The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-03-17
Continued from yesterday

The Ohio District Plenum devoted
considerable time to the trade union
work and a special detailed separate
report was given to the Plenum on
the Youngstown situation. In some
places youngstown, some steel or
ganizing groups in Cleveland there
had been retrogression. Some 1900
T. U. U. L. members was the max
imum figure in the District, and the
existing locals do not have a solid
foundation. The concentration con-
troll tasks adopted at the time of
the Open Letter we're in the major
ity Of cases neglected and one Of
the decisions was to energetically
catch up on these before the con-
yention.
In examining the work Of thu
Party on the trade union and shop
field, it was brought out sharply
that the Party was not alert to this
control task and on the trade union
field itself there was need for more
aggressive work In many shops, the
workers were talking strike" but
we were not on the job to give lead
'ership; in other shops there are two
S.M.WI.U. locals actually control
ling the shop but no Party shop
nucleus; in other places we saw
where the SM.WI.U. had foot
hold (Otis, Carnegie, FarrelD but
the A.A. had come in and practically
eliminated the Red Union; in New
castle 200 had joined up in the S.
MWI.U. but the union organizer
had consistently neglected to organ
ize them; in Packing where we had
organized some workers, a strike
broke out in neighboring shops I'M
der A. F. Of L. leadership without
the Packing Workers Industrial
Union moving finger for united
front action and this is a one-man
leadership instead of developing
functioning executive boards, etc.
In the three months under ex-
animation, new shop nuclei we're
organized and since Feb. 3, six more.
These IL are in the following in
dustries: Railroad 2; Auto - l;
Steel; RUBBER Metal; min
ing-1; Electrical. While the es-
tablishment of these is a step for
ward, the main task remains of con-
solidating them-having them de-
velop union activity-build them
selves and issue shop papers.
Party recruiting was unsatisfac-
tory. Only 1853 new members were
recruited during October, Novem-
Der and December and for the first
five weeks Of the recruiting drive,
for 500 new Party members, 1859 have
been recruited Of which only 1-3
were employed. Particularly poor in
the recruiting drive we're Youngs-
town, Akron, Section 2, 8, II Of
Cleveland and Columbus. The PIE
mum examined the reasons for these
weaknesses and gave directives for
correcting same. Special attention
was given to the impermissible high
fluctuation and tendency to drop"
members instead of activizing them.
Those sections most guilty of this
are Section 3 of Cleveland; Cinci-
natti, Toledo and Akron.
In connection with the Daily
Worker circulation, the -Plenum
sounded a sharp alarm, not Only
about subs but equally about bundle
circulation which had practically no
increase over a year ago. Decisions
were adopted to carry through not
only the sub-drive but also to ex-
tend bundle circulation and increase
the sale of the Communist four
times over.
Special attention was given to the
question of the united front task,
roofing out of opportunists and i'm
provement in the functioning of the
units, as the key to improving the
political life and mass work of the
Party.
The Plenutn adopted decisions
with reference to all Comintern