The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-06-13

EROM his prison cell on Harris Island $500
Fordham ST., New York City,, William z.
Foster writes greetings to the National Metal
Workers Conference, in Youngstown Ohio,
June IA and Is. Foster is the general secre-
tary of the Trade Union Unity League, to
which belongs the Metal Workers Industrial
League, the caller of the Youngstown confer
ence. He is serving three year sentence, i'm
posed upon him along with Amter, Minor and
Raymond, all members of the committee
elected by the 10000 unemployment demon
strators on March 6. His message to the
steel workers, whom he led in the greatest
strike of their history in 1919, is as follows
Comrades Your conference is of the ut
most importance Undoubtedly it will lay the
basis for a great industrial union of workers
in all branches of the metal industry-steel,
automobile electrical manufacturing, agricul-
tural machinery, etc. The situation is ripe
for such an organization.
The metal workers are suffering from wage
cats speed-up and every form of intense ex-
ploitaton and oppression. The industrial crisis
has paralyzed the industry and hundreds of
thousands of metal workers walk the streets
unemployed. And this situation is worsening
rapidly The industrial crisis is deepening
and its destructive features are spreading.
The coming winter will show a huge increase
in unemployment; slashing wage cuts will be
made and new drives initiated to further
speed up the toilers in the shops.
The workers will fight back Of this we
may be sure The many small strikes in var
ious sections of this basic industry show their
developing fighting spirit. The union you are
building must be strengthened at once to or
ganize and lead these impending great strug-
giles of metal workers. The conference must
launch great organizing campaign. This is
its most elementary task. Steps must be
taken to establish shop committees in all
metal plants, this vast campaign to eliminate
in the near future in a national convention at
which your union will be formally set up,
A. F. L. Not For Workers.
The fascist A. F. of L. cannot and will not
fight for the interests of the steel workers.
It's betrayal of the great steel strike in 1919,
its criminally incompetent and corrupt steel
Organizing" campaign in 1928, its recent fake
drive to unite the auto workers, together with
its general strikebreaking policies, are suffi-
cient proof of this
The decadent Amalgamated Association of
Iron and Tin Workers, headed by steel COM
pany stoo-pigeons and under-cover men, is
the rotten symbol of A. F. of L. unionism in
the metal industry. The so-called socialist
party-Muste prOgressives in the A. F. of L.
are only blind for the A. F. of L. reaction
have nothing to offer the metal workers but
betrayal All these labor traitors must be
fought aggressively, while at the same time
their followers must be won for the new
union. The steel workers, together with the
whole body of metal workers, need imperative
ly the new, revolutionary unionism which your
conference is building up.
Enlist Rank and File
In the organizing campaign which must fol-
low your conference, and which should be
based primarily upon the steel mills, you
must enlist the active cooperation of the rank
and file. Great efforts should be made to or
ganize the young workers into youth sections
and to draw them into the work. and in a
leading capacity, they are the best fighting
elements in the working class. Also the
women, who are playing an ever more impor-
tant part in your industry require to be
united. But above all, the Negro workers
must be organized. They are decsively i'm
portant in all sections of industry. The his
tory of A. F. of L. unionism has been one long
betrayal of the Negroes. The new union must
militantly fight for and with the Negroes.
Its success will depend very much upon how
it meets this vital question.
The organization campaign following the
National Conference must be based upon def
mite demands of the workers. The conference
should work up a concrete program, concise