The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-06-03
New UniOnism in GastOnia

from the mill are the most active
strikers. Many carloads of work
turned out in the mill have been re-
turned by the purchaser as unfit for
use. Several small walkouts have
already been engineered in the Lo-
ray mill, and a general walkout was
prevented by the bosses on one &C.
casion only by locking the doors of
the various rooms in the mill,
placing armed guards to prevent the
workers from talking to each other
and instituting a general intimida-
ton.
Those workers who have returned
to work are not to be considered or
binary scabs. Most of them are
friendly to the union, attend the
union meetings and declare that
only starvation prevents them from
joining the strikers. These are the
raw elements who have never ex-
perienced a strike or have never been
in a union, and who ar not yet edu-
Gated to understand the meaning of
their strikebreaking. In some cases
some members of the family are
working, while others are on strike.
The union is gradually teaching
these workers who are sympathetic
to the union and are remaining at
work the meaning of union organ
ization. A new walkout is probable
in the Manville-Jenckes mill.
New Developments.
The strike has gone through a
number of stages and has taught
the workers a number Of lessons,
which will be dealt with in the next
article. The strike has gone through
period of terror. of court action
against the workers, of police and
National Guard brutality, etc. AT
the present time the mill owners are
concentrating on working through
company unions. In the Manville-
Jenckes plant company union has
been organized, called a Committee
of 100," which uses the argument
that the right kind of union is not
Objectionable, but that the N. T. w.
U. is Russian red organization
made up of foreigners and Yankees,
and urging the workers to come into
the company union. The N. T. w.
U. has exposed this new trick of the
bosses and has told of the expert
ences of the Northern workers with
company unions.
Grant Concessions.
Another result of the strike has
been that various mill owners have
granted slight concessions in an at
tempt to stem the tide of organiza-
ton into the N. T. w. U. Some
mills have granted slight increase
in wages, others have repaired the
homes of some of the workers, and
others have announced their inten-
ton to abolish night work. The
Gastonia Gazette of May 20 reports
that large number of mills are
abolishing night work. 1t is toe
early to predict how far the mill
owners will go in this policy of
granting slight concessions, many
of which are only apparent conces-
sions. However, the workers re-
alize that those gains, however
slight, have been won by the activi-
ties of the N. T. w. U. in North
Carolina.
Another feature of the present sit
ration is the fact that the union has
developed local leaders, who are al
ready beginning to act as organizers
for the union, and who speak of the
union policies in the language of the
Southern textile workers themselves.
I have heard, for example, Red Hen
bricks, one Of the leading strikers.
speak eloquently of conditions, o.
the necessity for the adoption of tt,
unions policy of equality in thc
union, regardless of race or color.
(The next article will deal with
the use of terror in the textile
ored.l Al