The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-06-03
ARTICLE II.
By KARL REEVE.

When Fred Beal, organizer for
the National Textile Workers
Union, stood on a stump in front
of the mill gates of the Manville-
Jenckes plant in Gastonia eight weeks
ago and declared the strike on in
the name of the union, new page
had been turned in the class struggle
in the South. For more than year,
over half of the textile workers of
the United States have been located
in the South, and Gastonia is in the
heart of the Southern textile area.
The drawing of the tenant farmers
of the lowlands and the mountain
GERS into the factories in large num-
bers and the accompanying introduce
ton of all of the methods of ex-
ploitation, long practiced in the
Northern industrial centers, sharp
ened the class struggle in the South.
The introduction of the speed-up
system, called in the South the
"stretch-out" system or doubling"
and "tripling up" on top of the
miserably low wages, child labor,
unsanitary conditions, the 12-hour
day, goaded the textile workers to
revolt. The Southern strike wave
has lasted for some months, and will
continue. Along with the intensified
exploitation there came into the
South militant trade union organ
ization.
Attitude Toward the A. F. of l..
The Southern textile workers ac-
cepted readily the leadership of the
left wing National Textile Workers
Union. 1t has been stated that the
textile workers of North Carolina
90 not know the difference between
the American Federation of Labor
union, that is, the United Textile
Workers, and the National Textile
Workers Union, the left wing organ
ization. This is absolutely incorrect.
The textile workers of North Caro-
lima are well acquainted with the
A. F. Of L. textile union and will
have nothing to do with it. The U.
T. w. operated some years ago in
this area and the workers charge
them with stealing the workers
money and deserving them in the
midst Of their struggle against the
mill owners.
]
When Fred Zeal began his organ
ization work last December around
Charlotte, by going from house to
house in the mill villages, a number
of workers at first tried to drive
him away at the point of gun, be-
cause they thought he represented
the United Textile Workers Union,
and it was not until he explained
that this was a different union, a
militant left wing organization, and
not affiliated with the A. F. of L.
that the workers listened to his mes
sage. In the present strike in Gas
tonia the workers speak from the
platform and unanimously denounce
the U. T. w. union as a corrupt or
ganization, with which they will
have absolutely nothing to do. This
is the general sentiment of all the
workers to whom I have spoken in
North Carolina. At the present time
in Lexington an organizer for the
U. T. w. is attempting to break up
the N. T. w. u. but has had no
success. The workers have an
swered that they have had enough
of the A. F. of L. and will stick to
the N. T. w. u.
Permanency of Union in South.
The contrast between the conduct
Of the Gastonia strike by the N. T.
w. U. and the Elizabethton, Tenn,
strike, by the u. T. w. (the latter
/ trying from the first to sell the
workers QUIT has not been lost on
the textile workers of North Caro-
lima. The N. T. W. u. has won the
complete confidence of the workers
Of North Carolina by showing that
it is a permanent institution in the