The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-09-08


sary preparations for the strike. 1t sabotaged
the organization of the unorganzed. 1t has
signed up individual agreements 1t has be-
trayed the cause of national agreement. 1t
has split the movement by ousting everybody
from the union who wants militant struggle
1t is cutting off relief from every striking
miner who dares to criticize it. 1t is trying to
enforce a yellow dog pledge of starvation. The
last vestiges of democracy have been eradicated
from the union. Lewis stole the elections. The
Lewis machine is not leadership set up by
the rank and file, but leadership set up with
the aid of the bosses the rank and file.
From June to December, 1927 while the strik-
ing miners were starving dollar or two
week relief Lewis drew S11 093.66 in salary
and personal expenses
This is CHASTITY picture, but coal diggers
who have been in the struggle know that it
is plain picture of the facts.
After having carried the struggle against
the mine workers to the point where it ap-
peared to the anti-union experts that
touch of the hand would cause complete
collapse of unonism in the industry, John
L. Lewis himself suddenly announced that
the strike was over, that the Jacksonville
scale must be abandoned for a drastic
lowering of all standards, and that every
district should desert the struggle for ma
tional agreement, each making what scab
arrangements could be made with individual
bosses or in separate fields.
By the hand of John L. Lewis the United
Mine Workers of America is dead.
But the will of the mine workers to fight
for their rights as men, is only brought to
its final strength by this blow of treason.
From all over the United States are
gathering in Pittsburgh the representatives
of the most militant fighting mine workers
of all parts of the country.
These men are going to form the nation
wide Union of the coal industry.
They bring with them all the heroic ira
ditions of the old Union. They bring with
they bring the courage and they will gen.
crate the power to defend the cause
The Union they form will become the
backbone of the trade union movement dur
ing the next period. But it will be some
thing more than the United Mine Workers
Union was, for these are different times
and different conditions. AS the old union
was the backbone of the organized trade
union movement-but even at that the back
bone of a hunchback, of a dwarfed and
stunted trade union movement-the new
National Miners Union will be the back
bone of finer, greater, stronger trade
union movement.
The coal mining situation is not alone in
a vacuum. The whole labor movement of
the world, including particularly the United
States, is now undergoing the most feroci-
Gus attacks for its destruction. News
from England today is enough to show that
not alone here but also throughout other
countries the trade union bureaucracy is en-
gagged in helping the capitalist class in the
effort to force the whole of our class on it's
knees Opportunist trade union leaders"
and socialist" leaders are in the fight which
can only result in the destruction of the
unions or the destruction of themselves by
the workers.
The present convention in Pittsburgh will
not only build great, fighting union for
themselves, but in the same act they will
build fighting front for the working class
against the bosses and against the traitors
who are butchering the labor movement
from within.
The coal miners of the entire country
must rally to this convention. To pay dues
any longer to John l.. Lewis national and
district organizations would be only to
supply the sinews of war against the mine
workers.
All support the new National Miners