Voice of action. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1933-1936, 1934-11-30
The MIRA Today
BY Labor Research Association


For more than a year and half, workers have
been listening to rosy promises of increased
employment, higher earnings, collective bar
gaining" and better working conditions as a
result of the NRA. But what are its. real ac-
cornplishments? Higher profits for the bosses,
and for the workers greater unemployment,
decreased wages, higher living costs, company
unionism, and brutal suppression of strike
struggles. Annast (Oct. 10, 1884, organ of fl
nance capital, openly admits the failure of the
NRA to solve the crisis" In aleading editorial
ID. w. Ellswirth points out
in September the Annalist Index of
Business Activity dropped to 661 (prelimin-
ary) and this is the lowest level reached by
this index since April, 1888 Only in the worst
months OF the depression, from April, 1882
to April 1888 has this index stood at a lower
level"
Capitalist press reports have attempted to
charge the decline in productive activity to
strikes, particularly the textile strike, but
Annalist, pointing out that the three weeks
since the end of the strike showed only slight
recovery, Declares
a.. so that we may say that regardless of the
effects of labor disturbances the general
level of business activity is not greatly above
the lowest level of the entire depression"
The only optimistic factor it can find is one
that admits the cut in earnings of the working
class
NOTe ptOple nave JODS DtCduse VI Icuuc'
ton in hours of work, and the people who are
employed in factories are receiving higher
rates Of pay" mot higher earningsD.
Commenting on the fact that the increase
in retail sales has obviously been brought
about largely by AAA activities" and pointing
to the desperation of workers and small bust
ness men which has caused "the marked increase
in recent months in suicides" Annalist con-
cludes
we are entering the sixth year of the
depression with business activity almost at
its extreme depth"
A week later (Oct. 26, 1891 this same journal
admits:
factory employment, seasonally adj
justed, was slightly lower than last December
though factory payrolls were slightly higher
IT. however, allowance is made for higher
living costs, the real wages of factory workers
were no higher than last December"
Even William Green, tireless eulogist of the
supposed benefits" NRA has brought to the
working class is forced to admit the intensi-
ficatOn of the crisis. According to the New
York Times (Oct 29) he admitted that "unem-
ployment has exceeded last years level"
During these twelve months the normal
increase in population has added close to
45O,sO0 TO the army of job seekers for whom
industry provides no work. Thus the number
without work in industry has risen from
1010S0O0 in September, 1888, to 1881, 900 in
September, 1884"
But what was Mr.. Green telling the workers
approximately year ago? Speaking to work.
ers in the automobile industry in Detroit, who
were already calling for miljtant struggle
against their miserable conditions Green de-
cared:
81 say to you that every thinking Amer
lean, everyone who appreciates the serious
ness of the situation as it is developed, might
well thank Almighty God that Congress pass
ed the National Recovery Act and subsidiary
measures when they did in order to save the
social order"
America is reborn. 1t is being remade."
"A new order is here, a new deal with
labor is brought into the picture"
We may also recall that Frank Morrison,
Secretary of the AFI, writing in the Internation-
al Molders' Journal, October 1888, declared that
the NRA will place back to work our millions
if unemployed"
Other labor leaders were equally lyrical
on the prospects ahead. For example, Francis
j. German, vice-president of the United Tex
tile Workers, declared that I'VE are well on
the way to recovery There is absolutely no
doubt as to the success of the program so far,
and | am cinfdent of its results in the future"
He considered the cotton code the greatest
accomplishment of the United States in a gen.
Grafton"