The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-05-23
AVERAGE WAGES
50 PER CENT OF
UNIONS SCALE
Police Arrest 600 I'm
employed in Day
IN Worker C0rrespondentl

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla, (By
MaiD.-I want to tell you how our
union was broken up.
was a member of the Oklahoma
City Sign Painters Union for a long
time. We had about fifty members
Then the Commercial Club, or, as
some call it, the Chamber of Com
merce got busy.
1t was done this way When one of
the $50 drug stores here wanted paint
ing all they had to do was to phone
to any Of the three big ice cream
manufacturers and tell them they
would handle their ice cream. The
ice cream people would then give them
all the work they wanted free. Often
it amounted to hundreds of dollars
worth. They promised them anything
they might want in the future
Privilege Signs"
The 700 grocery stores got all the
free work they wanted if they would
handle Campbell bread. The cigar
stores, and they are everywhere
would agree to handle a certain brand
of cigars and the tobacco people would
have all kinds of free signs painted
This practice even spread to the res
taurants and other lines of business
This free work is called privilege
signs"
Naturally when the union sign
painter saw the trade of the entire
city ruined, and his former customers
all gone, he applied to the advertisers
for work. He was everywhere told
that while the advertisers were in the
mari,et for good workmen. the paint
ers would be expected to work for
considerably less than ten dollars a
day. That is the union scale so that
they We're being asked to give their
lahor away.
Then came the hard times and ?
DOOR fellow was glad to get work at
any price. The average pay remained
much over 500 below the union scale.
Con any union in the east, or any,
where else for that matter. ever sur
vlyo such cut in wages?
AS consequence one after another
dropped out of the union until only
se'-"n were left and finally it blew up
entirely
Destroyed.
'ere we have a big city of from
10000 to 100000 people and the sign
rainters' union is utterly DESTROYED
by the chamber of commerce. I have
ret a good many sign painters from
other cities and they tell me that the
same conspiracy is taking place, or
is beginning, in other places also.
They don't cut your wages here
100 as they do in the east. but so or
1870 and then fix it so a fellow has,
to stand it.
Oklahoma City is literally an OPEN
shop town filled with unemployed and
it always will be filled with unem-
ptoyed. The workman fortunate
enough to have a job at all. has so
lgie money that the chamber of COM
merce stores with which he deals
have in a large measure gone broke
Walk around the town and everv-
where you will find empty stores
You don't see scores of them but hun
dreds. Look to right and left. any,
where you want to 90, and there are
big red "For Rent" signs in every
window.
II an unemployed worker takes q
flop in one of these vacant buildings
and the cops get him he flops for the
next thirty DAYS in the city jail
The Jungle.
The favorite flop camp is the
Jungle" south of the town on the
Canadian River, east of the Santa Fe
railroad. Several hundred men are
there all day and all night. 1t doesn't
DO the cops bit of good to tell them
to move on, as swarms of new work
ers come in every day and the bulls
have given it up.
Over 600 got pinched few DAYS
ago. The tax payers raised a crv
about the city's having to pay out
S3.15 a week apiece to feed these
rlen. So the officials had to turn
them loose. but told them to get out
of town. / don't think single one
left. A peculiar situation was brought
out. Everybody wants to be arrested
as a vag so as to get three meals
day and place to flop. The cops are
on to it, and everybody is giving the
bulls the horse laugh. The city and
the county jails are both full. We
have a police court with two sessions
a day and nine justice courts with
daily sessions and the county courts
are crowded with unemployed defend
ants.
Come west, boys. and beat the high
cost of living u II