The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-08-26
Auto Industry Shows Growing Crisis and Struggles

General Motors Corporation paid out $685.
100000 in dividends during the first 6 months
of last year and on July paid an extra divi-
dend of $13,000,000. For the first 6 months
of this year only $78,000,000 has been paid.
Several other companies have drawn upon
their reserve funds to maintain their dividend
payments, hoping to make this up next year.
The Briggs Manufacturing Co. is a notable
exception because it has increased its earnings
almost per cent. The first months of last
year its net income was $2,422697 the first
6 months of this year its net income increased
to 1851 1903. 1t manufactured 43 per cent
of Ford bodies, 1913 per cent for Chrysler and
so per cent for Graham-Paige. This big in
crease in profits was made possible by wage
cuts of 20 per cent to so per cent, by ter
rifle speed-up system and by the employment
of women as well as men for IL hours and
more for day and night shifts.
Growing Exploitation of the Workers.
Wage-cuts and unemployment confront
automobile workers at every turn. Thousands
of auto workers have been unemployed for
more than year. Others are fortunate to
get months work during the year. Wage
cuts, such as 1913 per cent at Briggs Mack
Ave. plant last spring and that of so per cent
for the whole Fisher Body Buick Plant if
Flint are of common occurrence. More and
more women replacing men at greatly re-
duced wages. The Durant Plant in Lansing
attempted to replace men getting about IS
cents an hour by women at Is cents an hour.
at the kelsey-Hayes plant, company whose
profits jumped from $4,000 for the first
months of last year to $4,000 for the same
period this year, women are now being hired
at IS cents an hour. Another wage cut of
15 per cent took place recently at the Cadillac
plant. 10 per cent cut took place at Tern
Cfn Thn ,cho pAI,v Il. ILL
their scheduled wage cuts because of the Flint
strike are now putting them into effect. In
all auto plants including Ford's, wage cuts
are taking place in form or another.
With the rapid tapering off of production in
the auto industry, unemployment increases at
a terrific rate. In spite of much newspaper
publicity that 10000 workers were going
back to work at Fords and other plants Ford
only took back a part of the $4,000 workers
who were given vacation" of 3 weeks.
Since then, 10000 workers have been laid off
at Ford's, with more at the rate of 300 a day
being laid off The Briggs Highland Park
plant opened up again, but after few days
laid off practically the whole night force in
definitely. Other plants, such as Packard's,
Paige, Kelsey Hayes, General Motors, ETC., are
working only days each week. The bulk of
1,214459 workers employed in the auto indus
try face the coming months with absolutely
no chance of any employment in the industry.
Growing Resistance Of the Workers.
In spite of unemployment which exists even
during the peak of the years production,
greater numbers of workers are fighting back
against intolerable conditions. This year 500
workers struck against a wage cut at the
Hayes Body Co. in indianapolis. In Lansing
the workers, men and women, stormed the
Durant plant forcing the company to take back
the men whom they had attempted to replace
by women at reduced wages. Several hundred
workers struck against a wage cut at the
Limosine Body Co. in Kalamazoo, Mich.
The Flint Strike
The biggest struggle in the auto industry
since 1921 took place in Flint, Mich, this year
when 5000 workers of the Fisher Body Plant
struck against wage cut of so per cent. In
this strike, thousands of workers, men and
women, carried on mass picketing in front of
the plant and paraded through the heart of
the city to the Buick Plant, overcoming every
attempt Of the Flint and state police to stop
them. This was the first time in years that
strike starting in the body end of the in
dustry threatened the workers in the basic mo-
tor end of the in lustry.
Strike Breaking A. F. of L.