The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-02-27
BY GRACE NJ. BURNHAM,
Labor Research Association.
(Contilmed)
Fight or Starve."

porters of the corporations, The capitalist
class has itself flung the challenge to the I'M
employed By refusing every avenue of relief.
by defeating every measure for unemployment
insurance, by Haunting wage cuts and addi-
tional layoffs in the face of the workers, the
corporations have pressed the attack until
to the desperate workers there remains but
one alternative: Fight or Starve.
The working class is ripe for action and
eager for militant leadership. They see about
them riotous luxury and the tremendous profits
piled up by the employing class. They see
shops bursting with food with clothing and
with the countless products which capitalist
economy dazzles before the eyes of its victims.
And as they walk the streets in vain search
for work, their families starving and sick with
cold, they read of income tax refunds amount
ing to hundreds of millions of dollars.
The working class must be left under no il
fusion that unemployment can be wiped out
under capitalist state, nor that the employ
ing class, short of revolution, will concede
demands which will be at all adequate Quite
the contrary! The capitalist government and
the corporations will resist every effort on the
part of the workers to gain any comprehensive
relief measures. AS soon as powerful mass
movement of the unemployed gains momentum,
the police are brought into action. Intmda-
ton, mass arrests, violence are among the
methods used to break up demonstrations Va
grancy laws still on the statute books in most
states, furnish an excuse for picking up the
leaders of the fight on every sort of trumped
up charge, holding them on exhorbitant bail,
or throwing them into jail
Finally the liberals, the socialists and the
right wing unions can be counted on to come
to the aid of the corporations to mislead the
r0y,1o H..
Without doubt whole series of unemployment
insurance bills utterly inadequate, and aimed
to defect the growing militancy of the work.
ers. will grow out of this reformist alliance
In contrast to these compromises the fast
developing revolutionary movement in the
United States has put forward program for
the unemployed which will ensure some meas
ure of immediate relief. Under the leadership
of the Trade Union Unity League, the left
wing trade union organization, the UNEMPLOYED
are being organized into Councils of Action.
AS against the reformist bills for unemploy-
ment insurance which arbitrarily cut workers
income to a maximum of S1.50 a day. and
stop payments after 13 weeks unemployment,
the Left Wing demands work or full wages
for the entire period of unemployment They
demand that all funds for Unemployment in
surance come entirely from the employing class
i'll the form of taxes income, inheritance
and profits. They insist that these funds BIZ
administered by committees of workers and not
by the corporation controIled capitalist govern
ment.
The Left Wing program sharply opposes the
A. F. of L. pledge to the government of no
strikes and no demands for wage increases It
contends that just because of growing mass
unemployment the corporations will make
to II hot
for this reason the situation calls for an in
tensification of the campaign for the organiza-
ton of all employed workers, with strikes
against low wages and wage cuts. The T.U.
I'LL is undertaking the organization of the
unemployed side by side with the employed
IN all industries so that the employing class
cannot make use of these starving millions
to break strikes and smash living standards
The Left Wing demands the complete and
immediate abolition of all fee-charging private
employment agencies and the establishment Of
national system of free public employment
exchanges under workers control. 1t asks for
free transportation for workers who are sent
on jobs in other localities.
The Left Wing will not tolerate the continued
exploitation of children and young workers
1t demands the immediate prohibition of child
labor and state maintenance of these children.
1t demands drastic reductions in the hours
work drought the legal establishment of
the seven-hour day, five-day week. The fierce
intensification of labor through which the cor
norations contemplate increasing production
with reduced working forces, demands i'm
~ediate relief in the form of shorter hours.
tan complete elimination of overtime, and two
f"ll rest days each week. In the mines and
other extra -hazardous occupations and for
young workers between the ages of 16 and
IS. maximum working schedule of six hours
day is called. AS further safeguard against
the arbitrary imposition of speed-up, the Left
Wing demands that regulation of machine
speed be placed under workers control
In this growing mobilization of the work
ers for STRUGGLE the United States does not
stand alone The crisis of capitalism is world
crisis. The certainty of unemployment faces
increasing millions of workers in every capt.
talist country.
About 100000 persons were without work
in Germany in the fall of 1929, an increase
of 100000 over the beginning of that year.
In the winter of 1880 the total number of un-
employed is reported to exceed 3,5O0,0OO
Everywhere in Germany the unemployed are
forming organizations of protest and stating
demonstrations. Police frequently shoot into
these crowds of marching workers and many
have already been killed and wounded.
In Spain, food riots are already reported,
with groups of unemployed workers breaking
into grocery stores and smashing shop win
dows to get food Madrid newspapers estimate
$4,000 unemployed in the building trades in
that city alone, due to the fact that construc-
ton is almost at standstill