The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-06-30

prestige with the crew was drop
ping. Then we decided to make
him spokesman on the ships COM
mittee, that was to go up to the
captain about an overtime grievance
eve felt reasonably sure he would
decline having expressed ideas Of
this nature before. When the ships
committee Tin meeting which he
e.5st-nGcd) proposed him he declined
and resigned from the sl,ip'5 ccn-
mittee with the statement he, would
not make an ass out of himSelf by
growing to the captain about some
body else's overtime; and besides he
was out for a junior engineers job,
and belonging to the union jeopar-
died his chances.
This completely destroyed all his
influence WITH the crew, the crew
was highly incensed at him now
and to completely destroy him polit-
ically was easy. At the next meet
ing Of the crew (Which are held
each Sunday he was brought up
on charges. He was accused of car
rying tales to the engineers by ore
worker, which he practically adj
mitted by stating that he would Go
anything for better job. A mo-
ton was made to put him on proba-
ton for the rest Of the voyage and
unless he changed his ways he was
to be expelled from the union and
put of the ship. We also passed
motion to have him completely os-
tracised by the crew. From then on
nobody talked to him, he was in
complete solitary, and he felt it very
keenly.
Raise Political Level
These victories raised the prestige
of the two leading comrades enor-
miusly. These comrades were known
to be members Of the Party. At each
Of these meetings we had talk, one
on the N. R. A., one on the organ
national structure of the M. w. I. U.
as compared to the I. w. W., the
I. S. u, and the political philos-
ophy of these organizations, one
mock debate, A. F. of L. versus T. U.
U. L. The chief shortcoming of the
trip was that we did not tackle the
Negro question decisively enough.
In the talks we naturally brought
in this question regarding the
Workers Unemployment Insurance
Pil1 NOV onJ fo-o;e,,o DIT s,,-o
far as the crew had eight Negroes
in it, we should have devoted one
meeting solely to this question, par
ticularly in view of the fact that a
certain amount of white chauyinism
expressed itself.
Next we approached and took into
the Party, the worker previously
mentioned.
Our chief difficulty on the trip
was lack of information from
ashore. We were practically in the
dark about the events of Toledo
the impending steel strike, etc.
Lack of Information Holds Up
Strike
This lack of information resulted
in the nucleus being unable to de-
termlne the correct line of action
When the trip ended. The voyage
terminated in the c.. port. We
could have called strike but the
company had scabs on the dock and
were prepared 70 break the strike.
Two ships had lost strikes already
in this place and we figured that it
was best to wait for more favor
able opportunity. The other ships
had a full crew of scabs, and we
considered it best for the ship to get
to sea with a union crew.
If We had know how tense the
situation ashore was in the mill
we would have called the strike. 1t
may have been the spark that
would have set in motion the work.
erS in the steel mill.
This shows the necessity of close
and constant contact with the
nuclei on board ship. They can not
be left in the dark. I believe the
above proposals would somewhat
alleviate this if they were worked
out and applied. d..
Marine Worker Industrial Union.