The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-03-10
Rr Ia. MORTON

THE announcement OF the 10 per cent general
wage cuts IN the steel industry found the
steel workers in the Calumet Steel region unor~
Zanized without any leadership unprepared to
tight against this attack OF the Steel Trust on
their standard of living Our Party in this Sec
ton was almost completely Isolated from this
basic industry. Only after the Pittsburgh Steel
Conference that was held lin September, We
began to organize our Party Tor campaign to
organize the steel workers
Today We can record some progress in this
direction and We have gained many valuable
experiences in this campaign that can help other
sections to turn the face of our Party towards
shop work. We have succeeded to draw in only
few individual Party members into the cam
paign The bulk of our membership resisted,
some passively others more openly, this orienta-
lion towards the mills.
Their main reasons for the inability OF the
Party to do shop work that Steel workers
fear stool pigeons and fear to lose their jobs
therefore they will not join union or follow
our leadership It is true TO some extent, that
workers fear to be exposed. Jobs are very scarce
in this period and although the steel workers
are staggered to to days pay and are work
ing on starvation basis they are nevertheless
anxious to stick to their jobs, until such time
that we have prepared them TO wage an open
struggle against these conditions,
Our task therefore must be to, overcome this
fear OF the workers, this difficulty We must prove
TO the workers and convince them that We are
equally anxious to safeguard their Jobs, We must
develop forms of organization within the mills
that will appeal to the workers, so that they
will accept it as their organization, as their
leader.
For that purpose We are organizing workers
INTO the MW11, on Dept basis Through mass
meetings and agitation within the shops. Thru
personal contact and mass unemployment aCtiv-
tty. through canyassing sympathetic mass organ
izstons We recruit members Tor our unions.
These workers thus recruited have been or
galized into Department groups; We discuss
with them the conditions in their department
and on the basis Of the discussion we helped
them to work out q program of demands and
program Of work. We even discuss with them
the quality Of workers in their department and
how many of these workers can be recruited
into our union, each member Iof the groups
agrees to bring to the next meeting 2 or ; or
more Of his friends and the results OF this
method OF work are good,
New members that are recruited into depart
nent groups lose all fear Of being exposed; they
know each other In their department. They can
best discuss their problems and grievances and
in this manner We carry struggle for par
tiaI demands ion the workers in their depart
nent.
We have won some partial demands in some
departments both in Indiana Harbor and In
, Gary Steel Mills. Through the activity Of our
department. groups we won q very important
partial demand against speed-up At lone time
I the company employed 16 workers to load GER
/ tain number of carloads Of cement q day. re-
Gently this force was cut down to 3, to do the
same amount of work. Our Dept. grelp dis
cussed this grievance and decided TO issue leaf
let's demanding men instead Of 3, the demand
was granted Immediately following the distr1bu-
ton of leaflets.
Similar demands we're won in other Depts. In
various mills. but instead of following these VIC