The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-03-15
STIR UNIVERSITY
STUDENTS TO AID
GARMENT STRIKE
Holland and DR.. Gerard
Indict Police
By ALFRED v. FRANKENsTEIN.

for Hart, Schaffner and Marx, and
DR.. Ralph Gerard, of the General
Medical College, presented the re-
suits Of a survey made by Hull
House residents Of conditions per-
tanning to the strike of Chicago gar
ment workers before meeting Of
University of Chicago students held
at the university.
Holland said that essential condi-
tions in regard to labor and its re-
lations to its exploiters had not
changed in the last hundred years.
Picketing Best Weapon.
Picketing, he said, was the only
effective weapon the labor unions
had, and courts Of Justice" prohibit
that by means Of injunctions. He
passed about several copies Of the
injunction against the garment work
ers to show how the bosseR writ at
tempted to tie them hand and foot.
This injunction prohibits picketing,
but does not define the word, leaving
the police, whom he said, were sub
sidized by the bosses for the PURPOSE
Of breaking the strike, free TO arrest
Because policemen were all on
"picket duty now, he said, cases
wherein arrests should be made for
actual crime could not be made, He
said that on the whole the strike had
been remarkably peaceful, most Of
the disturbance being due to police
officers, detectives from the Office Of
States Attorney Grove, and thugs,
or private detectives" Holland saw
some 35 girls brought to trial
Wednesday morning for disturbance
of the peace, and all but five imme-
diately acquitted, proof of the indis-
crimate wholesale arrest Of workers
by the boss-subsidized police, for the
purposes of intimidation.
Praises DAILY WORKER.
Conditions in the strike area in
Evanston were just as bad, said Hol-
land. Here one is taken from the
train, put into an automobile and
spirited out of the town. There is
no pretense at arrest, one is just de-
ported. This had brought a protest
to Chief of Police Leggett from GER
tain ministers of the suburban city.
The DAILY WORKER was the
only Chicago paper which printed the
truth about the strike, declared the
speaker.
DR.. Gerard said that States At
torney Grove told Meyer Perlstein,
president of the international Ladies'
Garment Workers Union, to clear out
of the city or he would break the
union. This he is trying to do by his
mass arrests of the strikers, which
have already put the union in debt
for vast sums for bail. DIR. Gerard
said that in the same unions strike
in 1917 there were 1,400 strikers ar
rested, and all but three released
afterward, because there was no evil
dence to convict them.
Militant Amalgamated.
Prior to 1917, DIR. Gerard said, con-
ditions in the clothing industry were
horrible. The Amalgamated Clothing
Workers led the fight for the organ
ization Of the needle workers, and
has always been in the front rank of
progressive labor organizations.
He divided the 200 odd employers
of women's clothing workers into
three groups. In the first he put six
large employers, who run completely
scab shops, and require their work.
ers to sign an anti-union pledge; in
the second he put an organized group
of bosses whose shops are partly un-
ionized; the third comprised a great
number of small, unorganized manu-
facturers, some go or 20 of whom
have already signed up with the
union.
tuberculosis In Scab Shops.
Conditions in non-union shops are
very bad, he said. Many of the build
ings are fretraps, with bad sanitary
conditions and poor light. Many are
simply filthy lofts, and in all tuber-
culosis is rampant. Some factories
are in good condition, but most Of
the work done by these is farmed out
to individual slaves, who do the work
for a pittance in their own homes.
Wages, said Gerard, are on a piece
work basis, and the determination of
them is solely in the hands of the
bosses. The wages paid in Chicago
are a third lower than those paid in
other cities. Only five per cent of
the women's clothing workers in
Chicago receive as much as a thou
sand dollars a year.
He said that tkNre are 5000 Of
these workers in Chicago, 5000 of
whom are organized, and $500 on
strike. They demand 40-hour week,
10 per cent increase in wages, I'M
employment insurance, since the in
dustry is seasonal one in which
there are only about 80 or 40 weeks
work, installation of machinery
which would standardize industry,
and, most important, recognition Of
the union by the employers. The
bosses howl that they cannot meet
these demands, he said, was untrue,
since the bosses Of other cities have
complied with them, and their profits
still go on.
Visit Strike AreaI
In conclusion, DIR. Gerard urged the
students TO read the DAILY WORK
Err, to go into the strike area and
coo &bn actual cordftto... - A. -.