The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-03-28
GO BACK TO JOB
UNORGANIzED;
same HOURS
Still Getting Starvation
Wages
81 a Worker Correspondent,


CHATTANOOGA, Tenn, (By
faiD.-The facts about the betrayal
OF the strikers at the American
Glanzstoff and Bemburg Rayon
Corporations at Elizabethton are as
follows:
The strike was completely sold out
by the A. F. of L. officialdom. Those
who participated in the strike be-
trayal were Alfred Hoffman, south
ern representative of the United
Textile Workers and Paul J. Aymon.
president of the Tennessee Fedora
ton of Labor.
The 5000 rayon workers of the
Bemberg and Glanzstoff plants were
sold out by the A. F. of L. and Uni
ted Textile Workers.
Men received an average increase
of 20 per cent. Women workers Is
cents an hour for the first three
weeks, 20 cents per hour for the
next three weeks, and % cents per
hour after that. When they become
efficient" they are to get "a cents
an hour, so the settlement states.
The plants remain open shop, I'M
der this betrayal.
The men and women slaves who
walked out on strike were fighting
against a wage scale of starvation.
They are betrayed into going back
under another starvation scale.
In the inspection and Keeling de-
partments, manned almost entirely
by girls in their teens, the pay ran
from 16 to Is cents an hour for a
Sc hour week, with a weekly pay
averaging between $3.50 and SOTO.
Under the sell-out settlement by the
takers of the United Textile Work
ers and the A. F. of L., they are to
get Is cents an hour still for the
next three weeks after the strike;
for three weeks after this, an in
crease of 2 cents an hour, and three
weeks after that-the grand sum of
% cents an hour, all in all gain
of cents an hour. This means they
will never be able to get more than
S12 week. Their Sc hour week re-
mains unchanged under the sell-out.
As for the vague promise" Of "a
cents an hour in some future time
when the women workers become
efficient" we all know what that
means.
Boys Little over IS man the
twisting department. They received
before the strike % to 27 cents an
hour-averaging for the week $12.88
and $14.56. Under the sell-out set
Element they are promised between
S14 and $3.50.
Full grown men were getting 25
cents an hour in the spinning and
washing departments. Since there
were three eight-hour shifts, giving
the men S12 week, they will now
get S14.40 a week.
The pay ran from 25 to 80 cents
an hour in the shredding depart
nent. Adult men work here. They
average S12 week. Now they will
average $14.40 a week.
The bonus system of speed up is
in force in all departments, and the
United Textile Union takers never
thought of making a demand for its
end. The rayon workers go back to
Bemberg and Glanzstoff Mills with
this rotten slave-driving plan still to
speed them up.
Most of the workers did not and
will not average even the amounts
given above. They never made quite
that much.
The bobbing cleaners get less than
S12 week. From a strike of slaves
who started out with the object of
getting better conditions, and much
bigger wages than they even get
under the settlement, it developed
into a cry for a union. But they fell
into the hands of the United Textile
Workers, and now they are back
with a slight, negligent increase in
wages, the same long hours, bonus
and other speed up systems, and no
union.
Elizabethton is typical southern
industrial town. The rayon workers
in the Glanzstoff and Bemberg
plants came here from hills and
mountains of eastern Tennessee.
North Carolina and Virginia. Most
of them came from farms and small
towns, and very few ever saw fac
tory before coming here.