The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1935-01-21

August, 1888, was 45l ,UUU. Inere
was a systematic spreading of work
which cut the weekly wages still
further; before the code the weekly
average was 40 hours, during the
code IS hours, and in the period
right before the strike it reached
a low of 80 hours a week average
work per worker.
Wholesale abuses that robbed the
textile workers still further are re-
ported by the government investi-
gators. In many mills, the report
states, many workers were being
helped" by relatives, sons and
daughters, who got no pay. This
was necessary for the workers to
maintain the minimum" schedules.
Terrible Speed-up
Workers are forced to come ear
ly." This is due to the terrific
speed-up, as the report makes
clear:
Production standards have
been set so high to earn the mini
mum wage that workers are I'M
able during the eight hours to
keep their machinery in running
order. In some instances it is al
most incumbent upon the workers
to appear in the mill up to an
hour earlier.
A particularly prevalent form of
robbery is for the employers to de
duct" whatever a worker happens
to earn over the $12 N. R. A. mini
mum, and set it aside for those
weeks when he falls below this min
imum. Thus the employers have
been able to maintain the fiction
that the minimum was being earned
every week.
There are hosts of other forms of
robbery and exploitation shown,
particularly in company house rents
which in some cases have been
doubled during the period of the
code.
Pointing to the fact that many
workers have wrong impressions
about what the N. R. A. means to
them, due mainly to the false prom
Uses of Roosevelt and the propa-
ganda of the U. T. w. and Socialist
Party officials, the report points out
that large numbers of complaints
are invalid"
Summing up its findings, the
government investigators brand the
textile industry as notorious for its
'1Ow earnings"
Communists Proven Correct
So now the wage slavery and
squalor of the textile workers has
received official confirmation.
1t was against these horrible con-
ditions that the textile workers went
into tn cir wonderfully militant
strike, ready to battle against their
1t was to these conditions that
Francis German sent them back
with nothing in their hands but
empty promises and the reward of
an investigation"
The textile workers did not need
this government report to prove to
them the poverty and misery of
their lives.
The textile workers had the grow
ing and enthusiastic support of the
whole American. working class in
their Strike.
But it was German, Green, RieYe,
MacMahon and the rest who called
the strike off just when 1t was get
ting stronger.
1t was German, with the enthu-
Siastic support of the Socialist Party
leadership, who placed the fate of
the strike in the hands Of Roosevelt,
who has shown himself to be moth
ing but the agent of the employers
for cutting wages and breaking
strikes.
The Communist Party has been
proven correct. In its leading Or
gan, the Communist Party warned
the workers against ending the
strike, against Roosevelt, the strike
breaker, against the N. r. A. Labor
Boards. But German and Company
broke the mass picket lines, called
off the flying squadrons," and sent
the workers back to their slavery.
Strikers Demands
But the fight has only begun. The
textile workers in their convention
laid down the demand for:
l. A 30-hour week with no cut
in weekly pay.
2. Wage rates from S13 a week
for unskilled to $50 for skilled.
3. Revision of all work loads.
The Communists stated in Sep
TENDER, and repeat now, that with
a strike in the hands of the fight
ing rank and file, not in the hands
OF German, these basic demands
can be won from the employers.
Glass struggle tactics can win
them! The Communist Party calls
upon the textile workers to begin a
of their strength for
new fights, unhampered by the
treachery of the Germans. whose
shame is written large in the pages
As T.