The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-01-14
'EVeryFactory
Our Fortress
Establish Intimate, Per-
monent Contacts With the
Workers.
How Negro and White
Dining Car Employees
Were Organized

~ AAAAAAf9 O~SA 1870 y ~
Were Organized
The Twelfth PIenum Resoiu-
lions of the Communist Interna-
tionaI emphasize that the main
link to win the American workers
for decisive class battles, is the
development of struggles around
their elementary needs. The re-
cent Shop Conference in New
York and Chicago should be
utilized by every member of the
Party and trade unions to i'm
prove the contents and methods
of our work in the factories. We
urge all comrades to send in
articles OH the basis of their own
experiences, as well as questions
on problems which confront
them--which will be answered in
this column.
I WANT to deal principally with
the experience we have had in
organization at the New York Gen.
trail yard here. In the past few
months we have been able to draw
into what we call the Joint Organ
ization Movement of Dining Car
Stewards, Walters and Cooks, some
100 workers who have already sign
ed up applications, Of which 14o
have already paid dues.
This is important because it is
the first real success we have had
in organizing any number Of Negro
workers. In the railroad league we
have had number of Negro work
ers in different sections of the
country, but they would come and
go. We would make little successes
at certain places which would last
two or three months and finally
disappear.
ORGANIZED BY
WORKERS ON JOB
This movement, however, has
organized principally by workers on
the job. We are able through one
or two Party members on the N. Y.
Central to make contacts with some
key workers in this particular de-
partment, and practically all of
these workers have been organized
right on the job. The contacts we
made of Negro workers as well as
some white workers we're, with CO.
operation from the outside, able to
build up this group around actual
conditions on the jobs. We made
the same mistake here, as else
where, by putting up general de-
mands, it must be reported. But
this was corrected. We took the
old agreement of the Dining Car
Employees, and with the cooperation
of these workers were able to re-
draft it to include a number of new
demands-to include special de-
mands for the Negro workers.
AROUND these demands we are
n organizing the workers OH a
united front basis. Attempts have
been made in the past to organize
all dining room walters without any
success. Now because of the situa-
ton in the industry-where the
conditions of all workers are being
und ermined, where Negro workers
at lower wages are replacing in
many cases white dining car stew
ards who received SITS month
the struggle for better conditions is
uniting both Negro and white work.
erS.
I will not go into the detail Of
the agreement. But, instead Of 60
ing to these workers with leaflets
and with our 1, 2, 3, and 5 gen.
eral and abstract demands, we took
this agreement and went over it
with individual workers and form
ulated the tentative or proposed
agreement, taking up the question
of wages, and working conditions
in detail. We had this mimeo-
graphed and circulated in the cars.
We got some At Negroes and white
workers in the organization. This
was about month ago. Today we
have two-thirds of the workers in
the organization.
FINANCE ORGANIZATION
WORK
Fifty cents month is being con-
tributed by the workers to what we
call the Organization and Nego-
tiation Fund" We have set the