The daily worker., 1931-05-26
BY GEORGE Z. POWERS.

BY GEORGE T. POWERS.
THE recent strike of the 1000 steel workers at
the Empire Steel Corporation mill at Mans
field, Ohio, is an important event in the grow
ing struggle of the workers in the steel industry
against the sharpening campaign Of the steel
barons to reduce the living standards of the
workers.
When ten per cent wage-slash was announced
by the Empire Steel Co. on May l, there was
deep discomfort and it broke loose when an ad-
ditional five per cent cut was ordered. Follow
ing this the workers walked out on strike on
May II. They marched from department to
department. through the mill making the shut
down complete srom the start.
The Ohio State Hunger March had passed
through Mansfield just before the strike started
and one of the largest meetings in the history
of this city was held. The steel workers, many
totally unemployed and most of the rest working
part time for starvation wages, gave full sup
port to the struggle for immediate unemploy-
ment relief and unemployment insurance This
was further shown by the fact that when they
went strike, committee sought the leaders
of the hunger march The strikers committee
was not able to get in touch with the hunger
march leaders and instead was directed to the
leading labor takers of Mansfield, Watkins and
Antrican of the A. F. Of L. central labor body,
the Trades Council. Through them the notorious
strike breaking "Amalgamated Association of
Iron, Steel and Tin Workers" was drawn in.
In a short time Miller and other "organizers"
of this treacherous outfit were in Mansfield try
ing to get control of the strike in order to
sel-out the Mansfield workers as they betrayed
thousands of steel workers in the past.
Chase Out Amalgamated
Many of the rank and file steel workers on
e4r OFf faoe1 oh
as agents of the bosses and conducted an en-
ergetic campaign against them which eventually
drove the Amalgamated out of the strike after
they had collected considerable sums of money
in initiation fees from the strikers.
With the usefulness of the Amalgamated as
strike breaking instrument destroyed the local
misleaders headed by the Watkins-A -Antrican
gang, working closely with Henkel, president of
the Empire Steel Co., took over control of the
strike. From the outset the committees from
the various departments forming the strike
committee, had been carefully hand picked, in
some cases elected representatives of the work
being removed from the committee by the
takers acting under company direction son
of the superintendent of the mill was placed at
the head of the strike committee and early in
the strike, the local chief of police was invited
to address the strike meeting, but was howled
down by the strikers
No Wage Cuts
At the Thursday, May Ia mass meeting the
strikers voted unanimously against accepting
any wage-cuts, demanding minimum wage of
40 cents an hour for unskilled workers return
to the wage-scale in effect before May / involY-
ing complete rejection OF the Is per cent wage
cut. Other demands we're payment for "sec-
onds," for which workers have not been re-
ceiving pay though the seconds are the result
of faulty process and not the fault of the work
ers improvement of working conditions, that
day men cannot be required to work more than
10 hours and night men 12 that the bi-monthly
sliding scale of pay be resumed; that no man
be called to work for less than eight hours.
At this meeting when some strikers at
tempted to get the floor in order to urge that
c. B. Cowan, leader of the State Ohio Hunger
Marchers be asked to speak at the meeting
these strikers were put out of the hall by the
Watkins gang. 1t was very evident that the
company and the labor takers had made care
full preparations to prevent speakers from taking
the floor who would expose the maneuvers of
the attempted sell-out This and other strike
meetings we're rushed through and cut short
little or no discussion from the floor being
allowed
The strike was peaceful and lasted only four
days Very little pcketing was done no scsbs
taking the places OF the strikers. though Henkel