Montana labor news., 1934-04-19
Declares Anti-union Manufacturers
Have Organized Concerted Drive on
Congress to Kill the Measure-Rec-
ommends Its Prompt Enactment,
Without Objectionable Amendments.

tOltBl " iAit thS No1
ommends Its Prompt Enactment,
Without Objectionable Amendments.
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. out that
organized anti-union employers and
their friends are using the radio, news
paper advertisements, public speakers
and appeals to Members of Congress
to bring about the defeat of the Wag-
merit onnery Labor Disputes Bill, now
under considel alton by the Senate and
House Labor Committees, William
Green, president of the American Fed
GRAFTON of Labor, declared that the
prompt enactment of the measure,
without Objectionable amendments, is
necessary to secure for the workers
the freedom it was sought to give
them in the National Industrial Re-
covery Act.
Collective Bargaining Protected.
"It is clearly evident that no bill
has been introduced in the Congress
of the United States since the Norris
LaGuardia Injunction Relief Measure
which has aroused the opposition of
manufacturers associations, cham
bers of commerce, large corporations
and their paid representatives to the
same extent as has the introduction of
the Wagner-C onnery Disputes Act"
Mr.. Green said.
'"This bill provides that employees
shall have the right to organize and
join labor organizations and engage in
concerted activities for the purpose of
collective bargaining.
"It also stipulates hat it will be re-
has brought all the gold there is into
the world but he certainly has never
boarded much of it. Oh yes, ne has
received good wages in the past, but
remember this that the highest wage
he ever received in proportion to the
profits the operators were making,
were comparatively small. Give the
miners decent pay and hours and
they'll bring the old town back in a
hurry. In a few months they'll pay
up their bills, if they have the chance
and begin to buy up the piled-up
products of the earth,
And listen aren't these self-same
miners entitled to some serious con-
sideration, aren't they the men who
have built up Butte and made it the
city it is today? submit they are.
The miners are the men who put
down the shafts, drove the drifts,
stopped the ore that has made Butte
the greatest mining camp on earth
and no one else.
With due respect for the business
men and the professional men, the fact
remains that the miners constitute
the one producing class and should
come first in the division of profits,
rather than last as they always have
in the past.
The miner knows as well as the
next man what the trouble is with
America and the world for that mat
ter, too much concentration of wealth
in the hands of the few. Too much
paid out in managerial salaries, in
dividends and Refreshments and too
little, far too little paid to the worker.
l was reading last night about the
American Tobacco Company, if you
please, a benevolent association some
would call it. It pays the President
of the company two million dollars a
year in salary and in other ways; it
pays five vice-presidents from seven
hundred and fifty thousand to one
million each, which isn't bad consid-
ering the times. It pays one hun
dred and six thousand employees, who
do the work of course, the magnifi-
cent sun of eight hundred and thir-
teen dollars every twelve months.
That couldn't be a sample of the
American standard of living could it?
That couldn't be the high American
wage we've boosted about so long?
That couldn't be those shining Amer
lean ideals, that shine for the rich
but not for the poor, could it?
If so, where do the serfs and poems
and slaves of other days or of today
have anything on us? Why do we
point the finger of scorn at Russia or
China or India or any other place on
earth, when we are no better off and
have far less excuse for our condition.?
The President has pointed the way
out, but that way involves honesty,
integrity, sincerity, a willingness to
let the other fellow live.
The miner has conformed his code
to the Presidents plain intention and
purpose, will the big fellows, the pow
erful fellows, the companies and cor
porations, do likewise? If not the
Blue Eagle will never set a long dis
Lnnn. Els.lL .aa...I