The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-03-14
$4,000 WORKERS,
UNORGANIzED, IN
HAWTHORNE unit
Speed-up, Gang System,
Wage Cheating, Reign
(By a Worker CorYespondent.)

(Bg q PHOrEeT C0fTCSpORuenJ.J
CICERO, ILL.,, (By MaiD. - The
American Telephone and Telegraph
Co., Of which the Western Electric
Company is a manufacturing division,
is certainly the largest, and claims to
be the most democratic" industrial
organization in the world, having over
100000 stockholders and more en-
ploye stockholders than any other
company in the world.
Exploitation, Speed-up,
But it doesn't take long for the
worker to find out the facts about
this industrial democracy" at the
American Tel and Tel. Hawthorne
plant. The most intensified eXploita-
ton, the ever-increasing speed-up sys-
tenn and low wages is the order there.
The company is spending a lot OF
money to fool the workers, to keep
them content, docile, blind and ignor-
ant of the fact that they are inten-
sively exploited. The company has
factory and corporation newspapers,
filled with the usual bunk, which are
given free to workers. 1t has old-age
pension homes, employee stock pur-
chase plans, free vacations and many
other attractions which sound good
but are in reality sheer hypocrisy.
PensiOns-But You Never Get Them.
Under old age pension plan, the
company is perfectly safe. Long
hours of hard daily grind and unheal-
thy working conditions wear out the
workers fast They have become use
less for the company long before they
are eligible for old age pension.
When a worker gets hurt he is first
bawled out by half a dozen bosses
then sent to the plant hospital where
the company butchers patch him up
and send him right back to the fac
tory, even if he has to crawl to get
there If he can't do his work other
workers have to make it up under the
rotten gang piece-work system which
the bosses are trying to install all
over the plant.
Gang System.
Under this system, the worker
never knows what the production OF
the gang is and has no right to in
quire. AS changes and improvements
are made, their cost is deducted from
the gang workers wages. But when
these improvements lead to increased
production the rates are cut.
AS an example of increasing speed
up, few years ago it took two eight
hours to assemble a case of loading
coils which requires about 1900
spices. Now it is done in three and
one half hours.
Improved machinery is rapidly re-
placing the workers. Last year hun
dreds Of coil winding machines, oper
ated by men, were replaced by ma
chimes that work twice as fast and
are operated by girls who work at
lower wages.
The company has a clever scheme
for reducing the wages of workers
either by laying them off during slack
periods and hiring them back at lower
wages, or by transferring them from
one department to another.
Each department has its own min
imum and maximum wage scale.
Workers remaining in one department
for number of years, if they meas
IRE up to all the bosses requirements,
may get a pittance Of wage increases
Of one or two cents per hour a year.
This makes them work hard under
the false hope of improving their
conditions.
After a number Of years, the work
er having wasted his energy, ambition
and health is either laid off or trans
ferred to other departments and start
ed at bottom wages again.
All the $4,000 workers at the Haw-
thorne plant, Chicago are morgan
lied and anyone who mentions the
unions win be given the gate. These
are but a few examples of the indus
trial democracy" in the telephone
industry. E.