SOCIALIST APPEAL NOVEMBER 23, 1940 TWORKERS Maritime Unions Sign UNION FORUM National Unity Soldiers Must Buy New Uniforms Out of 21 Pay Defend Jailed Negro Sailors!
INION return to work until all untone UA Stalinist Influence secure new agreements satisfac.
Disrupts United tory to their own membership.
OTES That no official, union or Labor Front unions submit any point in dispute, on steamschooners to arbi SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 11. tration of any type or form.
Write to us tell us what going on in your part of the The one month old steam schoon What is wrong with this set by Farrell Dobbs labor movement what are the workers thinking about. tell er strike today approached settle of proposals. The membership of the Steel Workers Organizing Commitus what the bosses are up to and the men and the local copsment. The Marine Firemen, the What other kind of unity is tee, CIO, is increasing at a rapid rate with the present figure the and the Stalinists send us that story the capitalist press didn union first to declare the strike, there?
print and that story they buried or distorted our pages are open has just accepted a compromise. How else can we win a strike an imposing structure in an important basic industry, but it is largest since the defeat in Little Steel. This organization presents to you. Letters must carry name and address, but indicate if you proposal in constwise balloting that involves all of us?
do not want your name printed.
The Marine Cooks and Stewards We restate these principles a union of unknown strength which has not been thoroughly and the Engineers are now also and address these questions to tested in struggle.
Amazing People! Their managers over 119, in the army considering a plan for an agree you because we believe it is neces. Its main contracts Steel steel have forced a partial change they put their men ovet us as ment.
Only Consistency Is officers. In fact some of these same factory superintendents and tremen is a counter offer to one the barrage of offical attacks and the union to a decisive test of actions of the steel Workers, To Be Consistently Bad ramen proposeduvated. com by the maritime unions to cut through a fight. The strike in Little Steel start is to a certain degree im.
managers become officers in the made by the shipowners for a counter attacks.
Not long ago the Steel, for Editor: army. Big business and the immonthly wage increase of 50. We believe that unity of all its strength. The main strategy Last week was handed the perialist army are tied together.
The firemen terms include a maritime unions can be re estab of the strike was dependence on example, was often in a position November issue of Labor Action That sounded pretty good to 00 monthly wage increase, 10 lished by the rank and file on the governmental agencies. The off to use the workers against the the organ of the Workers Party. me until read a lengthy critic cents an hour for overtime and basis of a clearly defined program cial leadership of the Swoc, SWOC staff. The corporation Being interested in the working ism of the military policy of the Saturday afternoon oft while in The program offered here has learning little from this defeat, would admit violations of the conclass movement read the paper Soolalist Workers Party by that port. The shipowners are expect. been called phoney.
has continued to base its key pol tract only to defy the union to do to find out what they had to of: same confused author in the same ed to accept this proposal or some What is phoney about it? It ley on the hope of assistance from anything about it. They were confident that the employees would modified version of it.
fer to the working class. From lesue of the paper. After having is simply a statement of policy! the government.
not back up the union officials.
its confusing and jumbled pages Trotsky repudiate Trotsky The schooner strike will end as If the membership of the Sail CLOSE TO 1929 PEA Today this situation has reve managed to gather at least one Shachtman on page repudiates it began with the maritime crafts ors Union and the Marine Fire: The rise in membership of the itself. The workers in Steel, gem that thought should be Shachtman of page as follows: disunited. The firemen, cooks and men agree on this program to SWOC is due in part to increased as well as in other plants, are bebrought to your attention. Cannon with vulgar disregard stewards and engineers will each unite our forces, it will be much production and the resultant pick coming more militant. The cor.
On the top of page in an ar. for Marxist theory, compares the sign their separate agreements. clearer for us in the near future up in employment. Steel output porations now often feel constrainticle by Shachtman called Con army with a factory, a political The Sailors Union of the Pacific who among our officials is is now close to the 1929 peak anded to make an appeal to the SWOC script the War Industries Under with an economic institution.
with the most men involved is phoney.
there is a big back log of orders. staff against the workers. GenerWorkers Control read: Let us What amazing people! The only not on strike but will probably STALINISTS SILENT Another important factor which ally the staff has sided with the proceed with the bosses in the ar consistency that their paper shows return with the best agreement it No answer was forthcoming is swelling the ranks of the Swoc workers in recent cases.
iny the same as we proceed in the is that it is consistently bad.
can get under bad circumstances.
factory. In the factory they With warm greetings.
Responsibility for failure to from the Stalinists who control in twerke in militancy among PARTIAL ADAPTATION put their superintendents and cement a common front rests publicity in the Maritime Federa the workers.
However, the new policy of the There have been an increasing swOC leadership is only a par ments in control or influential in men union to this eminently cor number of stoppages involving tial adaptation to the changing squarely with the Stalinist eletion or from officials of the fire WASHINGTON. The Ruthven, president of the firemen, cooks and stewards crews, whole departments and oc conditions. The main objective American Federation of Labor is the University of Michigan rewho in turn have been cooperating the Stalinists did not want a unitThere is no question now that casionally an entire plant.
of the new militancy in the lead.
now at its all time membership cently invited faculty members recent job action at the Lackership seems to be an increase in closely with Harry Bridges. On High, Secretary Treasurer George who permit indiscriminate two distinct occasions before the ed front with the SUP. After a wanna (Bethlehem) plant in Buf membership not a fight through Meany reports in the November criticism of democratic govern years of traling behind the sail falo is a typical example of this these methods for fundamental strike began and recently the ors union which carried the brunt new militancy. furnace crew improvement of employment conissue of the American Federation ment to resign. The learned ist.
president declared. ProfessSailors Union urged the other un of the struggle in winning cond: sent a committee in to see the otions in the steel industry.
ions to cooperate.
The combined enrollment of all ors should rid themselves of the In the last tions for the seagoing crafts, the management on a grievance. The There is little evidence to indi: issue of the West Coast Nailors, unions affiliated with the notion that romanticism, senti Afteen rank and file seamen vole Stalinists saw an opportunity to demands of the crew were refused cate that they have turned tocf on the basis of per capita mentalism and Indiscriminate tol ing the sentiment of the over snatching a small wage increase teen minutes to get back on the contracts.
mend their failing fortunes by and the committee was given fif wards trade union action to get tax payments, stands at 247. 443. erance are essential constituents whelming majority of the broth for the crafts they influence or job or else.
This figure is almost 50 per cent of democracy. And just what ers addressed the following open control without the help of the SPREAD LIKE WILD FIRE Undismayed by the rebuff from above the membership three years is discriminate tolerance, Herr letter to members of the MFOW: SUP.
the administration in the issu.
ago, when the total was 860. 933. Professor?
The above is a picture of Claude Neal after he had been lynched. Note mutilation of Neal chest and thighs. Note also SUP PROPOSES UNITY When the committee reported ance of war contracts to BethleBut even here their calculations back to the crew, the news of hem Steel and other violators of how fingers have been cut from hands as souvenirs. After this Last week the Sailors Union went awry. While they will win steamschooner negotiating com slight gains, the maritime work like wildfire among the men and eral staff still expects to get con.
the management attitude spread labor legislation, the SWOC genpicture was taken toes were cut from the feet, also as mittee proposed to other maritime ers on the steamschooners must before the fifteen minute deadline aitions for the steel workers 18 souvenirs.
unions that a joint policy be work pay for them by a month idle had elapsed the entire department a gift from the government.
ed out among all unions involved. ness and a far worse agreement of more than 600 men had walked Futher than this, the swOC The substance of the SUP pro than could have been obtained had out of the plant. The company still has a representative func posal was as follows: unity been established.
By Special Correspondent clean and repair their uniforms officials waited a while for the toning on the so called National That the SUP, MFOW.
FORT DIX, With winter at their own expense. Frequently workers to send in a committee. Defense Committee and has thus they are ordered out to drill in MMP and MEBA pool their efforts coming on, the self styled fugiWhen this was not done, the continued to lend this committee to secure new agreement on the Join the Socialist tives from the draft here are deep mud and to run through steamschooners.
bosses soon came out on the street authority in the eyes of the steel faced with serious lack of cloth bramble. For a man getting only to innocently ask what was wrong. workers. 21 a month it is a serious prob That no union or unions Workers Party ing and adequate shelter.
They were told in plain language VIOLATE LABOR LAWS lem to replace a uniform ruined and it took only a few minutes Many of the boys complain, in drill. Officers are seldom to straighten out the grievance will not take such a unior lead Certainly the steel corporations about the lack of underwear. dirtying their uniforms in such which the very seriously. cor While it is washed, they must do drills.
without it.
The men are beginning to for (Editorial Note: The following article is taken from the Another source of irritation mulate a demand that the Army before.
Brings Crisis in Auto and still they get war contracts.
new pamphlet Defend the Negro Sailors, by Albert Parker. The SYMPTOMATIC ACTION And the leaders of the union of among the men is the Army regu provide repairs and new uniforms complete pamphlet can be oftained from Pioneer Publishers, By JULES GELLER These lation which requires them tol when necessary.
militant actions are their employees stay on the Com116 University Place, New York City at 2e a copy. FLINT, Mich. Nov. 15. The executives don usually licity to General Motors, whose symptomatic and they are increas mittee which awards contracts un In the South it is the practise to segregate the Negro, to push bunting season opened today in caught poaching.
ing in size and number. But the der such a flagrant anti labor pol.
him off to the side. He is shunted into a separate part of town, ere crisis in the auto industry.
At the Fisher Body No. plant has not yet reached into all the around with such ease in the trend is only just developing: itley. Since the SWOC was pushed in the worst houses.
First of all Charles Weatherald, day totally stopping production workers take comfort from the the government will not take very in Flint a shutdown occurred to corners of the industry. Some question of letting war contracts, In the Navy the Negro is segregated in one part of the ship. GM Board Member in charge of and resulting in the shutdown of feeling that there is plenty of seriously its demand for union The only place where he is accepted is in the kitchen, although 600 a year, was caught red handed almost the entire plant took their periods of heavy unemployment tions.
TRENTON, Featured by won their demands. The Clerks white enlistees are able to choose the branch of the service they on the multi millionaire Fisher es guns and went out to bas a deer. but try to kid themselves into PROBLEM OF LEADERSHIP They remember the past contracts with the steel corporathe solidarity of the different originally walked out in sympathy want.
tate with 81 ducks (which he Fisher No. also was seriously thinking that this boom will last.
AFL unions involved, the month with the Butchers. When their claims he hit with his own little affected by the mass migration They ignore the fact that it is membership is beginning to realA growing section of the Swoc long strike against the P own contract expired, they pre Sea Going Chambermaid stores and the American stores in sented demands for an increase In the South it is the practise to discriminate against the and a possible fall sentence for ton crisis cripped this entire city. not of any improvement in the ent official policy. The demand Maryland is nearing the end with a reduction in hours from 51 or positions as lackeys and flunkies, and always at the lowest Usually well informed sources defense it is expected a law will sers of the mountain of grievances of the secon New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and in pay, two weeks vacation, and Negro in handing out jobs. Only laborers jobs are open to him, boling too greedy and exceding curtails production for national They close their eyes to the dan off the so called National Defense a satisfactory union contract in to 48.
Since the strike began, members pay. He isn permitted to go very far in schools, to learn a close to Wall Street and the Du soon be passed to forbid workers that is piling up, especially the the offing Though a settlement between of both unions have been picket skilled trade or profession.
the companies and the Butchers ing side by side in front of the The first responsibility of the In Navy too the Negro faces job discrimination. He can ary phill be cut to 200, 000 year or Japanese workers and other workers are much disturbed union leadership is to fight for the Union had been reached several weeks ago, the Butchers refused principal stores and with the col become only a sea going chambermaid, bell hop or dishwasher AS penalty for his hunting esca other animals on whom Wall over the increasing arrogance or rights of the membership.
to recognize the agreement as ef. operation of the Teamsters Union where he is called on to perform the most menial and tedious Pade which brought such bad pub Street has declared open season, the corporations but hesitate to Dosable pressure should fective until the Retail Clerks had have kept 1100 stores shut down. tasks. The letter of the Negro sailors jailed on the Philaact because of lack of confidence brought upon the government to delphia for telling the outside world about the conditions on ever they say or do to us is above reproach as far as they are in the swoc leadership enforce labor legislation, but the board ship, together with letters from other sailors sympathetic concerned.
SWOC cannot rely upon the govTRIED CURBING ACTION ernment to get union contracts to them, shows that the Negro has the worst paying job, and Barred from Officer Posts Prior to the last few weeks, the from the steel corporations. The that his chances for advancement in pay and rating are the SWOC officialdom sought to curb first and most reliable weapon in smallest. White sailors get valuable training in numerous trades post in the community or in the government In the South a Negro is never permitted to rise to any high unauthorized job actions by the this fight is trade union action.
steel workers. They sometimes and skills which they are able to use in later life. Negro can An ever larger number of the In the Navy a Negro, contrary to popular belief, cannot be used quite drastic methods to do steel workers are becoming aware JERSEY CITY, The was arrested on a charge of per train himself only to become a waiter or valet.
come a petty officer or chief petty officer. According to the Crisis changes in the whole situation in today is one of leadership.
However, the sweeping of this fact. The main problem Judges are hounding each other mitting several score persons for a change instead of workers. register for the elections from his In the south it is the practise to insult and degrade the article quoted above. The highest rank that can be obtained is officers cook or This pleasant spectacle is an aftwo family house, he was huuled Negro, to relegate him to some position as an inferior.
ermath to the squabble between before a Hague judge who prompt In the Navy too the Negro mess attendant faces a constant steward, and even though a steward, one is still looked upon that people who say they are believers of God are choiey about Republicans and the Hague Dey decided to hold the prisoner stream of insult and abuse: as a mess attendant. After all, he is a mess attendant. Just who sits next to them, then it is time that we pray and start mocrats for control of New Jersey for the Hudson County Grand a mess attendant. Or shall we say officer boy. The white officer is usually the type to persecute. He to do something about it, say the Sampson men.
politics, Jury. Out on ball, the Republican It all began when the Republic promptly rushed to a Republican can and does make your career difficult for you, because he No Voice Whatsoever can State legislature created spe appointed judge from whom he knows that you cannot defend yourself.
In the South it is the practise to deny the Negro the right to On smaller ships in the Navy, the mess boys really do cial courts for Hudson County to sot a warrant for false arrest Our Negro sailors should be warned never to show a participate in elections, and in general to permit no voice in not have a place to eat their food properly. He either has to take jurisdiction over election against the Hague judge.
spark of intelligence if they want to spend four years in the making the laws or determining the conditions of the community.
stand up or sit down on the deck to eat, while the rest of the fraud charges away from the Ha Hague got wind of the Repubnavy. Everyone does his best to keep a smart Negro in his crew have designated tables, where they may sit, talk, properly Fue machine judges. Hague lican move and countered by hav. place. If me doesn mind being insulted by his superiors, In the Navy too the Negro has no voice, can protest, has masticate and enjoy their food.
wouldn allow the Republican toing another of the judges arrest take control of the courts and the the Republican judge.
if he is the kind that wants to be the rag under the white no right to ask for a change in conditions, has to obey laws in The Crisis article reports that at the Norfolk training station clection in such easy fashion and when dances and special functions are held on board ship, white If this keeps up, all the judges man feet, if he is willing to stand by while others make the making of which he has no part so instructed his cops not to ree will soon be behind bars as the ratings, then he is the type the navy wants. He is the type We have no side to our story, and if we have it, it doesn sailors may bring their girl friends, Negroes may not.
ognize the new courts.
do any good anyway, so we just keep our mouths shut. say Navy Secretary Regrets old saying goes, it takes a thief that will make a success as a messman. From an article by When a Republican ward heeler to catch a thief.
an anonymous Negro sailor in The Crisis. the Sampson sailors.
In the South the Negro is denied his rights by a system of For the South there are the 14th and 15th Amendments Tin Gods With a Whip brutal terrorism, lynching and violence, and jail sentences on which are supposed to protect the rights of Negroes, but of course Richard Watts, Donald Moran and William Seabrook, the chain gang.
the Bourbon authorities make no pretense of abiding by them.
three Negro sailors on the Sampson, offer additional In the Navy the Negro is denied his rights by a system of im For the Navy too there is an amendment to the Selective evidence in their letter in the Courier. November 9: prisonments at large, court martials and jail sentences at hard Service Act which prohibits discrimination against drafted or Men Freeze in Tents We are subjected to being roughly spoken to three labor.
enlisted men in the armed forces because of race or color. SecBy Special Correspondent fourths of the time, cursed at sometimes, without even a murretary of the Navy Frank Knox announcd before it was passed ward Gallant, in private life a WINTHROP, Mass. Nov. lawyer who is now post commandmur of resentment coming from us. In case of resentment, we Only in the Balcony Even in the North the Negro is restricted and discriminated Navy only as mess attendants. After its passage, he said he was that he regrets the situation but Negroes can be accepted in the are put on report, restricted, fined or sent to the brig for being The National Guard detachments ant laughed at the suggestion encamped here at Fort Heath are that his men might be cold at insubordinate to a superior officer, etc.
against socially. In most cities he is barred from restaurants, still sympathetic, but the problem was insoluble meaning that learning first hand about officers night. Snug as bugs in a rug. Wherever we turn we hear the words, Don do this, from white dance halls, and from seats in theaters except the things would continue as they had been going.
efficiency and consideration for he said.
or Don do that, or you don get liberty for a weck. We are balcony. It goes without saying that the Negro treatment in Add it all up and what does it come to?
the men.
One soldier, upon being driven not wanted to talk to each other when an officer is around, and this sense is much worse in the South Fort Heath is on a promontory back to the fort by the corres in general. an officer is to be treated as though he were a god Time to do something About It In the name of war for democracy and freedom and equalwhich juts out into the Atlantic pondent of the Socialist Appeal, or king.
ity the ruling class of this country is asking the Negro to go ocean. With the northeast wind complained bitterly about condialready sweeping down from the tions. According to this soldier. The majority of the officers seem to think that we In the Navy too the Negro is restricted and discriminated down to the sea in ships and offer up his life under exactly the same conditions that prevail in that part of the country where the North Atlantie, the men are still Capt. Gallant and the other off. Negroes are just a race of illiterates who have to have some against socially.
sleeping in tents.
cers have regularly. heated houses one standing over them with a whip all the time and tell them In our Naval churches both Protestant and Catholic Negro is most systematically denied democracy and freedom and In press interview, Capt. Ed. at the fort.
what to do. They are the kings, we are the flunkies. What discrimination is openly practised. When conditions are so bad equality!
SN get Clerks and Butchers Win By United Strike Action All be Judges Arrest Judges In Election Fraud Cases And: Captain Laughs at Idea