The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-02-25
BY ANNA DAMON.

ONE Of the main tasks of our Party at tn
present period is to reach into the factories
of basic industries, to gain influence over the
workers, to build functioning Communist APP
paratus inside the factories, to lead the work
ers in their daily struggles and strikes, which
are rapidly increasing and involving hundreds
and thousands of workers, especially the I'M
skilled and unorganized. This becomes
pecially important in our unemployment and
March campaign recruiting drive and build
in gthe Trade Union Unity League.
In connection with the present international
Women's Day the necessity for reaching inside
of the factories is of vital importance. Up to
the present time shop concentration in factories
where women are employed has not been car
ried through. Wherever such decisions have
been made tey remained paper decisions. Some
of the incomplete results of the recruiting drive
already show that we made no real efforts to
reach working women in shops; as, for ex-
ample, Detroit, one of the most important auto
mobile centers, which recruited only Is women
from shops out of 572 members. Similar con-
ditions exist in other districts. OF the 152 Ne
groes recruited in New York, only are wom-
en-; in Chicago, of 81 Negroes recruited, 4 are
women.
Basis Must Be in Shops.
The basis of our work must be in shops. In
speaking of unorganizer and unslIilled workers,
we must recognize the millions of women in
industry-23 per cent of all workers in the
United States. Ninety-three per cent of work
ing women are unskilled and semi-skilled, 4
per cent laborers and only per cent are skill
ed
The work to win the women workers for the
Party, to mobilize them for fight against i'm
perialist war, in defense of the Soviet Union,
against naturalization, must be considered by
every Party members as a major task. COM
rades should be assigned definitely to this work
and made responsible to carry it on Women
comrades should be utilized for this work, but
the work must be that of the shop nucleus as
a whole.
There are at the present time very few shop
nuclei in the basic industries and practically
none of them have any women members. We
must in the recruiting drive consider this as
very serious shortconning and take steps to
overcome it. The conditions for recruiting wom-
en- into the Party from the shops are very IA
vorabe. The degree of rehabilitation which
is taking place among the working class has
also reached the working women. The extreme
speed-up, wage cuts, unemployment, has been
met with militant opposition by the women
workers, as indicated by spontaneous strikes.
These strikes are spreading. 1t seems, how
ever, that the Party membership does not fully
grasp the degree OF radlcaIlZatlon InaI is going
on among the working women and the OPP
portunites that exist for the Party to mobilize
them for the class struggle. There is a very
grave under-estimation of the Importance of
women as an industrial factor and potential
revolutionary force. There still exist the social
democratic tendencies of the past that we can
not approach women in the economic struggles.
This is the main obstacle in recruiting women
from basic industries into shop nuclei, for re-
cruiting them into the Party. Once we over
come this we will be able to work out plans
and special methods for Recruiting women
members into the shop nuclei and build SYM
pathetic circles around the shop nucleus. Col
onization of competent women comrades in the
factories should receive immediate attention.
Some of the special methods of work to be
undertaken are:
Organizational Tasks.
l. Electing women's work director in mix
ed factories to be on the executive of the nue.
leus.
g District Committee to call meetings of