Γ Ε Page MILITANT Saturday, March 1, 1930 The New Bedford Textile Workers Unite to Aid Jobless and Stalinist «Politics»
Conditions of Metal Scrappers adjourned at 12:30.
TOO MANY LABOR OFFICIALS (Continued from Page 1)
George Siskind, chairman of the New As a preliminary and immediate step, York T, was next called upon and and also an effective one, towards the reduction in the number of trade union burread a lengthy resolution which demanded The unemployment condition in New in one country and national Communism, eaucrats, we should consider and spread from the employers and government either Bedford is becoming more acute daily the future of the union is one of defeat. It Work or Wages, and then went on, in elabthe idea of reducing the number of useless While half of the 30, 000 textile workers must abandon its clique control and aim oration, with a long list of additional deoffices and officials in our local unions, were jobless several weeks ago, at present to develop a movement for a united strugmands, among them, Defense of the Soviet lodges and divisions.
about 20, 000 are unemployed. It is diff gle of the New Bedford workers with a leadTo use the Brotherhood of Locomotive Union, Against another Imperialist War, cult to state accurately the exact amount ership that can lead the workers successEngineers as an example: The local unions Down with the Hoover government and priof workers who are without work. Half of fully. Instead of devoting all their time to are called Divisions and have the followvate property, Down with Child Labor, Join the mills are closed while many of the preparing for a strike against the millow the Unemployed Councils, Free meals for ing offices and officials which, in my opinothers are running only several days a ners, the party leadership in New Bedford children in the schools, Demonstrate on jon, are not only useless and unnecessary, week. Those that are closed include the is busy fighting Lovestone and Trotsky March 6th, Down with the AF. of the but decidedly detrimental, namely: Chief Acushent mill the City Mill. The Dart and not the mill owners or of Such Engineer, Second Engineer, Guide and Musteites, etc. etc. all in the name of mouth mill is running two days a week. a policy is disastrous and must be opposed the Unemployed workers and their imChaplain.
According to old time textile workers the vigorously by the union members as well as These officials render the Divisions no mediate problem of existence.
unemployment situation is worse than it all conscious Left wing and Communist After Siskind resolution there were special service. Their part played in the has been in 15 years.
forces.
useless ritualistic ceremony at the opening more speeches. Finally he summarized the Taking advantage of the scarcity of united struggle of the New Bedford and closing of meetings has a most stultispeeches and completed the report.
work, the mill owners are reducing wages workers against the mill owners and their Tying effect on the membership.
How Not to aid the Unemployed wage cuts and speed up, and against their Breeding Bureaucracy and installing methods to further speed up the workers. The workers resent these officialdom allies is on the order There was no report of any credentials However, the most serious objection to of the day.
actions on the part of the employers and committee. The delegates from the New having an organization honeycombed with are talking of another general strike.
An appeal must also be made to the York Branch of the Communist Ligue useless officials is that it breeds bureaucU. rank and file to join in the strug. Opposition. James Russell and Charles racy and corruption in the union. The In fact, several weeks ago, when the to gle, shoulder shoulder with the Curtiss had handed in credentials at the of furnishes a glaring example of mills in the South End cut wages of the members in the common fight weavers and added more looms they went outset. There were no elections of any kind this. In this case the local officials often against wage cuts, speed up and unemployof committees. No executive was elected to become the tools of the Grand Officers in on strike. The strike lasted for a few days ment. The future is bright for the New carry out further work; and considering this misleading and defrauding the membership. but the weavers went back to work with Bedford workers provided the Stalinites do conduct of the disorganized mass meeting This was especially the case in my local the cut in pay anú speed up conditions.
Division 369 where the local officials became The National Textile Workers Union which not wreck the union to satisfy their petty (which is the best that can be said for this factional aims. FRANK BROMLEY Unemployed Conference. perthe active agents of the Grand Office in sel was conducting the strike apparently was haps it was just as well. The majority of ling worthless stock, real estate and fake not prepared to lead the workers in a sucthose present left long before the meeting Loyalty Bonds to the members and to cessful struggle.
frame up and to expel any member who The tasks that face the at With such conferences little guccess can objected to this wholesale robbery of the present are of great importance to the fu CHICAGO On Lake between 1200 and 1900 be expected, despite favorable objective of ture development of the union. The workers West and on State Street from 1600 to factors at present, for the demonstration With the aid and support of the salar are in a mood for struggle and with proper 2400 South, there are whole strings of con scheduled for March 6th. The bombast must led General Officials, these local office hol leadership can be lead successfully in cerns making a specialty of gathering from be done away with if there is to be a serders form a combination or political ma strike that will organize the great bulk of everywhere old scraps of iron, machinery, ious movement. The slogan of unity of chine to get themselves reelected year after the 30, 000 textile workers. On the one autos, brass, copper, etc. of every descrip working class forces to work for a minimum year. This office holding develops a craving hand, if the union does not live up to the tion. Working conditions of those who lo program on behalf of the unemployed is an for personal benefit at the expense of the exxpectations of the masses, the base that bor for those concerns are indescribably effective one. Other organizations, trade rank and file, a desire to get on the pay the has built will be smashed bad. The hours are usually ten. Wages unions, fraternal organizations, etc. can still roll.
and the United Textile Workers Union average 35 cents an hour. Most of the be appealed to. The United Front and its All the elected officials that are needed headed by the notorious betrayer, William workers are Poleg, Slave and Negroes, that effectiveness as a rallying call for the rank in. Division of the of are a Sec Batty, will again sell out the workers as it is of those who stay for any length of time and file workers of all shades of opinion retary Treasurer, a Grievance man and a did in the 1928 strike.
at these places, Horses enjoy a lot better are not out of date. The Communist Party, delagate to the National Convention. The When the strike was ended two years treatment than most of these workers. and the by themselves are inChairman (called the Chief Engineer) ago by the collaboration of the sufficient to rally the unetoployed and to should be elected for each meeting. This Steady Work and the mill owners, the found The work is very hard. Much heavy lead them effectively. When other forces, themselves in a surprisingly strong posiwould promote democracy and intelligence wrought iron must be broken up with even Communist elements with dissenting among the members. In Division 369 of the tion Almost as many workers were organsledge hammers. We work up a heavy views, are rejected out of hand, the unemB. of the local bureaucrats headed ized in the left wing as in the ployed movement is doomed either to be cut sweat on a tough Job on bitter winter by Collins, are running and control organization. In fact, after the mornings. When we are done, then we to pieces or to be led into channels that tag the Division as it it was their personal strike the TW. continued to gain make them easy victims of capitalist propa.
have to keep on working outside, maybe soperty. Through machine control and members at a pace even faster than the on a lighter job, to cool off, and so fall an ganda and of the labor fakers and reformbull dozing tactics, the Chief Engineer and easy prey to colds and the flu. Often we ists. The rank and file of the fl. who Secretary Treasurer have had themselves Factionalism Hurts Development have to lift extremely heavy weights while number hundred of thousands of the unemreelected to office for the last quarter of In recent months, when a strong and the boss stands by and hollers to give er ployed can be gotten into an unemployment century. lot of useless officials breed united organization is more needed than in the beet.
movement if proper appeal for urited action such conditions.
any time in the past, Communist Party disThe bosses are nearly always the worst is made. Their officials are subject to presPrepare for Convention putes have stepped in to the disadvantage sure: their unwillingness to act even then kind of slave drivers and seem to regard The thing to do is for the local union of the union. Within a period of several can be the best means for the militants and (lodges or divisions) to introduce amendthe workers as scarcely human. For anymonths the New Bedford Union has had one who makes the slightest protest against left wingers to expose them in their real ments at the forthcoming convention to el four district organizers and one can never the Intolerable conditions, means to be at role of capitalist lackeys. But their eximinate all useless officials, big and small. tell when the next change will be made.
once fired or laid off. The work in many pose merely by denunciation is not conThe labor constitutions should also be The same policy of manipulation that has places is not steady maybe work for a vincing to a rank and filer. Failure to proamonded to provide for salaried officials to become the vogue in the Communist Party few days, get laid off, and be told to re pose a united front to the organizations of be automatically drafted back on the job and the Communist movement generally, is turn in a few days. There are so many the of Socialist Party, After a certain number of terms in office. what the New Bedford workers are facing unemployed here at all times, anxious for etc. on the burning question of Trade unionists should discuss this and let in the third period.
some kind of a job, that these concerns unemployment only results, particularly themselves be heard also through the col When Eli Keller, who was the union are never short of help.
under present conditions, in the isolation of amns of the Militant.
organizer for more than two years, was the Communists from the masses and renC. R, HEDLUND Need Union made national secretary of the union, sevders them ineffective in the existing and eneral months ago, Ellen Dawson was sent The workers need union badly to to New Bedford to replace him. When the speak for their interests and to fight suing struggles.
Stalinist leadership discovered that she against the merciless exploitation that ex Develop a United Front Movement supported the Right wing Lovestone group, ists now worked for the Monroe Iron The Communist Party must change its Long hours are still the curse of the Dawson was quickly replaced by John Naand Machinery Company at 1322 Lake course and adopt methods that have brought ateel industry The popular assumption horsky, unknown to the textile workers of St. and know whereof speak. This is one successes in the past to the Communist that Pres. Harding induced the late Judge New Bedford. However, Nahorsky did not of the worst concerns, but they are all movement and given it influence over growGary, out of the goodness of his heart, to last long, for Martin Russak, a poet from pretty much alike rotten.
ing numbers of workers.
abolish the 12 hour day, and that therefore Paterson, is now at the helm.
CHICAGO WORKER It is not yet too late, even for the imsteel mills are now operating on the hour This kind of irresponsible faction mediate future of the movement to organBhift, is knocked into a cocked hat by figures politics is not the way to organize the workRANK AND FILE FOR LABOR PARTY ize the unemployed into Unemployed CounJust released by the Federal Council of erg and lead a successful strike in New CINCINATTI In our opinion there is cils. Genuine proposals for a united front Churches, through its research department. Bedford. All forces who accept the Left no issue before the labor movement today movement, in an endeavor to draw all workMore than half Work over 48 Hours wing program of the should be of greater importance than of strength ers together, should be made. March 6th Actually but 46. of 250, 000 steel utilized to prepare the New Bedford workers ening its political power, declares the can only be a fleeting and passing demonworkers covered by the report are working for struggle. With the elimination of me leading editorial in the Railway Clerk for station of the unemployed if the movethe hour day. Nearly as high a percentage chanical, strangulating control and the February. It is hard to escape the con ment remains in narrow channels. This are working 10 hours while are on proper preparations, a strike larger and viction that the nonpartisan policy Toes must not be so. The conditions for a broad the 12 hour schedule. More than a quar more important than that of 1928 can be not appeal to the rank and file.
movement remain. Such a broad movement, ter of the steel workers studied are work started in New Bedford. The situation is basing itselt on simple and elementary ing days a week, a halt are on the day ripe, but how will the Stalinites react to it?
needs of the unemployed, is needed to give basis and only 20 work five to five and The mass of the militant textile workers It the number on your wrapper is an impetus to the organization of Unemone half days.
who are now members of the ployed Councils that can act in concert and This by no means tells the story how must demand that the political opinion of make strong demands for work or compenever. The figures for the 11 and 12 hour any worker shall not bar him or her from sation, for shorter hours, against the speedshifts and the day week are minimum an active or leading role in the union. The then your subscription to the Militant has up system, upon the capitalists and the govTigures, the investigators reported, because is not the Communist Party and expired. Renew immediately in order to ernment. The militants and revolutionary plant managers often color their fig If it attempts to bage its leadership upon the avoid missing any issues.
workers must lend themselves to the task.
bres for the benefit of public opinion. acceptance of Stalin program of socialism THE MILITANT, Vol. III, No. 9, March 1, 1930 Published weekly by the Com munist League of America (Opposition) at 25 Third Avenue, New York, Subeription rate: 00 per year; foreign 50. Five cents per copy. Bundle rates, cente per copy. Editorial Board: Martin Abern, James Cannon, Max Shachtman, MauIce Spector, Arne Swabeck. Entered as second class mall matter November 28, 1928, at the Post Office at New York, Y, under the act of March 3, 1879. Total No Long Hours in Steel Mills 34