The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-08-11
PARTY LIFE
Conducted by the Org. Dept. Central Corr
mites, Communist Party, U. S. A.
How to Liven Up Our Shop
Papers


CALIFORNIA reports: Prior to seven months
ago, our shop nucleus issued shop paper
more or less regularly in manner which taught
the comrades nothing. A few days before an
issue was made up, one Of the comrades from
the section committee of the Party would take
notes on what had happened in the shop. After
the comrades from the shop had given him
whatever stop news there was their job on the
shop paper was finished. They had no discus
sion on the contents Of the paper made no plans
for campaigns to be carried Oh in the paper and
being busy with other Party work. paid no fur
ther attention to getting the paper out The
shop paper was written and run off on the
mimeograph by one of the comrades in the Sec
ton Committee; few others who happened to
be in the office took the paper out for distribu-
ton.
This had gone on for some time with the re-
suit that the comrades in the nucleus had no
real stirring interest in their own shop paper
and neither had the other workers in the shop
There had been no response from these workers
to our. shop paper during all the time the paper
appeared.
We felt there was something wrong With our
paper and decided to do something about it,
First of all, we prepared for the next issue Of
the paper month in advance discussed and de-
cided upon what should be written, arranged
for the technical work and distribution ETC.
Each comrade in the nucleus was assigned to
write specific article and all other details were
worked out.
At first some of the comrades said they could
not get out the shop paper in this way because
they couldn't write English well enough and an
other could write only in Slovenian Therefore
the fourth comrade who has difficulty with
English should write the articles and get out the
paper And besides I'VE never did it this way
before "Well that's So" said another comrade
but anyway, I think now we should begin to
learn. I know myself, I'll try to write better
English all the time" So we accepted our as
signments under the new plan. The comrade
who knew English well agreed to help the one
comrade translate his articles from Slovenian
and correct the English in the articles of the
other comrades In this way we combined Eng
hsh lessons with getting out the shop paper.
We have followed this method for seven months
and find that our paper has more influence and
gets response from the shop workers due mainly
to its now being alive to important shop issues
being written about by the workers themselves.
in the paper because of taking an active part in
its production
COMMENT
In connection with this. comrade from CAL
ifornia came in the other day and told us that
some shop units in that district do not get out
shop papers because they don't know how. They
have never heard of the Shop Paper Manual.
As a contrast to this we get letter from
Duluth, Mimi saying: "The Shop Paper Man
uaI great help in getting up paper.
Although had never made up shop paper
before, by reading the Shop Paper Manual, we
were able to get fair idea of what it should
be like"
The Shop Paper Manual deals with every
phase of shop paper work, from the COM
pcated political questions down to technical
makeup 1t should be in the hands of every unit
in the country and in the hands of every com=
rade who is a member of a shop unit.
1t sells for ten cents and be ordered de
rect from the Workers Library Publishers, 50
e. 18th ST., New York City.
Workers! Join the Party of.
Your Class!
Comm unist Party Q. S. A.
p o. Box 81 Station D.
New York City
Please send me more information. On the cc-s@
munist Party.
Name ...........-..............
Address ...........-..............
CITY Observation-Disclosures. State .........ss
Occupation OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES. Age .....s :
Mail this to the Central Once. Communist
Party. P. Q. Box 81 Station D. New York City.
Uncover Starvation and Misery
The capitalist press the agents of the ruling class
has been publishing less and less news about
unemployment. 1t hides the starvation Of the
unemployed workers families. We must
constantly expose the miserable treatment
Of families of the unemployed by the city