The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-08-16

- menced at Geneva the sixth in
ternational labor conference. These
conferences constitute the parliament
Of the Labor Bureau. The present
conference was given tremendous adj
vertisement in the bourgeisie and So
cial Democratic press of all coun-
tries. Every day there appeared long
reports over the "arduous labors" of
the conference. Great rhetorical
duels were fought" and a terrible
struggle" took place over the eight
hour day. The great masses are
thereby purposely deluded into believ-
ing that in Geneva the interests of
the working population are actually
being preserved and promoted But
those who are in the know, and es-
pecially the capitalists and the re-
formist wire-pullers, are chuckling to
themselves, for they know that the
Geneva comedy" is only being played
for 'the common people," that there,
instead of the welfare of labor being
promoted, there is only being con-
Quoted collaboration policy between
the trade union leaders and the CAPT
talists on an international scale, with
the sole object of diverting the prole-
tariat from the class war and from
revolution.
If any one should doubt these facts
he need only examine the composition
and the deliberations of the confer
ence a little more closely. The con-
ference is composed of three equally
large categories of representatives of
governments, of employers and Of Ia
Dor ESQ called. AS the governments
of all the participating states are
purely capitalist ones, there exists
already with the government and en-
ployers' Representatives a two-thirds
capitalist majority. But even the re-
naming third, the labor" represen-
tatives, are such faithful henchmen of
capital that there is never seen at the
conference a proletarian front op-
posed to a capitalist front, but in
most cases there prevails the sweet
est harmony among all participants,
or in so far as there are any differ
ences whatever they are of national
character.
There lay before the conference a
printed report on the activity of the
Labor Bureau, the numbered of affli-
ated states and those states which
have ratified the so-called Washing
ton Convention. One learned from
this that "a states are affiliated to the
long to the League of Nations; yet
Germany, which is not member of
the League, is affiliated to the Labor
Bureau. The report mentions that
among the important states not afili-
ated are America, Russia, Mexico
Turkey and Egypt 1t is hoped" that
Russia will soon affiliate.
The decisions (Conventions) of the
Washington Conference of the year
1910 regarding the eight hour day, un-
employed, sick, accident and old age
benefit, as we'll as regarding: regula-
lions for the prevention Of accidents
and sickness, night work, children's
and women's labor, etc., are, accord
ing to the report, only fully "recog-
nized" by one state, Poland, while the
eight hour day is only recognized"
that is, legally introduced, by Greece,
Bulgaria, Czecho-Slovakia and-don't
laugh-by India.
One percieves by this that in spite
of the five years existence of the La
Dor Bureau, which, as Oudegeest de-
clared in Vienna, is child Of the
Amsterdam Trade Union Information
al the Washington decisions have not
yet been recognized by a single great
capitalist state. But even il this were
the case it would not alter the posi-
ton of the workers in the least, for