruguay and Cuba, 150,000 each...
...These will be distributed for a mcksl each, or free if the five-cent piece is not forthcoming...
...At one end of the wire wa» the brother of Novick...
...And it all happened in Moscow...
...who aaw himself the peace candidate far mayor ia opposition to LeGuardia—has proved tough about turning in his olive branch for a sword at a Red barfaSn counter...
...the war drive is creating the same situation in many industries...
...R. J. Thomas...
...At the seme time, the President's statement was regarded as parrying the previous day's attack by John L. Lewis for use of troops in Inglewood...
...These threats' were made shortly after Lewis had attacked President Roosevelt and the National Mediation Board at the CIO legislative confab in Washington last week...
...I refer to careful, well-writteri.expositions produced right ijere in the South for the readers of these papers...
...So popular are these programs they have almost completely won all listeners in this country away from foreign broadcasts...
...A National Broadcasting Company report indicates that there are 1,050,000 receiving sets in Argentina;-Brazil, 500.000...
...Colombia, 100,000...
...The intellectuals may fail us, philosophers may falter, but as long ajr the filling station man is full of hope our civilization is soundly based...
...The results of this struggle if of importance to the nation for those who control UAW will shortly be governing one of the largest unions in the world...
...Hello...
...These will be shown throughout Russia...
...But the owners of those philosophical beasts which inhabit some world which cannot be penetrated by rode automobile horns, rose in protest...
...They put their backs into their jobs...
...People like this majH be: poor now, but they will not stay poor...
...Our own birds «"e safe, for the Army has devel-°P*u night-flying homing pigeons...
...The German invasion caught the Russians with no propaganda films amies' at the Nazis, for Moscow directors like Sergei Eisenstein were official*/ ordered to coordinate German and Russian culture Last week Amkine company was ordered to rush hids to all companies who have made anti-Hitler pictures...
...This is completely 1941 American efficiency...
...The idea i» to impress America with Russia's strength...
...The teamsters have a nationwide membership of 500,000...
...U now set to publish 1.000.000 copies of the Dean of Cantertsiry's "The Soviet Power...
...This should bring the union's membership to nearly 1,000,000...
...Large fields are still unorganized...
...While you were swsburnmg yourself on cm annoyxngly crisp July Fourth, Wheeler went to Buffalo for a peace sperck before the sixth, annual Townsend Old Age Peasim oawveaaaoa...
...The latter is up for consideration this week, but it is cer-tain_now that it will not pass...
...He has bean silent...
...From peace-mongsrtag to w*r-whooping doesn't come in six easy lessons, no natter who your atutl—w CsfiSong is...
...They can refuse to handle any cargo manufactured by CIO unions in retaliation for Denny, Lewis's action in giving Minneapolis Drivers Local 544 a CIO charter...
...He had • speech all wt for delivery on the Home' fear ' this Thursday and changed his mind...
...Mexico, 300,000...
...I have followed the war quite as well by glancing through their columns u I could, have done by working my way down the more numerous eMamns of the New York press...
...They may not have equal rights just now, but they have in them the stuff that wjtos equal tights...
...Their handful of ALP clubs will not name a "peace" candidate either...
...I could write a whole Grapes of Wrath fall if poverty and discouragement—and without even mentioning wltite folks who are quite as poor and', beaten as any Negro...
...So all the boys and girls can stop guessing...
...Seven of these affect defense production...
...Hello," helloed the c^Ued—one Schachno Epstein, no less...
...But if he eomes from New York he has his mind: all made up, and he might jS as well stay at home...
...In the other, the refusal of private enterprise to expand its productive capacity has prompted the government to build, and in many cases operate, new factories...
...IINTIL June 21 a hero, Senator Wheeler now"finds himself a "stooge and a renegade" in American Peace Mobilization literature...
...In creating the set-up a lease arrangement was evolved: the construction of the plant is by the contractor, with the DPC assuming the cost, taking the t^tle in its own names, and leasing the facilities to the contractor for a fixed period...
...The Defense Supplies Corporation was likewise created to acquire and carry reserve supplies of certain strategic and critical materials such as nitrate of soda, diamond'dies for use in the wiredrawing industry, and wool...
...The Negroes and poor whites still-live in hopeless poverty...
...For the first time in some years there are less CIO strikers out than AFL men...
...Anyone, for example, who judged Massachusetts and South Carolina by the paint test would give J/ie former commonwealth ,mark of near 100% and the latter a bare 50...
...One at the...
...foreign population sections of large cities...
...Here the government does no financing and incurs no cost—other than that of liberal amortization allowances...
...Other unions with huge potential memberships are the United Electrical, Radio and Machinists organization which recently signed 25,000 members working for the General Electrical corporation...
...Better mUsic, good comedians, the use of world popular movie stars and unbiased news reporting are effectively counteracting German short-wave propaganda both in the United States and South America...
...In all of these groups some union organization exists— but few closed shops...
...and treasury of $6)000,000...
...The- third type are plants \p industries where there are private companies, but where the new plant expansion is paid for and run by the government...
...With the Communist unions now urging defense speed-up, there is little likelihood of another Vultee or Inglewood...
...The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN A Utf le Bit South of North Carolina IMAMI...
...Tae Prats Along ike Shore Line ' AS I wxi^e I have before me the newspapers picked up along the " way: The Norfolk Virginia-Pilot...
...APROPAGANDA hath is being pwpared for the United States by the Soviet's apparatus here...
...Schachno is back in Moscow, doing Red Army propaganda work, or some thing • » * UOLiLYWOOD SAGA— * * With the Russian market wide open, look for a flood of anti-Nazi pictures from Hollywood again, although the producers had virtually decided to abandon thin type of film...
...Espinosa has openly -sought his deportation...
...Pressure is being put on market-hungry producer* for concessions to the well-knit fellow-traveler crowd...
...This is a factor in creating public opinion towards the United States in Latin nations...
...Our Montana Munichman is now drawing dividends for having worked closely with APM in Washington...
...One report indicates that a John J. McDonough...
...The APL has kept pace with CIO growth...
Vol. 24 • July 1941 • No. 28
