The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-07-19
True Democracy Re-
placed Corruption
of Old Halls
BY MARGUERITE YOUNG
DAILY Worker washington Bureaul


DAILY Worker Washington Bureau)
THE big guns of shipowner
1 propaganda are trained
today against worker control
of hiring halls, the central is
sue in the great general strike
on the Pacific Coast. The
cold facts about what occurs
when this demand is enforced are
available. They were established a
couple of months ago in Baltimore.
where seamen set up their own en-
ployment agency and controlled IS
per cent of the shipping jobs along
that ports 16-mile waterfront.
Most of the fink halls and shin
ping sharks closed up shop. and
those that remained open were de-
serted.
Blacklists came to be only bit
ter memory.
Discrimination against Negroes
and other oppressed races was ruled
out.
wages and work conditions SO i'm
proved that one striking crew re-
FUSED to go back to '1ousy scow"
even after being offered more paw
And Secretary of Labor Frances
Perkins and President Joseph P
Ryan Of the International Long
shoremen's Association. please
noteD the merit system" disan-
peared, but ships engineers con-
1essed that to obtain efficient crews
they had to go to the worker-con-
troued hiring hall. Finally. true
democracy replaced the corruption
OF old, so that not one single case
OF discrimination could be produced
Graft Eliminated
These are some of the things I
found out about worker control of
marine hiring halls when I saw the
seamen's agency in operation, de-
spite the bitterest opposition of
shipownerS, during last May. Daily
Tor two weeks I watched the Gem
tralized Shipping Bureau, as the
agency was called, distribute Jobs
free Of charge, free of graft, in Bal
timore. For seamen of every trade
union utilization I heard the story
OF this job agency's efficiency and
of the tremendous benefits it
brought to the waterfront. Seamen
coming from and going to ports
scattered from coast to coast told
this story.
How they must have laughed
When they read what Secretary
Perkins said last week! She de-
clared there was mo precedent" for
joint control of hiring halls by
workers, owners and government
representatives. Asked to comment
upon the precedent" for full
worker control established in Balti-
more, Miss Perkins, instead of an
swering, prattled about the evils
(even she admitted them of boss
controlled hiring halls, such as "the
| appearance of er er crimps. u
Finally, in reply to more question:
ing, she came out with her reac-
ton to worker control. Only it
wasn't her reaction; it was Presi-
dent Ryan's. She said, IT have it
on such excellent authority as Mr.
Ryan that sometimes worker con-
troll does allow corruption and
crimps to creep in"
Then the general strike broke
The capitalist press, which had
avoided, reference to the hiring hall
issue as much as possible, now
pounced upon it, explaining that
worker control was something
new" something "untried," some
thing which Wall Street banker
Eugene Meyers Washington Post
on July IT, declared, may, in ex-
tortionate hands, leave the en-
ployer completely at the mercy OF
his men," The Post frankly advo-
Gated that the government take
charge of hiring halls, asserting, "a
proper and natural function of the
state Is organization of the labor
market" Smell the fascism!
The simple truth is that shipown-
ers dread to give up control of hir-
ing halls even more than to rec
ognize unions because control of
hiring is the -honored mech
anism by which they have car
ried out their anti-union policy.
For years seamen have been the
prey of all sorts of parasites-boot-
leggers, merchants, tailors, prosti-
tutes, BARRIERS and whatnots, who
board the ships the moment they
DOCK" Harry Alexander, former
IW.W., who became chairman of
the Baltimore seamen's job agency
committee and later joined the Ma
rine Workers Industrial Union, told
me- But of all the vultures, the
shipping agent is the most ruthless
He doesn't have to board the ship
because he knows that without
worker control of hiring the seaman