The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-09-13
100000 SLAVES IN
MOL TEN HELLS;.
5000 ARE IN union
Big Corporation Buys
Up Officials, Police
by a Worker Correspondent

& by a Worker Correspondent
7nPTTTSBURGH, Pa. (By MaiD. -
The steel workers of this country
stand as an unparalleled example of
the need of organization. For of all
the workers in the country who are
supposed to have some skill in their
FORK they have a smaller member
ship in the organized membership
Of the American Federation of La
Dor, in proportion to the number
employed in the steel industry, than
any other body within that organ
3ization. Of all the skilled and semi
skilled craftsmen in this country
which the officials of the Fedora
ton claim control there are less
members IN the Amalgamated As
ISOLATION of Iron, Steel and Tin
Plate Workers, and more non-union
and open shops in which no men,
bers of the Iron and Steel organ
iation can be found than in any of
many thousands of workers are en-
ployed. In the whole industry in
the country there are working,
when the industry is running at ca
pacity, about six hundred thousand
skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled
workers and out of that vast whole
it is doubtful if there are six thou
sand bona fide steel and iron work.
ers in the Amalgamated Associa-
ton.
Open Shop.
The steel mills of the country,
both Bessemer and open hearth, are
notorious for their lack of organ
'zation. Notwithstanding the fact
that the men are exploited under
the most inhuman speed-up system.
The blast furnaces of the country
have been open shop and non-union
throughout the history of their ex-
istance as part of the huge iron and
steel trust, and even earlier than
the formation of the trust, the men
who worked in the blast furnaces
were mercilessly exploited, thru
long hours, in the exhausting heat
fro the barest existance wage. The
trust have ruthlessly used their pri-
vate army of coal and iron police,
and their espionage system of stool
pigeons, and private detectives, to
keep out any organizers and break
up any attempt to organize these
wage workers. No union has ever
been permitted to get a foot hold
in the steel mills or the blast fur
races of this country since the
Homestead strike.
Not even in the great effort of
1919 when Bill Foster made one of
the most determined attempts to
organize the steel workers was the
organization allowed to take deep
root in the mills, by the officers of
the steel trusts turnout the coun-
try. In that strike they used every
force at their command to break up
the union, before those in charge
were allowed to consolidate the
ranks of those who had joined the
new union. Of course to these eff
forts of the Garey's must be added
the open and secret sabotage Of
this work by the reactionary Off
cialdom of the American Fedora
ton of Labor, who did their best
to see that no organization was al
lowed to get start in the steel
mills and blast furnaces of the
trusts.
Divisions of Workers.
One of the difficulties that must
be faced in the organization Of the
steel workers will be that this in
dustry is divided into a great many
different kinds Of fabrication plants
as well as into many different kinds
of production plants. The organ
izers of the steel workers must
reckon on going into tube mills, pipe
mills, rail mills, rod mills, nail mills,
mills where they turn out armour
plate for battleships, tin and sheet
mills where they turn out the metal
for the bodies Of automobiles and
trucks, and many other plants in
which the steel workers are en-
ployed and in which we must carry
on in our organizing campaign.
Steel in City Politics.
The steel trusts have learned a
lesson in their numerous campaigns
against the workers for the open
shop, that it would be we'll If the
workers would take to heart, They
are always found buttressed in the
numerous political offices in the
towns where their plants are oper-
ated. In Homestead, Braddock,
Rankin, McKeesport, McKees Rocks
and the other small boros and
towns in and around Pittsburgh,
taking this city as an example,
every office of any note is in the
hands of some tool of the big cor
oorations. In Woodlawn, a suburb
~ Diftc bttf.ob The Tnpac arI a,,.-L.