The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-06-18
With the Trade
Union Papers
BY EDWIN ROLFE-

N administration in New York City
is trying by every shady way in its
power to put over the seven-cent
fare, the publication of the Trans
port Workers Bulletin, mentioned
in this column last Monday, be-
comes an event of immediate i'm
portance.
For this paper, while primarily
concerned with the conditions of
the transport workers themselves,
these organized in the Transport
Workers Union of Greater New
York, as well as those who are I'M
organized or belong to other organ
izations, is actually occupied with
one of the major struggles facing
the masses of this city today. Re-
cent events have showed that La
Guardia is out to raise the fares
on subway, elevated, street-car and
bus lines, and that he will stop at
nothing to do so. At present the
two-cent tax on all city transpor-
tation lines is being pushed by the
Mayor and his Fusion cohorts as q
demagogic method of making the
subway riders pay for the relief of
the unemployed.
Now, these subway riders are the
workers themselves, in all trades
and industries, who must travel to
and from work on the many car
and subway lines. They are the
unemployed, who must use the city's
transportation system if they want
to go out to look for jobs. The
issue of the seven-cent fare, then,
becomes one of the most important
local political struggles today.
The Transport Workers Bulletin,
whose present issue tells of the
millions of dollars of profits
amassed by the I. R. T., B. M. T.,
etc., should be an important factor
in the struggle of the workers of
New York against the fare rise. For
it stands to reason that higher
fare will not benefit the workers:
it will go out, as in the past, in the
form of higher dividends to the
wealthy stockholders. The lot of
the transport workers, already
pretty miserable, will be forced
lower.
If, then, this little six-page
folder-pap succeeds in awakening
the majority of New York transport
workers, not only for lettering their
own conditions, as it is now doing,
but also to the necessity of forging
q mass militant resistance of the
subway riders, the unemployed and
the transport workers combined
against the fare rise, it will assume
Al importance in the present
struggles against the Wall Street.
controlled Fusion administration in
this city.
The needle trades workers, almost
all of whom are vitality interested
in what the Transport Workers
Bulletin has to say, are right now
enthusiastically reading their own
Weekly Needle Worker, the fourth
issue of which, published by the
Needle Trades Workers Industrial
Union, is now on sale at three cents
copy.
This paper, printed in English,
Yiddish and Italian, has showed q
marked improvement in the short
space of a month. Not only does
it deal with its own specific trade
problems, but with major political
problems which face the entire
working class. The issue of June
10 (Vol. l, No. a. speaks of the
increased number of strikes in the
needle trades, announces that the
"Furriers Are Set for National Con-
ference" describes the vicious slave
conditions under which Chinese
dressmakers in San Francisco are
forced to work. 1t also comments
at length on the activities of the
industrial union in the campaign
to free Ernst Thaelmann. The
Needle Trade Worker is well worth
buying and reading by every worker
who is interested in the struggles in
this major New York industry.
Going outside of New York City
for the moment, we find The
Leather Worker, published by the
Independent Leather Workers
Union of Fulton County. This is
an independent union, in which q
major victory has recently been
scored in the defeat of the Red"
scare. The paper fights for the