The daily worker., 1924-06-25
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and Australia. The Western Electric
company has supply houses in the
principal cities, with a force of thou
sands of men who install switch
boards for the Bell Telephone in all
parts of the country
Altho supposedly divorced by the
interstate commerce commission un-
der President Taft's administration,
the Western Electric and the Western
Union are interlocked as much as
ever. The Western Union uses the
Bell telephone wires made at West
ern Electric, to transmit messages.
The automatic machines used by
Western Electric are made and in
stalled by the Western Electric, and
leased" to the Western Union Tele-
graph company.
The telephone service of the Bell
Telephone company, which owns 9S
per cent of the total stock of the
Western Electric company is going
from bad to worse. The change to
the automatic dial system involves
hundreds of millions of dollars and
employment for thousands of men and
women.
Why is not the project carried thru
to completion, in view of the fact that
the Bell system and the Western Elec-
trio had the best year in their history
in 1923, reaping enormous profits
which have not been re-invested in
expansion?
Ask Western Electric.
Any investigation conducted by the
city council with regard to telegraph
and telephone rates is farce as long
as the council does not call in the
Western Electric company and the
Bell system and demand to know why
this change to the dial system, which
supposedly would improve service
and check unemployment, is not car
rled thru.
Huge public utilities projects have
been broached within the last year. In
their "hot air" literature, distributed
to the employees, the Western Elec-
trio boasts that employment is never
slack because the demand for pub
lie utilities is constant. Yet the West
ern Electric has laid off nine thou
sand men and the change to the auto
matte dial system has been suspended.
If the dial system project were al
lowed to proceed full blast, service
would be greatly increased, and the
Western Electric would be forced to
employ more men instead of laying off
their force. The Western Electric
would hire thousands Of men to make
the automatic dials and install them.
Organized Workers Should Lead.
Muscle Shoals is another electric
project which in the near future will
open up large new fields in the cleo
trical industry. But, as an old-time
electrical worker pointed out to the
DAILY WORKER, instead of allowing
engineers. and profit greedy capital
lists to open up these new electrical
projects, the Electrical Workers un-
ion should guide the expansion.
"If Muscle Shoals opens up under
Ford or any other private capitalist,
it will be scab project, hiring only
non-union men, and the organized
electrical workers will receive a set
back instead of a boost" this man told
the DAILY WORKER.
"Organized labor must see to It
that these projects go ahead. But the
change to the dial system in Chicago
should be directly under the guidance
Of the city council, and the Chicago
Federation Of Labor should see to IL
the project is carried on under strict
ly union conditions.
''1n the same way the Muscle Shoals
project should be developed by the
government, but with the electrical
workers union debating the condi-
tions under which their members
shall work in the project, and insist
ing on the immediate unionization OF