The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-09-06
100000 SLAVE
m INDUSTRIAL
IGNORING THEM
Women Among
72 Delegates

5ANANOy SIPS' ~ "
delegates to the Trade Union Unity
League Convention enthusiastically
adopted proposals for organization
IN connection with the new national
union center to reach the great
masses of unorganized women in in
dustry throughout the country.
Meeting in a special conference, "
women workers representing IA in
dustries heard reports calling fol
organization in each industry and
resolved upon campaign of action.
The women's conference recog-
nized that one of the major tasks OF
the Trade Union Unity League will
be to organize S,500,000 women
workers, still practically morgan
lied. Rose Wortis, of the Needle
Trades Workers Industrial Union, in
opening the session, pointed out that
in spite of rapidly increasing num-
bers of women in industry, the
American federation of Labor has
entirely ignored the whole problem.
Where formerly women were CEN
tered largely in the lighter indus
tries, today they are exploited also
in war industries and in heavy in
dustry generally; numbers of women
auto workers increased by 40S per
cent and women steel workers by
las per cent in ten years.
Negro Woman Delegate.
Delegate Voyce, Negro representa-
tive from a Ladies' Auxiliary, Ma
tional Miners Union, and chairman
Of the women's conference, was one
of seven representatives from min
ers' auxiliaries. A steel worker,
Katharine Mylan, of Wheeling, W.
Va, described the need for organ
ization among women steel workers
and ended with a ringing call to all
rank-and-file workers, ave are not
going to wait for speakers to be
sent to US. We are going to make
speakers out of ourselves"
Textile workers, South and North,
cotton and silk, were we'll represent
ed by eight women delegates from
Gastonia, New Bedford, Bethlehem,
Pa, and other centers. Daisy Mac
Donald, one of the Gastonia strikers
who showed such splendid fighting
spirit on the picket line, appealed
for more organizers in the southern
textile field. Anna Burlak, young
silk worker and one of the two wo-
men representatives elected to the
National Committee of the T.U.U.L.,
spoke for the young workers who
are outnumbering old women in the
textile industries. Mary Correia of
New Bedford brought enthusiastic
applause by her appeal to married
women mot to make excuses of their
husbands"
For the 16 women delegates from
garment trades, Yaninskaya, who
organized the Needle Trades Work
ers Industrial Union, described
successful organization methods in
the Boston field.
Expose A. F. of L.
Chicago mattresses were repre-
scented by Alma Polkoff who de-
scribed the failure of the A. F. of L.
Mattresses Union, which has done
nothing to organize $4,000 wait
resses in the city, among whom are
10000 Negroes. Only in the Russian
Workers Cooperative restaurant have
the workers union conditions. Among
other women who spoke on condi-
tions in their industries were dele
gates Ross of the Chicago electrical
workers, Getz and Morrison of the
Detroit auto workers, representa-
tive of laundry workers in Washing
ton, D. c., and delegate from the
Shoe and Leather Workers Industrial
Union who told of woman's depart
ment in the new union, giving wo.
men an opportunity never granted
in any old A. F. of L. union.
Women workers demands include
equal pay for equal work, sthe seven
hour day, five-day week, prohibition
of night work, protection for mother
and child, especially in the period
before and after child birth and so.
.ial insurance against unemployment
illness and old age. With a splen.
did spirit of determination womer
delegates went home from the
Cleveland convention ready to fight
for these demands in the unions al
ready organized and to work for the
organization of over 100000 un
organized women workers.