The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-09-30
'|NTERNAT
RANK and file
IN REBELLION
Demand Fight to Better
Their Conditions
BY OUR N. Y. CORRESPONDENT.
Especial to The Daily Workerl

Especial to The Daily Worker)
NEW YORK, Sept. 2o.-Open
rebellion of the rank and file
workers of the Ladies TaiIors'
Union, Local No. SO of the In
ternationaI Ladies' Garment
Workers, is looked for by left
wing members of the union
when the executive committee
of the union reports to the
membership on Wednesday,
NOct. 1, in Bryant Hall, the re-
suits of the lnternationaI's me-
gotiations with the employers
and the date upon which a
strike will be declared.
The union, under the super
vision of vice-president Samuel
Lefkovits, who has charge of
miscellaneous trades unions for
"The International" will pre-
sent demands for the 40-hour
week, "A weeks yearly work
guaranteed, and a wage in
crease of SIS, or 10 percent.
Claim Deal Already Made.
Trade Union Educational League
members point out that the officials
of "The International" have already
sold out the rank and file and have
actually settled with the bosses.
The strike will be called but will
amount only to stoppage and the
Special Mediation Commission which
Governor AL Smith appointed with the
consent Of the international to ''inTes-
tigate" the cloak trade and offer rec
concentrations will be called in and
the union members sent back to work
under old conditions with the execp-
ton of gaining the wage increase. To
compensate them for increasing
wages, the bosses will deduct two
weeks work from the yearly schedule.
Too Busy Backing LaFoilette.
Most of the organized workers are
Italian and Jewish and there is every
indication, T. U. E. L. members of the
union assert, Nof fight on the part of
the rank and file against the yellow
officialdom who are so interested in
boosting the LaFollette-W Wheeler cam.
paign in hopes of gathering plums in
the political harvest that they will
not let the workers fight for better
conditions from the bosses. The so
cialist officials do not want to be dis
tracted from their political pursuits
to help the workers.
The great difficulty in the Ladies'
Tailors' trade is the tremendous per
centage of unorganized girls, private
dressmakers who fill orders in the
same shops the highly skilled union
tailors work. Whenever the boss can,
he slips some of the less important
work over to his cheap girl help and
the union does not get the support of
the International in fighting the abuse.
In shop of 20 tailors there will be
as many as 200 unorganized girls.
The organizing of these private dress.
makers should be IN the hands OF the
Ladies' Tailors' local because they
are all in the same shops, but the
jurisdiction is actually given to pri-
vate dressmakers' local 80, of the
International which does practically
nothing to organize this mass of ex-
plotted girl workers. These girls are
organized only ahout five ner cent
Best Work; Small Pay
The Ladies' Tailors do all the finest
tailoring work for the custom trade.
They make the most expensive gar
ments. retailing at from $3.50 to $1,000
per garment, and yet the workers av.
erage yearly wage is about $1,100.
The work is crowded into 20 weeks,
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