The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-10-11
Amalgamation of Workers
Sick Benefit Organizations

In the United States, a tremendous number
Of foreign born workers are organized in
mutual aid societies. If we take only 10 lam
guage groups Polish, Jugoslavian, Hungarian,
Italian, Czechoslovakan, Ukranian, Lithuanian,
Jewish, German and Russian) we find that
closely two million workers are organized in
different sick and death benefit societies
In the Elks and similar organizations along
side with the petty bourgeois great numbers
of native workers are organized.
There is no other country where the Insur-
ance companies would expand on scale like
in the United States, drawing hundreds of mil
lions of dollars yearly from the pockets of the
workers and investing these fabulous amounts
mainly in Industrial undertakings, exploiting
the same workers.
The explanation for this state of affairs lies
in the fact that in the United States there is
no social insurance. At the same time, there
is no other country in the world where social
insurance is much needed. There is the
greatest number of workers unemployed (at
present over s million) large number of
them permanently thrown out of industry.
But there is no unemployment insurance. AS
result of capitalist naturalization, terrific
speed-up, the Human machinery" breaks down
sooner and more often, than in the other CAPT.
talist countries. But there is no state insur-
ance for sickness. About quarter million
workers are victims of industrial accidents
yearly and in the average $4,000 of them die
as result of the accidents. But even in those
states, where there is workmen's compensation
law, it is very far from being satisfactory not
only because of the low compensation, but also
for the reason that the workers in great num-
bers of cases are cheated and do not receive
anything. There is no federal old age insur-
ance The New York Old Age Pension Law
favored by Roosevelt, the fascist leaders of
the A. F. of l.. and the socialist party gives
"pension" to the workers after they die. 1t
is promise of "You'll get pie in the sky
when you die" Are there many workers liv-
ing up to the age of 70 years and over under
the strains of murderous speed-up system,
to get this miserable pension? Very few. In
the Soviet Union the pension is due to the
workers at the age of so if they are unable to
work.
The workers in the u S. started to build
the mutual aid societies because there was no
state social insurance and the labor movement
of that time (the SLIP, the SIP, the A. F.
of L., etc., did not wage struggle to get
social insurance. The first (and only party
to fight for social insurance, to lead the
masses for unemployment insurance ($25
minimum week., for sickness, accidents and
old age insurance, is the Communist Party.
BY organizing these mutual aid societies, the
workers have taken their own shoulders
the burden, which should be carried by their
exploiters and by their state.
But even these organizations are heading
towards a crisis. The curbing of immigration,
the Americanization of the children of the for
eign born workers at the time when the sharp
national division closing the way to the Amer
icanisation of these organizations, favored so
much by the reactionaries, is still upheld, the
plundering activities of the reactionary, fas-
cist and social fascist leaders of many Of these
organizations, the growing economic crisis,
growing number Of unemployed, growing num-
Der of sicknesses, accidents, deaths caused by
naturalization, speed-up, the attacks of the
state insurance authorities on the, workers
sick benefit organizations these are the chief
causes Of the approaching crisis in these So
cieties.