The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-08-02
BY JACK TOMBSTONE

MORE than $1,000 workers in the
Nl Pittsburgh district have gone on
strike in the past few weeks. Strikes
are spreading with great rapidity
most of them independent of either
the A. F. of L. or of our own unions.
In most cases the workers have
struck against the expressed anti
strike policy of the A. F. of l.. In
instances like the 5000 to 5000
miners now on strike, and spreading
in the Vesta and Prick mines, in
open opposition to the policy of the
United Mine workers of America
officials, who tried to keep the
miners from striking The present
policy of the U. M. w. A. officials
is to keep the strike from spreading,
telling the miners not yet on strike
that the miners are striking for a
good cause, but to wait until the
coal code is adopted and everything
will come out all right.
The workers are casting aside
their fear and in the company union,
stool-pigeon-infeSted steel plants are
in motion by the tens of thousands.
They feel the pinch of rising prices,
though many have the illusion that
the Industrial Recovery Act guar
antees them the right to organize.
Independent unions are springing up
alongside of the company unions.
The Amalgamated Association of
Tin, Steel and Iron Workers (known
as the A. Al is strengthening itself.
The Steel and Metal Workers Union
has recruited over 900 employed
steel workers in the Pittsburgh dis
trict within the past two or three
days. They have, without a strike
struggle, forced q rs per cent wage
increase in the American Bridge.
Fifteen hundred steel workers in
historic Homestead compelled Secre-
tary of Labor Perkins to read the
Steel and Metal Workers Industrial
Union wage code, which they en-
dorsed, and demanded that the de-
portation policy of the government
be stopped, and that Borich, KAN
enovich and Jack Thomas be set
free. This expresses the rising tide
of the workers.
THE rising food and other prices
L and increased evictions bring the
unemployed again militantly into the
street fos struggle. Two hundred
and fifty workers in A4cKees Rocks
defied the city and county police to
evict a worker, and gathered to-
gether in a few moments after a
mouth to mouth call One thousand
workers stormed the Pittsburgh City
Council, occupied the chamber, and
told the city fathers that they
wanted 100000 Immediately for shoes
and that they must have $3.50 relief
per head instead of 80 cents. They
demanded endorsement of the Work.
ers Unemployment Insurance Bill.
We are not yet at the head of
these rising movements. We are not
entirely outside of them, but we are
tagging far behind. We cannot
speak any more of the moods" of
the workers. We are tagging behind
their actual struggles. The Open
Letter and the tasks set by the Dis
trict at it's conference July 20 and
% are bringing our Party in the
right direction. If carried through
it will place us at the head of these
rising struggles.
UERE I want to deal with only one
ii of the weakest phases OF our
work, and that is overcoming the
poisonous propaganda of the capt.
talist press, the isolation of our own
press from these struggles of the
workers, and the necessity of the
whole Party membership in the
Pittsburgh district connecting our
press with the conditions and strug-
giles, and, what is of equal irnpor-
lance, connecting the workers with
our press, with their press. We must
work out concrete measures to in
crease the circulation of our press,
the language press, the Mine Work
er, the Hunger Fighter, and espe-
cially the Daily Worker.
We cannot carry out the line of
Ullc OpCll LCbIcI VI bilc 0doho ocb
by the district to be attained in the
next six months, unless we recognize
the Importance of the Daily Worker,
in all struggles.
For example, the new local leaders
that are coming to the front in the
steel mills around the Ambridge ter
ritory, the most advanced, are exact
ly those workers who haye been
reading the Daily Worker.
This is no accident. 1t Is very
natural. However, there are only
500 or 600 Daily Workers circulated
in the Pittsburgh District, and GER
tainly these 600 workers who are
reading the Daily are much better
equipped to enter strike with
struggle line than as if they had
not read 40 Daily Worker.
These IN circulation figures
graphically express how we grossly |
underestimate the Importance of the
Daily, Worker as an agitator and
organizer.