The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-04-16
PARTY LIFE
Unit Faces Red Scare" and
Starts RT Trade Union York
Establish Contacts, Distribute Party Literature,
Start Union York

I believe the following experience
of our unit is of value to all of our
comrades to show how to meet the
red scare" and thereby how to build
a rank and file union under our
leadership, and also to recruit work
erS from basic industries into the
Party.
We are in the City Transport Con-
centration unit of Section No. Is.
We have been concentrating for sew
eraI months on the I. R. T. repair
shop at I80th st. and La Fontaine
Ave, in the Bronx. There are about
$50 workers in this shop. They are
mostly Irish and Italian, with sew
eral other nationalities. They are
all in the Brotherhood company
union) and are very much discon-
tented with their conditions of work.
However, we have failed to date to
organize group inside the shop,
and were beginning to get little
discouraged.
About two months ago, another
comrade and I followed a worker
from the shop and picked up a con-
verSation with him. I will call this
worker jim. We told Jim we were
from the Organization Committee
of the Transport Workers Union,
and that we wanted to help the
workers in his shop to organize a
rank and file union. We told him
that we organize workers in secret
groups in order not to expose them
to stool pigeons and the boss. Jim
was very friendly and told us about
the miserable conditions in the shop
He told us how the company plays
off one nationality against another,
in order to keep tn workers divided,
by stirring up racial prejudice. Jim
agreed to keep in touch with us,
to give us information about the
shop.
Our unit issued leahet, exposing
the conditions Jim told us about
and telling the workers to organize
into the Transport Workers Union,
fighting rank and file union. The
other conrade and I determined to
build up personal friendship with
jim. However, the next time we
saw Jim "a week later, he asked
us many questions, as to who we
were, why we were organizing the
workers, who was in back of us, etc.
We told him we were from the
union; that some Of us were I. R. T.
workers, that we believed the only
way out for all workers was to Or
ganize in real union; that, therefore,
we were helping to build such an
organization of I. r. T. workers, etc.
However, Jim didn't seem to be quite
satisfied with our explanation. When
we asked him how the workers re-
acted to our leaflets, he said he
didn't know since he heard no one
talk about it. He further said he was
willing to keep on giving us further
information about conditions in the
shop, but that he couldn't organize
a group. We parted in very
friendly manner. However, the next
time we spoke to him, he asked us
the same questions as to who was
in back of us, etc. and told us he
didn't think we we're on the "up and
up" We gave him the same X
PLANTATION and tried to convince him
we were o. K, but he still seemed
suspicious.
We took up the question at our
unit meeting as to whether or not
we should tell Jim we were Com
munists. We decided to take the
matter up with the Section Organ
izer and the District The Section
Organizer said that under no cir
cumstances in the present condition
of our work, should we tell Jim
that we we're Communists. He said
it might ruin all our work in that
shop. The District Buro comrade
told us that an ordinary honest
worker wouldn't ask us such ques-
tons, that ther must be something
wrong with this worker, and that
we absolutely should not tell him we