The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-07-07
EQUAL PAY FOR WOMEN
WORKERS

Unions for struggle against capitalist
naturalization and betrayal by social fas-
cists.
A LEADING task before the Red lnterna-
"A tional of Labor Unions today is the mob
ilization of the broad masses of women work
ers in the front of the class struggle. The
women workers, the most exploited and least
organized section of the proetariat, are to-
day playing an ever more important, and in
some cases even predominant, role in industry
in rapidly increasing numbers to replace more
highly skilled and better paid men workers,
and makes them the victims of new and
more intensive exploitation than ever before.
Women workers and industries in which large
numbers of women are employed are today
the object of naturalization drive of the
capitalists.
Continuous wage-cuts, frightening of hours
and overtime, speeding up of machinery and
heaping on of enormous additional tasks, the
increase of machines to tend the doubling and
TRIPPING of looms and spindles in the textile
industry, the setting of ever higher standards
of production, the speed-up of the travelling
belt to killing pace, these are the new de-
vices of naturalization which are being intro
duced universally in all capitalist countries,
especially in the period since the Fourth Con-
gress of the RLL.U. and which fall with spe-
cial severity upon the masses of women
workers.
The world capitalist crisis and the growing
mass unemployment is affecting women work
ers equally with men workers. Millions of
women workers are unemployed in the CAPT.
talist countries and millions more are short
time, especially in The textile industry. The
rapid intensification of capitalist rationallza-
ton and the growth of the capitalist crisis
gives the struggles and demands of women
md IY1or,nr
lance than ever before in the general pro-
gram of the labor M c:ent.
The mobilization of the women workers in
the common ont cf the class str, Sge for
resistance to wage cuts and the speed-up, for
the fight for better living and working con-
ditions, the seven hour day and equal pay for
equal work, for resistance to the reduction of
social insurance, unemployment relief, mater
nifty benefit and factory legislation, the draw
ing of women workers into the class front of
international working class solidarity around
the Soviet Union and against capitalist imper-
ian and colonial exploitation, these are the
immediate tasks in the field of work among
women which are being taken up by the Fifth
Congress of the RILU, and especially by the
First international Women Workers Trade
Union Conference which will convene in con-
nection with the Fifth Congress.
The Three-Fold Enemy.
Inc STRUGGLES VI WOiHeH WOIhcIS alc
directed against the three-fold enemy, capt.
talist imperialism and it's allies, the social
democracy and the trade union bureaucracy.
The social fascists aid the employers and the
capitalist state in every way in fastening the
yoke upon the women workers and in the at
tempt to defeat their struggles.
At every point it is necessary to expose be-
fore the workers the tratorous tao
tics of the trade union bureaucrats and the
! .--1x
hypocritical, cowardly and demagogc tactics
by which the social fascist hope to delude
the women masses and conceal their treason
from them, and to organize the women work
ers for the most bitter struggle against
them.
The record of the a. F. of L. and the AM
sterdam International with regard to women
workers is black one-a long history of ne
| glect and betrayal, which has eliminated in
the years since the world war in an open
| offensive against the women workers, which
began with the rehabilitation after the world
| war and has reached its climax today in the
fascist tactics in the factories and unions, the
| sabotage and obstruction of the struggle of
| women workers against capitalist rationaliza-
| ton, and the openly understanding activi-
| ties of the social fascist in present mass
| struggle in most Of which great numbers of
| women are involved and are showing the
| greatest spirit and militancy.
The trade union bureaucrats use all pos
| sible methods in this work. Shop strikes
against wage-cuts and speed-up are outlawed,
| which is easier because of the large number
| of unorganized among women workers. Mass
| strike movements in industries are INSTRUCTED
| and sahptaged and every effort made to de-
feat the workers through arbitration COM
! promise agreements, or to smash their resis-
| lance and break the strike with the aid of
| the army, police and fascist of the employ
ers and the capitalist-socialist coalition gov
| ernments
! The bureaucrats invariably sell out the in
| terests of the women workers. conclude most
unfavorable agreements for them and try to
| drive them back to work with the aid of the
police and gangsters. In the collective agree
ments, employers and union bureaucracy COM
! bine to give all women workers position
and wages below the least skilled men work.
| ers. This is done by including them as
separate category in the agreements as "wom-
en- workers" or by making separate agree
ments for them, or simply by leaving them I'M
| organized and entirely outside the collective
q agreements.
No attempt is made to organize the great
| unorganized masses of women workers, to set
up special programs of demands for them or
| to lead and support their struggles. On the
contrary all methods are used to defeat their
struggles and break strikes in which they
| take part by sabotage and obstruction of re-
| lief actions, by trying to break the solidarity