The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-05-12
PENNSYLV ANIA
LABOR is FACING
MANY PROBLEMS
State Federation to Meet
at Erie
(continued from page y.

state.
1t also tried to show how Pittsburgh
occupies a strategic position in the
world OF industry and trade. In this
forward week it showed that 500 of
the ammunition in the world war was
gotten from Pittsburgh. At the same
this Forward Week. was going on,
the chamber of commerce started a
membership drive in Pittsburgh. It
secured 5000 new members in the
one week. Now the body has $3.50
members in good standing.
This shows the necessity for the la
Dor movement Of Pennsylvania
awakening and starting its own For
ward Week" M
Instead of showing the wonderful
things that the workers have made to
make Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania
what 1t is, the labor movement must
show to the world at large what
Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania really is
and means. During the chamber of
commerce week, nothing was said of
the 2,2O9 deaths that occurred in build
ing up these industries Of Pennsylva-
mia, nor did it say anything of the
$4,000 miners incapacitated by acct
dents in the bituminous and anthracite
coal fields. 1t is UP to the State Fed
Grafton of Labor to see that this kind
of campaign is started, and that this
campaign be utilized for organizing
the hundreds of thousands Of workers
who are now unorganized in Pennsyl-
vania. The excuse that the Fedora
ton of Labor has no jurisdiction over
organizing the unorganized workers of
this state must be done away with at
this convention. This convention must
be utilized for putting real fighting
spirit into the workers of Pennsylva-
mia. 1t must demand that not only an
organizational drive be started in
Pennsylvania, but that the American
Federation Of Labor must Immediately
start drives to organize the morgan
lied workers Of the United States.
Certain basic industries such as
steel and coal should, be concentrated
on. The delegates that will go to the
next American Federation of Labor
convention must not only introduce
resolution, but must fight to have
these resolutions adonted and put into
effect.
The drive among be miners of
Pennsylvania in the BE region and
in the Latrobe and r. n fields will be
one way to check thu open shop drive
and the s!ashing of W ses in which the
Pittsburgh chamber 4 commerce is
taking such an active part.
Not only in Pennsylvania must this
drive be started but in West Virginia
among the coal miners to organize the
unorganized with the backing of the
entire labor movement of the United
States, for we find that Kentucky and
West Virginia produce 70 per cent OF
the bituminous coal that is used in the
United States. 1t means that as long
as the West Virginia and Kentucky
fields are the paradise Of the non
union coal barons, just as long will the
coal miners of Western Pennsylvania,
Central Pennsylvania and Illinois and
other union fields be starved and just
so long will the coal operators try to
smash the United Mine Workers in
the different territories where they
now have their foot hold.
The key to the situation is to "Or-
ganize the Unorganized," of West Vir-
ginia, Connellsville Coke Region and
Kentucky. At the same time the labor
movement must Immediately start an
intensive organizational campaign to
organize the thousands of steel work
ers, especially in the state of Pennsyl-
vania. We find that the Amalgamated
Steel Workers Association has spent
$4,000 in trying to organize the steel
workers but has got only 100 new
members for all the money that was
spent in the organization drive. And
in the same period it lost three
hundred members. The workers Of the
United States must learn even from
the chamber Of commerce how to con-
duct organization drives.
ne Important lulHB bhoI bhO III 10
convention must consider is the organ
ization Of the young workers in the diff
ferent industries of Pennsylvania. The
young workers have been used by en-
ployers as a means OF breaking down
the trade unions and as a means Of
scabbing on strikers in different indus
tries. The majority oflthe young work
ers are employed in the semi-skilled
and unskilled work. They are prac-
tically all unorganized. They must
Immediately be organized and agita-
ton must be carried on among them in
the different forms, such as calling OF
youth conferences where specific de-
mands will be brot up and discussed
and ways and means OF fighting for
these demands be worked out. Local
unions must take up specific youth
problems at their meetings, in trying
to bring in the youth and making the
union meetings more interesting. The
above constitutes only some OF the