The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-08-31
Sednen to Plan Fight
For Union Conditions
At Baltimore ParLey
Unity of Rank and File
Sought at Convention
Opening Saturday
BY HARRY RAYMOND

u
NEW YORK-A North Atlantic
Marine Workers Conference, with
delegates from the ships and docks
from several unions, will convene
in Baltimore, Md, on Saturday,
Sept. /, and will be in session for
two days, to work out a plan of
action for the Atlantic seaports and
prepare for a strike for union con-
ditions in the marine industry on
the East Coast.
Initiated by the Marine Workers
Industrial Union, the conference
will aim to unite the rank and file
seamen and longshoremen, regard
less Of union affiliation, around a
program of struggle against the
shipowners. Supporting the unity
move is the Rank and File Action
Committee of the International
Longshoremen's Association, headed
by Howard Farmer, and the Radio
TelegraphistS Association, union
of ships radio operators.
Proposals and resolutions, pre-
pared by vasious groups to be pre-
sented, discussed and used as bases
for the unity program, include q
plan of struggle for the 1929 wage
scale for seamen, tiremen, cooks and
stewards, for the abolition of the
two watch az hour a day. system,
for 81 an hour wage scale on all
docks and $1.50 for overtime.
Seamen delegates, elected by
crews on the ships, will also urge
that the proposition of carrying on
a fight in all ports for a centralized
shipping bureau controlled by the
rank and file seamen shall be in
corporated into the program Dele
gates from the docks will demand
that all hiring shall be done
through union halls and that a
rotary system of hiring shall be es-
tablished. Larger gangs, smaller
loads, abolition Of the speed-up and
union recognition will be among
the major points proposed for the
fighting program by the longshore
delegates. A number of the dele
gates have indicated that they have
been instructed to support the
Workers Unemployment Insurance
Bill.
Thirty-two delegates will leave
New York this morning and will
arrive at Baltimore tonight where
they will be greeted at the head
quarters of the Marine Workers In
dustrial Union, 100 South Broadway
by mass reception committee from
the ships and docks in the Chesa-
peake Bay region. Delegates are also
on their way to the conference from
Boston, Philadelphia and Norfolk
Among the delegates from the
port of New York, twenty are sea-
men, eighteen of whom will repre-
sent the crews of forty ships. One
thousand unemployed seamen will
send two delegates. The radio oper-
ators will be represented by two
delegates, Ten longshoremen, rep
resenting 5000 dock workers, will
bring the proposals of the New York
dock workers to the conference.
THE eyes of the seamen in ports
throughout the world are on this
conference" said Roy Hudson, ma
tional secretary of the Marine
Workers Industrial Union, who will
leave for Baltimore today as dele
gate. ut aims to establish that unity
in struggle that the men on the
ships have been fighting for fol
years. The longshoremen consider
the conference as the greatest steI
ever made on the east coast to unite
all maritime trades in solid, fight.
ing front against the shipowner;
and against the agents of the ship
owners, Mr.. Joseph P. Ryan and hi
understrappers, who helped to be-
tray the great West Coast strike"