The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-02-21
TEXTILE LORDS
NOW CUT PAY
IN WOOL MILLS
Workers Held Down by
Reactionary Leaders
CONTINUED from page u

Apparently the textile barons have
understood this idea and have based
their strategy upon it. For, while
cutting the cotton mills one by one,
cautiously isolating and defeating one
group of cotton textile workers at a
time, the wage-cutting noise has been
carefully kept out Of the wooden mills.
Open, frank announcements of "ten
per cent" wage cuts (often amounting
to Is and % per cent in fact, but
called 10 per cent? have been posted
on the walls OF cotton mills. But
nothing of the sort in the wooden
mills.
Violation Of Promise.
All of the frictions that have been
found in the wooden mills in the pre-
sent period-the past few weeks
have come out of something else than
announcements of wage cuts. For In
stance, the Middleboro strike arose
out of the attempt to slip in two kinds
of filing on a two-loom job in vio-
lation of a promise made more than
year ago, when big wage cut was
accepted on the promise.
Now comes the trouble in the big
Atlantic Mills, known popularity in the
Olneyville section of Providence as
''the Delaine mill"
There has been no cut in the At
lantic Mills"-as far as you could
prove it.
It's Like CROSSWORD Puzzle.
The only trouble is that weavers
who we're making $S5 a week are now
only getting about $40 week for 80
per cent more of labor.
And the superintendent can prove
that there has been no cut.
That is the riddle that is agitating
the working class community of Oh
NEVILLE: How is it that weavers'
wages are 43 per cent lower, altho
there has not been any cut, and there
couldn't have been a cut because if
there had been a cut there would have
been a strike?
No strike-no cut. No cut-no
strike. But 4s per cent less wages.
This queer business began six
months ago, when the superintendent
came around to show the weayers
how they could make more money"
1t was at that time that the campaign
was begun which has since been de-
sscribed by an organ of the mill own
ers with the words: who ought tc
be the labor leaders in the textile in
dustry? The mill agents, superintend.
ents and overseers." At that time,
all of sudden, all over New England
and the South as well, the mill bosses
began taking a deep personal interest
in the welfare of every mill worker,
both cotton and wool, ito see that they
got more money" In the Atlantic
mill in Providence the superintendent
began being the Tabor leader" by
showing the weavers that in shop No.
5 on fine worsted dress goods, they
could run three looms with no more
sxertion than two" and thereby make
more money.
How Trick Worked.
Then, when the weavers got broken
in to three looms, the superintendent
gave them what is called a different
style of goods to make. 1t looked the
same as the former goods, and took
similar material, same kind of filing,
but it had a different name-and the
piece-work pay was different. While
the former goods paid the weaver $12
per "cut" chat is, per roll of cloth,)
the new goods paid the weaver So per
cut.
After about six months of this the
weavers suddenly woke up to the
fact that in simple arithmetic So is
two-thirds of $12, and two looms is
two-thirds of three looms, and that
they were weaving the same kind of
goods with changed name. There
fore, they had had their amount OF
production increased so per cent, in
theory-50 per cent more work for1
theoretically the same pay. And the
work had become vastly more compli.
Gated. Seventeen-harness" work had
been put in on three-loom jobs. The
former 10O-yard cuts had increased to
110-yard cuts.
Make Less Money.
Then the weavers began comparing
pay envelopes and disclosed that
where they had been making $35 a
week, they were now lucky to get $40
out of a weeks work. They are max
ing less money running three looms
than they formerly made running two.
But the pay has not bee cut" For
II the pay had been cut in the wooden |
mills there would have been a strike.
Then look at the loom-hxers. Loom
axers are highly skilled experts, prac.
tically always they are workers who
first learend weaving from A to z, and,
having gained thoro mastery of the
loom, graduated into fixers. Loom fix.
ers' pay is about $40 to $42 week.
More 4 oonaa per Mar