The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1935-02-20
Continued from, Page y

standards Of the masses unimpaired.
Anything less than this is not so
cial security" but merely institu-
tionalizing the insecurity, the degra-
dalton, of the masses. It must pro-
vide for benefits equal to average
normal wages, with a minimum be-
low which no family is allowed to
fall.
p 1t must apply to all categories
Of useful citizens, all those who de-
pend upon continued employment at
wages for their livelihood.
81 Benefits must begin at once.
when normal income Is cut off, and
continue until the worker has been
employed in his normal capacity
and established his normal in
come.
Must Be Paid by Rich
A. The costs of social insurance
must be paid out of the accumu-
lated and current surplus of society,
and not by further reducing the liv-
ing standards Of those still en-
ployed. That means that the f.
nancing of the insurance must come
from taxation of incomes, beginning
at approximately $1,000 per year,
and sharply graduated upward, with
further provisions for taxation of
undistributed SURPRISES, gifts, in
heritances, etc.
81 Social insurance legislation
must provide guarantees against be-
ing misused by determinations
against Negroes, foreign-born, the
young workers never admitted into
industry, and other groups habitu-
ally Disseminated against within
the existing social order.
No Strikebreaking
81 Guarantees must provide
against the Withholding of benefits
from workers who have gone on
strike against the worsening of their
conditions, or to force workers to
scab against strikers, or to force
workers to leave their homes or to
work at places far removed from
their homes.
y Administration of insurance
must be removed from the control of
local political machines, to guaran-
tee that the present scandalous use
of relief funds to impress masses
into support Of the Democratic
Party shall not be made permanent
under pretext of insurance; this
means, that administration must be
through the elected representatives
of the workers involved, making use
of their existing mass organizations,
relying upon democratic self-activi-
ty and organization.
Against Wagner-Lewis Bill
The Communist Party opposes the
Wagner-Lewis, Administration Bill.
because itsviolates each and every
one Of these conditions for real So
cial insurance. 1t does not provide
for any national system at all. and
the systems permitted for the vari-
Gus 48 States in effect prohibit the
incorporation Of any of the above
mentioned seven essential features.
The Wagner-Lewis Bill prohibits
benefits of more than a fraction of
average normal, wages. 1t specifl-
cally excludes from its supposed
benefits" whole categories of work
ers, such as agricultural and do
nestle workers and those employed
in small establishments, who need
insurance the most because they are
the most insecure, the most ex-
plotted and oppressed, and which
include the majority of the Negroes.
1t provides for a benefit period
which is only small fraction of the
average period Of unemployment.
Even Less Relief Than Now
Examining only these three
phases of the Wagner Lewis Bill,
the conclusion cannot be escaped
that the result of the Bill would be
to provide even less than is now
being given in relief, miserably in
adequate as that amount is, and to
cut off from even this reduced
amount the great masses now I'M
employed. The plain intention of
this bill is to reduce the volume of
governmental aid to all those suffer-
ing from involuntary unemploy-
ment.
When it comes to provisions for
financing this parody of insurance,
it becomes even more clear that the
intention is to relieve the rich and
to place all burdens upon the poor.
Nothing is to be taken from the
social-surplus, which exists only in
the form of the higher-income
brackets, undistributed SURPRISES,
ETC.; everything is to be taken di-
rectly out of the meagre and de-
creasing wage-fund and indirectly
from the same source by a tax on
payrolls which inevitably is passed
on to the masses of consumers in a
magnif1ed amount.
Discrimination
Instead of guaranteeing against
further intensification of discrimi-
nation against Negroes, the foreign
born, and young workers, the Wag-
ner-Lewis Bill does the opposite; it
provides explicitly for such further
discrimination, by excluding from
benefits those who need them most,
agricultural and domestic workers.
Instead of guarantees against the
use of insurance as a strike-break
ing machinery, this Bill in applica-
ton would become an elaborate
blacklist system for the destruction
of trade unions. The only system of
organization that could flourish
under the Wagner-Lewis Bill would
be the company unions" those
menacing forerunner of fascism
in the United States.
Instead of providing for demo-
cratic administration of the insur-
| ance system by the workers, the