The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-08-14
By JACK STACHEL.

THE state of Michigan in which is located
the heart of the auto industry, as well as
other highly ratonalized industries (steel,
chemical, furniture, etc.,, is an outstanding
example of the insecurity of the workers under
capitalism. The highly rationalzed auto in
dustry contributes more than its proportionate
share of those victims of capitalism facing
starvation either through unemployment, old
age or industrial accidents. All these social
evils always existing under capitalist produc-
ton are particularly great today because Of
the terrific speed-up, and finds its highest
expression in the auto industry. Fordism has
become synonymous with insecurity from I'M
employment, old age and accidents. Hiding
behind the fiction of "high wages" the bosses
in the auto industry as throughout industry
in the U. S. have not even taken the share of
responsibility for these social evils springing
from capitalist production which the workers
of Germany, Great Britain and other European
countries have through their struggles, COM
PEELED their capitalists to assume.
If one stands at the Ford gates all day
one will think that he is near a hospital.
Thousands of workers are wounded and
manned every week and not small number
meet death in the interests of the auto mag
mates greed. Throughout the auto industry
workers are subjected to the greatest hazards
to safeguard the lives of the workers. The
maddening speed-up inevitably takes its toll
of life and limb Similarly workers who have
had their energy sapped out in few years
are replaced by younger and more energetic
men who await the same fate. The madden
ing speed-up, the brutal driving of the work.
ers throws tens of thousands of auto work.
ers out of employment even if the pace of
production is maintained. In the present eco
nomic crisis additional tens of thousands of
workers face complete part time unemploy-
ment.
Masses Responsive to Social Insurance.
1t is not to the credit of the Communist
Party that in all the years of its existence it
did not recognize the necessity for struggle
for Social Insurance. 1t is to the credit of
the Communist International that it directed
our Party to consider one of its principal ac-
Invites the struggle for Social Insurance. This
point was particularly stressed to the Party
by Comrade Stain who repeatedly told the
comrades in the United States to organize
broad movement for Social Insurance. 1t was
only in the past few months that our Party
has taken the lead in the agitation for Social
Insurance and has particularly popularized
the fight for Unemployment Insurnce. The
response of the workers to this agitation
showed the readiness of the workers to fight
for Social Insurance, and the possibility of
developing the widest mass movement around
this ISSUE But until the present, the move
ment was purely agitational and did not bear
sufficient concreteness. 1t is only now after
the Party has put forward the Social Insur-
ance Bill that the Party is in position to
actually mobilize the masses for struggle
around these demands and through this cam
pagn expose the rottenness of the capitalist
system the class character Of the capitalist