Washington and the Nation
Washington and the Nation No Manpower Shortage in Textiles WASHINGTON, D. C. — Despite the stricken eries Of government «genciee ind cotton mill BE swneri, there is no manpower "shortage" in...
...The problem of decreased cotton textile production," Solomon Barkin told the committee, "is primarily the misuse of manpower by management...
...In comparison with that, the Polish Government has the allegiance of the underground movement—than which there is nothing more heroic in this world today...
...It has no allegiance from the Home Army in Poland...
...Its Prime Minister and Minister of interior were, until a few months ago, inside Poland helping to direct the fight against the Germans...
...Present policies) will result in our Ailing one demand bp creating other shortages...
...gumming up the union's charge that management is mponsible for production drops that are threatening t breakdown in important sectors of the home-front nl effort, Ji»hn W. Edelman, TW If A Washington rep-retsntstive, told the committee: "Management has fafht us...
...Recommend ? unified effort by government, labor, and management to correct out-of-date personnel and community practices...
...TWUA wiineases, whose testimony was listened to vttk eager attention and interrupted frequently by stinted questioning, told a sorry story that is all too (miliar to cotton mill workers...
...Army sound trucks are on the streets of Gadsden, Ala., trying to recruit 500 cotton workers to make duck —at 50 to 60 cents an hour...
...Highlights of the testimony brought out these facts, «Weh the committee indicated it would investigate without delay: Fifteen hundred cotton mill workers are walking the •ttreitf ·/ Atlanta, on textile mill*' blacklist* and unable U frt jobs making the much-needed duck, twill, and Vir, *ri...
...For a long time workers had to wash in muddy Mississippi water merely because management refused to turn a valve that would run city water into the mill'washrooms...
...Of its 17 members 1· are avowed Communists snd several of them are not erea Polish eitlxens...
...Ivor Thomas...
...Soldiers furloughed from the U.S...
...Labor Press Associates...
...Six hundred of the 1,800 looms in the Exposition 'Otton Mill in Atlanta have been idle since last spring Wesose the mill has been laying off workers known to be active in TWUA...
...We cannot surrender to the gloomy mood of the W PB, which says that there ia little hope for increasing total production...
...yet he has 15 years experience...
...Washington and the Nation No Manpower Shortage in Textiles WASHINGTON, D. C. — Despite the stricken eries Of government «genciee ind cotton mill BE swneri, there is no manpower "shortage" in gJ?ea textile industry, the Textile Workers Union 4 America, CIO, told the Mead Committee of the U.S...
...Manpower is being drained off virtually every cotton mill in the country because workers can go to airplane plants, munitions plants, and other industries and get from 65 to $1.20 an hour, instead of the 50-to-60-cents they would get in cotton mills...
...Men's and women's toilets are separated only by a partition that starts a foot above the floor and is only five feet high...
...government agencies, by and large, have ignored us...
...We must plan for greater textile output and more ernstes»} Bee of Our facilities and manpower...
...Recommend the establishment of on over-oil labor-management committee for the industry, to plan production...
...The so-called President of Poland is not a Polish citixen...
...British Socialist end Member of Pari lament...
...The present military and civilian shortages can only be solved by correcting the obsolete wage and employment policies of cotton textile mills...
...The underground movement which has carried out feats of extreme daring, continually accepts orders of the Polish Government in London which also has allegiance of the majority of Poles In Poland, among whom no quisling has yet been found by the Germsns...
...Vigorous planning baaed on tb* idea of the industry as ona great production unit can help meet cotton textile needs...
...TEXTILE MACHINERY NOT FOR LATIN AMERICA LaTIN AMERICA countries, desperately in need of machinery and often eager to buy machines that seem obsolete in the USA, are watching with considerable anxiety reports in such papers as The New York Times that textile machinery manufacturers and fabric-makers are forming pools to buy up all used machinery after the war, so that it will bo junked at once and withheld from use by foreign lands...
...One of these soldiers, working in the Owight mill, gets 50 cents an hour as a weaver...
...Refusal of the Lane Cotton Mill in New Orleans, la., to obey WLB wage increase directives forced'the Regional War Labor Board in Atlanta to conclude, in * formal ruling that: "The Board And* that the company has been guilty of a course of conduct toward its employes which is deserving of the severest criticism and which has been of such a nature and duration as to be reasonably calculated to have produced a justifiable foaling of distrust toward the employer on their part of such character that it could reasonably have been anticipated by the company to have produced a work stoppage...
...Maybe this committee will do something tbout boosting vital cotton textile production by in-mtigating our charge* and remedying the real causes tack of the cotton textile shortage...
...For more than two years, TWUA has been tell in* government agencies that only through wage (stresses, better working conditions, improved eom-?saity facilities will increase cotton textile Protections...
...We have appealed to numerous government agencies," Barkin said...
...THI LUILIN PUPPET GOVERNMENT The Lublin Committee has no claim to represent ths Poles...
...We must do more than meet specific critical emergencies...
...if only a gross misuse of man power, caused lj ?*> wages, poor working conditions, obsolete per-^tSJl toliciej, hatred of unions by management, inade-Mill community facilities, and en inadequate govern-amst program for increasing production, union spokes-sMlsMthe Senate committee that is investigating the Htwfisl war program...
...TWUA specifically asked the Mead Committee to do the following things: Urge the WLB to speed ap the cotton wage eases new before it and grant cotton workers a SI-cents an hoar minimum wage, a lt-cent general increase, minimum rates for occupations, ani a third shift differential...
...Army to work in Alabama cotton mills are registering bitter dissatisfaction with working conditions...
...Working conditions at the Lana Mill, the committee was told, are deplorable...
...The agencies have ignored these retom-?endatiens, futilely sought to boost production through uch device* as pep meetings, price in '"»-"· ? »d production direrI?ves Mili .iter, ma has refused to set up labormanagement committee, to discuss production problems...
...Our statements have been received, but the same conditions continue to prevail...
...Imejeea January 20...
...Jjh...
...Weavers worked in water over the solas of their shoes because management failed to repair a leaking roof, and rainwater damaged much vital fabric...
Vol. 28 • January 1945 • No. 4
