The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-07-31
PACKING HOUSE
SLAVES IN NEED
OF SHOP PAPER
Thousands Exploited
in Kansas City
(By a Worker Correspondent


KANSAS CITY (By Mail).-In
no other city have the real estate
and merchant capitalists developed
such an effective system of spread
ing lies and misinformation in their
campaign of boosting Kansas City.
If one read the ads in the news
papers, movies, street cars and every
other conspicuous place he would be
led to believe that Kansas City is
the greatest city in the world and
a paradise to live in. Truly, the
stupid local patriotism of the bah
bits has reached such grotesque
dimensions as to exhibit in the
course of the republican convention
placards bearing such Inscriptions
as kansas City, the Heart of
America" "The Heart of the
World"
Of course the intent purpose of
this campaign is to impress the
minds of the workers with local pa
triotism in order to distract their at
tention from the real issues and
problems that confront them.
OF course the capitalists have rea-
son to be proud of Kansas City. If
America symbolizes ruthless ex-
ploitation and suppression of the
working class then Kansas City
truly earns the title of being called
the Heart of America" For of all
the big cities in the United States
Kansas City is the worst open-shop
city of all. The incredibly low
wages, long hours of work, bad
working and living conditions of the
workers have become proverbial
throughout the southwest. With the
breaking of the great packing house
strike the local capitalists have sue
ceeded in making Kansas City safe
for the capitalists. No wonder it is
fast becoming the mecca of the great
open-shop interests.
The capitalists may boast of Kan
sas City as growing to be the
metropolis of the southwest, but
what do the workers get out of this ?
Kansas City may be the home of the
second largest worlds packing and
flour mill center, it may be an i'm
portant railroad center, it may have
many steel mills, soap factories,
garment shops, with it's mail order
house concerns, employing close to
10000 workers, it my be the dis
tributing center of the southwest,
but ali this does not mean that the
working population has a great
share in reapipg the fruits of these
industries.
On the contrary, the conditions of
the workers in the Kansas City in
dnstrial establishments are unbear-
able. No wonder that many manu-
facturers from the north and east
are moving their plants here. Ford
has built up large assembling
plant; the General Motors Corpora
ton is building big Chevrolet and
Fisher Boy plant; the Fulton Bag
Manufacturing Company is opening
up a plant which will employ 600
workers. The local capitalist news
papers are trying to explain this mi
grafton of industry to Kansas City,
because of the city's strategic posi-
ton, but this is not the sole reason.
The real reason is because of low
wages and lack of union organization
among the workers. The packing
house worker gets from 40 to 55
cents an hour. The majority of the
railroad workers make from SO to SIS
day. Especially are the common
laborers exploited, of whom great
numbers are employed on the rail-
way building, road and other con-
struction jobs. The bulk of them
get % cents, 35 and 40 cents per
hour. Very few get 40 and AZ cents
per hour. The working day is 10
hours. The Kansas City Public
Service Company, in carrying out it's
52-mile road construction, is paying
80 cents an hour. The Union
Pacific, the Missouri Pacific and the
katy lines pay 35 cents an hour. 1t
would take pages to list the large
companies paying low wages.
Many companies set a special