The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-07-07
ILLINOIS BOSSES
IN DOUBLE DRIVE
AGAINST UNIONS
Use Blacklist and Stock
Ownership Scheme
By CARL HAEssLER

CHICAGO, July 6 (FP) Within
a single week the Illinois Manufac-
turers Association has permitted the
curtain to be drawn back from two
subtle activities against organized
labor. The first binds the worker to
his job by stock-owning substitutes
for good wages. The second keeps
him out of a job by the blacklist dis
guised as physical examination.
The Old Stock Scheme
The association, which has always
been hostile to unions under the lead
ership of the late John M. Glenn, has
a president who doesn't care where
he spills his beans. "There is moth
, ing like financial interest in bust
ness to stimulate the best efforts of
the working force, from the bench
hand to the president" declares Pres
ident James D. Cunningham of the
association, glorying in the extent Of
the employe-ownership drive.
Figures accompanying Cunning
hams statement show that employees
constitute about a fifth of all stock
holders in the 487 Illinois corpora
lions studied in the associations sur
vey. They own Is per cent of the
stock Everybody on the corporation
payrolls is counted as an employee
which explains Cunningham's further
statement that Sin quite number
of companies all the stock was held
by employees" 1t means that the
president and other high employees of
the corporation are the boys that hold
most of the stock and control the
works
Here and there the wage workers
hold share or two apiece, tied to
the corporation by a tiny financial
interest, unwilling to risk strike to
Z improve wages or shorten hours.
Stockowning "gives employees bet
ter understanding of industrial prob
lens" Cunningham candidly remarks.
'Iive-Longer" Racket
The other development is CAM
paign by director Samuel M. Hast
ings of the Illinois Manufacturers As
ISOLATION to have corporations join
the Live Longer Club. This is a
-camouflage for enforcing physical ex-
aminations on all their employees.
"You can require your employees
to take physical examinations on their
application for employment" Hast
ings declares in an open letter to the
association members. Urge them to
continue these examinations once a
year. Twice year would be better"
Then to conceal the real purpose of
the live-longer racket, he adds:easa
Promise that physical examina
tions will not interfere with the en-
ployes' jobs or chances with the COM
papy."
Hastings enumerates as benefits to
employers from the examination of
their men reducing accidents, keeping
contagious diseases out of the factory,
fitting the worker to the job where
he can make good, etc. But the most
valuable feature to the boss, Hastings
says, is that. it "gives employers a
VdluhtHe TSCOIO VI plly oiS"i SOANi-
TONS"
The value of that record is almost
as great as actual fingerprints. A
union man can dye his hair, shave his
moustache, get artificial teeth to get
around the blacklist, but he will find
it hard to alter or even to recognize
the various body marks that doc
tor, keer on the scent, will discover
in the physical examination and add
to the valuable record of physical
conditions"
The infinite detail of company
blacklisting and espionage systems,
maintained with great intelligence and
persistence, has recently been ex-
posed by Frank Palmer, Federated
Press correspondent, in his book,
Spies in Steel. The blacklist and spy
operations of the Oliver Iron Mining
Co., the Minnesota steel trust subsi-
diary, are there described. The Uni
yersal Portland Cement Co., another
steel trust subsidiary, is represented
on the board of the Illinois Manufac-
turers Association.