The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-08-16
TOBACCO MILL
WORKERS SLAVE
FOR BIG TRUST
Reynolds Co. Maintains
Vast Spy System
By ART SHIELDS

] w A4N0 OAN-AD<1lIl1AA ~ W "
They fire employees for 'Fdisloy-
atty" at the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco
Company plants in Winston-Salem,
where 10000 men and women turn
out Camels, Prince Albert, Soud
and varieties of plug and scrap with
the aid of automatic machines. 1t
may be that the offending worker
is highly efficient, but as the boss
makes out the time card company
stool pigeon murmurs something
about "disloyalty"
"Disloyalty" takes many forms.
Sometimes it is membership in the
forbidden union, ferreted out by a
spy, or the discovery of pack of
cigarettes of some rival company in
the workers pocket when the boss
searches the dressing room. All
loyal employees are expected to use
Camels only, whether they like them
or not. Again, "disloyalty" may be
the failure to buy company stock,
or perhaps the worker, moved by
compassion, protests against over
tasking a woman or weak old man.
Slavery.
"Never say that conditions in the
R. J. Reynolds plants are verging
on slavery" said Edward L. Crouch,
international organizer for the To-
bacco Workers, in talking to the
Federated Press. "They are slav-
cry" Crouch knows conditions,
having lived in Winston-Salem
nearly all his life and worked in
the Reynolds factories 10 years.
There is no freedom of speech in
the big tobacco mills that press
grimly on the streets near the city
square. A young man who operates
an automatic cigarette machine
found this out. He had been watch
ing a girl sweat and strain at a new
packing machine that uses two girls
where nine were formerly required.
The machine has heavy fly wheel
the girls must turn, either with
their feet at the risk of broken legs,
or with the arms and the weight of
their bodies, as this girl was doing
The girl paused, flushed and ex-
hausted, and asked the young man
what he thought of such work.
an tell you: l wouldn't let my
wife or any sister of mine do it" he
replied indignantly.
Stool Pigeon.
A second girl was the only other
listener, but she was stool-pigeon.
He was summoned to the super
intendent's office, asked to repeat
the remark, and was given his time
in full.
Average pay at Reynolds is less
than $11 a week. 1t is hard enough
to get flour, meal, coffee and
beans without buying company
stock in addition as loyal employees
are desired to do. For the great
majority it is impossible. This
stock goes by the name of "insur-
ance," for it is supposed to insure
the job, though it does not always
do this.
Indeed, loyalty is no guaranty OF
job safety. The company's policy is
to fire the high-pay workers and
put cheaper hands in their places
An automatic cigarette machine
operator, for instance, may begin at
% cents an hour and in 10 days he
has learned his job. If he survives
the loyalty test his wages are
gradually raised, a half cent az
hour at time, provided he nags the
foreman about it in a cautious way
Ten years later he may be getting
48 cents an hour, the maximum
Then one day the boss sadly tells
him that business is bad, and his
machine must be shut down, but
that when business is better he will
be taken back. Day after day there
after the worker haunts the en-
ployment office in wait for his old
job.
Fix Fixes You.
At the employment office is a
gentleman named Mr.. Fix-and the
workers, making pun on his name,
say he fixes them good and plenty.
After the operator has been waiting