The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-07-14
WestmOreland County
Officials in Eviction
Drive Against Jobless
Unemployed Council Increasing Fight for Relief
As JOBS in Mines Decline

unless he pays back taxes OF Ss.fz.
Stanton has been unemployed for
three years and has received no re-
lief.
This campaign will affect thou
sands of unemployed and poverty
stricken workers in this coal region
who live in little board shacks and
taxpayer barracks and subsist upon
the most mesgre relief or upon in
frequent, starvation wages. STAN
ton has taken his case to the IN
employed Council which has already
begun a campaign against the
threatened eviction.
Relief conditions in general in
Washington County are of an ap-
palling nature. A single man is
given $3.50 to live on for week;
married couple are given $2.95;
and couple with two children,
$5.25. This amounts to six or seven
cents a person per meal. No coal
is provided, although in these dis
tricts most homes are without gas
Or electricity. Workers are told by
relief officials to take coal from
company dumps, but when they do
this they are arrested for stealing
And no ice is provided although
this is summer essential.
The administration of relief is
similarly of the worst sort Work
ers who are put on R.WD. or CIV.
A. jobs find their relief cut off i'm
mediately despite the fact that
they do not receive their first pay
check for several weeks. Frequently
they find that although their job
may last only few days it never
theless, takes them five weeks to
get put back on the relief rolls.
The local investigators are de-
liberately slipshod in their methods.
Requests for relief are never turn
ed in or are denied. Garden plants
sent to headquarters are held till
rotten and are then thrown away.
And, in addition, workers belonging
to the Unemployed Council are
threatened with stoppage of relief.
Recently a delegation from the
Unemployed Council headed by
Fred Siders of Library conferred
with the relief officials of Washing
ton. The officials at first refused
to see more than one worker at a
time but the delegation insisted
that everyone be present and the
officials were forced to yield.
When the delegation left, after
taking up all the cases on its list,
the administrator suggested that no
more delegations were necessary.
She was told that the workers
themselves would decide that.
The Unemployed Council is grow
ing rapidly in Washington County
because local workers are beginning
to realize that as individuals they
are powerless to secure relief. An
old steel worker summed this up
yesterday at relief headquarters
when he said: The U. S. Steel
corporation fired me when I reach
ed the age limit and then I couldn't
get any more work. And I'll tell
you what opened my eyes. 1t was
when I couldn't get relief and was
reduced to begging, and then went
to the Unemployed Council and
they got relief for me-"
There is prospect of widespread
unemployment throughout the coal
district this summer. Commercial
mines are already shut down or
operating only two days a week.
And the captive mines which here
tofore have been running five days
a week in order to store up coal
against the threatened steel
strike are beginning to fire men. A
few days ago 200 men were fred at
the Mountour 10 mine, one of the
largest mines in this section.