Restaurant Workers Call for New Organization Policies
Restaurant Workers Call for New Organization Policies Progressive elements in the Hotel and Restaurant Workers' Union. Local 16, have adopted a program and issued an appeal to members for support...
...organization of women...
...StrikeStories By Gertrude Weil Klein 2. PVEKY once in a while we tried " to get some "big shot" in or outside of the union to come out and talk to the strikers...
...He gave them a good stiff calling down, got into his stride and delivered a very eloquent speech—a plea for the union, for the workers' world...
...The lack of organisation of Negro workers is becoming a bigger factor constantly...
...Occasionally there was a convulsed, quickly smothered snicker, but at the end there was a thunderous burst of applause...
...It grew and increased in shrillness and volume as we made our way down the long hall...
...support the fight against Fascism in the United States and Lack the boycott...
...Regis and Steubens Fordham Restaurant) while l.r)0,000 workers are unorganized in this city...
...Included on the council are Socialists, Lovestone-ites, AWPers, a sympathizer with the Left-Trotzky-Opposition, Democrats and Republicans—even a vct-ei an...
...Elaborate preparations have been made for the strike call...
...Failure to organize any substantial portion of women in the industry...
...The appeal in parrt follows: The Hotel and Restaurant Workers Intel national is on the verge of ¦ convention that will be of great importance for the future of the culinary workers throughout the United States...
...But all are united for one common purpose—to build and to strengthen their union in order to tight for better conditions for the ' workers in the shops...
...Dues exemption for unemployed members...
...So that there should be no mishap...
...The fight over petty jurisdictional disputes in New V'oi'k City among locals of our International (Schleifers, the St...
...at least two or three a day, and getting speakers was one of the most agonizing parts of the daily grind...
...During such demonstration*, one can see on one side of the street' a dignified, earnest, impressive group of men and women, young and old, marching and demonstrating in order to show the greedy exploiters of labor the strength of labor...
...They got awfully tired of hearing the same people talk day after day, especially when the days began to run into weeks, and the weeks, Heaven help us, into months...
...After Ben Gold paid them the price they demanded for their services, the Glanzmans, Kaisers and Browns were promptly baptized with the holy waters of Stalinism and turned into hundred percent revolutionaries...
...The above are the main reasons for our lack of growth...
...Uneventfully we travelled to our destination and proudly I walked my quarry into the crowded hall...
...Local 16, have adopted a program and issued an appeal to members for support at the coming International convention in Minneapolis...
...Well, the rest of that meeting was pretty much a nightmare...
...He charged that intimate connection between the authority and the manufacturers' association nullified enforcement of the code's labor provisions...
...All of the party's organizations throughout the state were urged to support the strikers and to protect them in their right to picket, and in other civil liberties...
...At last the hall was quiet and the speaker began...
...So strong is the persuasion exerted upon the men employed .in the packing plants to borrow money that often it amounts to coercion...
...Nothing was wrong whatever...
...Many of the men joining the union will have to be gotten out of "hock" to their employers...
...Then I went to work myself and, to make the story short, by pleading kinship as a fellow poet—everything goes in war—succeeded in making a date...
...The come-back of this organization, against which the Communist Party has for years concentrated all the heaviest artillery ef its storm-troops, was accomplished sooner than even the strongest optimists would dare to expict...
...No, neither of us had come out with any part of our apparel missing...
...The first step, a mass meeting of all workers in the industry, will be called soon by John J.Walsh, International vice-president, who has arrived from the main office in Chicago...
...The measures proposed by the group are of interest to all culinary workers throughout the country...
...Only the speaker wore a beard and carried a cane...
...Abolition of geographical disputes in New York and the establishment of one mixed local—the same for all other cities...
...The last rows in the hall caught sight of Us first...
...But I knew just the man who could magnetize even an old bedspring...
...One obstacle reported is the habit of packers' lending money to men and thereby obtaining a strangle-hold upon them...
...Yes, sir, that's what it's like organizing out in the sticks...
...The national office of the union tried to get him for us but failed to make connections...
...The following is the program: .More \igorous action on the part of our General Executive Hoard...
...Unemployment insurance and adequate unemployment relief...
...Our spirits had begun to sag in the middle like an old bedspring...
...Walsh is obtaining the support of the local unions in the retail stores, which, pending a determination of the date of the general strike, will refuse to handle the merchandise of the offending packers...
...On the opposite side of the street can be seen an equally large group, out not to assist the workers in their struggle for human conditions in the industry, but to howl and scream at the top of their lungs: "sca-a-a-a-b," "ga-a-a-ng-ster" and similar epithets...
...However, we culinary workers must Ijear in mind that we are part of the entire working class...
...Do two things...
...Unlike others, our union has failed to rally the ¦workers in the culinary field to it...
...N'RA has not helped our union...
...i . • TnT Code Authority, Comrade Martin declares, has put men into importan t divisional offices who have managed sdme of the most notorious sweatshops in the cotton gBnhent industry prior ip the ettie...
...Some of our young people had been to Coney Island and seen a tattooed lady...
...support the struggle against war—all funds for armaments to go for unemployment relief and insurance...
...The speaker wore a flowing tie and a big black hat...
...industrial unionism and abolition of craft locals...
...The professional "united front-ers," still entrenched in their dual union instead of helping the workers to fight the evil of overtime— which deprives hundreds of furriers of a chance of getting a job—are organizing counter-demonstrations whene ver the Joint Council is in the field to fight the nuisance of overtime...
...But they, poor kids, were our faithful vanguard and were as quiet as rpice...
...I think a tattooed lady would have been received more calmly...
...Furriers' Union, Again a Power in Market, Faces Dual Union Sabotage, Writer Charges TO THE EDITOR, LABOR SECTION: The following is a genuine letter from a worker whoxc name is withheld to protect him from as-tault in the fur market...
...Degeneracy of Dual Unionism Before the Communists gained domination in the fur market, the> never failed to attack the AFofL union under the pretext that it practices "class collaboration...
...The Rabbit Manufacturers Association is the latest product of this "class struggle" policy...
...New legislation for control of locals by the G. E. B...
...Our code is one of the worst of any...
...A gallant, dynamic figure on the platform, a passionate speaker, a poet, a warrior who had stood trial for his life in a famous textile strike—if we could get him . . . He would be a doubly valuable man to get because most of our strikers were young Italian-American girls and the speaker was also Italian...
...The Socialists protested the brutal police interference with peaceful picketing and the use of welfare bureaus as strikebreaking employment agencies...
...Last but not least, it is time the workers of the United States use their political power as well as their economic power to build a strong working class political party...
...I lifted my head occasionally to glare at the girls in the front row...
...The dual union was instrumental in organizing the worst elements among the contractors and cockroach bosses into various associations for the sole reason of getting "reciprocations" from these exploiters...
...But he was there...
...I had a brilliant inspiration...
...The Joint Council of the Furriers Union has again become a factor in the fur industry...
...When the "left" union came into power, however, it initiated an epoch of really unscrupulous class-collaboration...
...Instead there was a hysterical shout cf laughter...
...A little late, just late enough to miss the train...
...Build the Socialist Party and get subs for The New Leader to help build it...
...Division of the workers along craft lines, which makes successful organization impossible...
...Speeches there had to be, of course...
...Besides these, the "left" union possesses a number of | men who are ready to serve the party which pays more...
...He came...
...In the camp ' of the so-called Needle Trades Industrial Union, as the Communist union calls itself, the unchallenged ! domination of the Communist Party bureaucracy runs the show, As a I window-dressing a few innocent souls are used...
...And was the speaker marii When he got up to speak after my rather deflated introduction, the hysteria started all over again...
...That made us all feel somewhat better, of course...
...And then the denouncement...
...I expected a burst of applause...
...The retail store tenders and men working in poultry markets are organized 100%, according to the union, which views as promising the prospect of compelling the large packing houses to sign contracts...
...By the time we reached the platform, the whole audience was convulsed...
...Intensive work has been conducted looking to a complete organization of the men employed by United Dressed Beef Co., Swift A Co., Armour & Co., and Wilson & Co...
...A MEM-BBR OP THE ' JOINT COUNCIL...
...Butchers9 Union Prepares to Issue General Strike Order The Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, which represents all local unions in the butcher and poultry trades and is affiliated with the A. F. of L., will call a strike in Greater New York in the near future of all workmen employed in the large packing houses, in retail butcher shops and in the wholesale and retail poultry markets...
...The International is confident that it will have the actiflf support of 25,000 men...
...But we know better now than to try tricks like that on poor unsuspecting country girls and boys...
...However, his identity will he divulged to responsible elements in the labor movement...
...The clerks in the kosher and non-kosher trades, as well as the shuchtero (chicken - slaughterers) and poultry workmen, will vote on joining in a sympathetic strike against the packers...
...This is called revolutionary trade unionism Practical Versus "Revolutionary" Unionism The Joint Council of the Furriers Union, as it is composed today, is a real united front...
...What are the reasons for this failure...
...By our neglect to organize the women workers, we force them to become scabs and today the women, because of their lack of organization are a threat to even the low conditions that exist today in our industry...
...I went into New York city to conduct the speaker personally to our hall...
...all the tenants of the Communist dwellings in the Bronx and elsewhere are mobilized by the CP and shipped to the fur district in order to sabotage the work of the Furriers Union...
...organization of Negroes...
...The demonstrations which this AFofL union is conducting every Saturday in the fur district against overtime are becoming Itronger and more impressive every time...
...Our struggles are linked with the workers all over the world...
...If I only had more space in this paper, I could supply dozens of facts about the crimes committed against the interests of the fur workers by the "left'1 dual union in the name of revolutionary class struggle...
...Pacific Coast Socialists Endorse Waterfront Strike GLENDALE, Cal.—Strong endorsement of the waterfront strike along the Pacific Coast was voted by the state executive committee of the Socialist Party, which has just concluded a two-day session here...
...But when the Joint Council calls a strike against the inhuman and miserable conditions in these shops, the NTWIU never fails to send its strong-arm squad to the shops ir order to protect their benefactors...
...The Educational League of Ixical 10, therefore, has worked out a program not only of immediate demands but a broad and farsighted program that would make us a class-conscious instrument of the working class...
...And beards and flowing ties and big black hats were as outlandish to our girls and boys as a tattooed lady...
...They are: Lack of initiative of our locals and General Executive Hoard...
...Withdraws at Code Authority Official John Martin, Socialist candidate for United States Senate in New Jersey and formerly organizer for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, has resigned as investigator for the Cotton Garment Code Authority compliance division...
Vol. 17 • June 1934 • No. 67
