The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-03-29

y number of local dairy truck workers labor as compared with conditions in other cities were described today by Rudolph Tata, business agent for the local unit of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
 A mass meeting of the dairy truck workers will be held at Machinist hall in the Garden building, tomor- row night at 7:30 o'clock.
 We are serving notice to the in- duStry that such conditions will not be tolerated in the future," said Mr. Tata.
 His complete statement is as fol- lows:
 Never in my years of associating with workers and their conditions have had the occasion to come in contact with conditions as revolting to the organized workers of Water bury as the conditions under which the milk drivers and dairy employees of some of the local dairies are sub- ject to.
 In one of the dairies the drivers were employed with the understand ing that they were to be paid salary of $50 week for a working week of at least 75 hours, only to find at the end of the third month in the employ of the company that for every week that their route did not earn that amount that they were under obligation to the con- pany for the difference between the earning capacity of their route and the $50 paid them.
 AS a result of this adjusting on the thirteenth week some of the drivers, due to the low earnings of their route received no pay whatso- ever, and in turn were notified as to the amount of their indebtedness to the company.
 No Alternative
 The unfair part of this arrange ment is that the men had no alter native but to accept and were vir- tually made slaves to thet. jobs as effectively as if they were bound with chains as they could not quit their jobs after the first adjustment period because the amount owed to the company woull be deducted from bond which was required by the company as condition of en- ployment.
 It is to combat such un-Ameri- can standards and to eliminate this phase of American serfdom which has no right to existence in this en- frightened era of labor that the h. ternational Brotherhood of Team sters has started it's statewide cam- paign to eliminate these conditions. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters through its local unit, Mo- 677 and all the power of its agencies throughout New England has de- cided that the time has come to ex- l tend to the workers in the milk in- dustry the opportunity to avail themselves of decent standards of living and employment which the International Brotherhood of Team sters, an affiliate of the American Federation of Labor, has procured for it's members for the past half century.
 99 Per Cent Enrolled
 We have been successful so far to enroll 99 per cent ajority of driv- CTS in one local plant and have made very satisfactory progress in the en- rollment of members in other plants and have very definite hopes in the near future to have enrolled the en- tire personnel of all the plants so that we may in the near future meet in a peaceful fashion with the en- ployers and negotiate working con- ditions that will eliminate the poor conditions that will be to the bene- fit of the workers, employers and to the industry in general.
 Some of the employers in local dairies are not guilty of the above mentioned practices and 1t is to them we extend an invitation to cooperate with the Teamsters so that the unfair competition to which they were subjected to in the past can be done away with.
 The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is serving notice to the industry that the conditions stated above will not be tolerated in the future and to this end has filed mo- tice to the state labor department for an investigation into these mal- practices in the milk industry. It has also been in contact with the Connecticut Federation of Labor to find ways and means to introduce legislation which will eliminate them in the future.
 Mass Meeting
 It is in the full knowledge that only through the organization of the workers can labor be represent ed in the legislative bodies of our state and country and knowing fur ther that only through legislative action can the workers of any in dustry have laws enacted favorable