The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-02-14
700 Gary Steel Men
Meet Fight SPeed-Up
and Company Union
northumberland
Fire Many; Workers
Set for Struggle

GARY, Ind, Feb. 13-Seven hun
dred workers Of the American Sheet
and Tin Plate Company 90. s. Steel
subsidiary met in the K. c. Hail
last Thursday to take action against
the mass lay-offs due to the intro
duction OF new machinery.
The new machinery has aroused
wide discomfort. These. are the new
-four High Tin Mills" which are
driving thousands Of workers out Of
the tin mills.
The American Sheet and Tin Plate
Company has installed three Of these
machines in the last few months.
Each one of these mills operates
with total crew Of 80 men, re-
placing nine manual mills with
total crew Of 435 men. In Gary, the
new four high mills are operating
five, six and seven days per week,
while the manual mills are only
running two and three days per
week.
These mills DO away with openers,
heaters and other hot mill men.
/ Shearmen, picklers etc, nine cate
/ gorieS Of workers are eliminated al
together. As a result Of this, some
1000 workers here are working part
/ time or else are laid off completely.
/ The men have been seetling with
( discomfort for the past two months.
( The Steel and Metal Workers In
/ dustrial Union called meetings of
Z openers and others to discuss action
( against these conditions, issued leaf
lets raising demands for:
l. A minimum weekly wage Of $40
for laborers, with corresponding in
/ creaSes for higher paid labor. A
! guarantee of four days work at this
minimum rate or additional relief to
he furnished by the company and
! government.
2. a guaranteed minimum daily
wage to cover Bad Iron" break
/ downs, changing rolls, etc. Same as
roughers in the cold roll are paid.
3, The right to draw relief while
on the pay roll.
/ 4. The right to organize. Recog-
milton Of workers department and
/ shop committees.
/ Demands Wen Received
/ These demands in the leaflets were
well received by the workers. In the
! attempt to stave off action by the
workers, the company union repre-
/ SentativeS called the Thursday meet
/ ing When the workers assembled,
they found the company union all
oiled up to steam-roller any opposi-
ton and to jam through the policies
OF the company.
The company union proposals were
that one man be sent to Washing
ton, D. c. to find out" if anything
could be done to stop the introduce
ton Of more four high mills, they
proposed that this man be a COM
pany union representative. That
was aI-it was clearly their inten-
| ton to keep the men waiting for help
from Washington, d. c., and tire
them out, at the same time directing
the anger Of the men away from
/ the company whom they protected,
blaming the need for meeting "un-
fair competition" as the reason for
part-time work and lay-offs.
Refuse Stall
The workers who attended this
meeting would not accept these pro-
/ posals and Immediately began an at
tack upon the representatives" pro-
! posals. Motions were made to en-
large the delegation to three men,
/ which was carried The company
union, however, steam-rolered their
| proposal through to elect only COM
pany union representatives by high
handedly refusing workers the right
to speak upon the motion to elected
delegates OUTSIDE the company union
Of workers from the various depart
ments. S. and NJ W. T. U. members
! took the floor and spoke Of the need