The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-01-13
TRUCK STRIKERS
 HIT AT LARKIN
Continued rom Page D

are at liberty under $1,O00 bonds for appearance in city court Jan uary 25. The two employees who were beaten, Richard Granger and John Steinman, were in improved condi- tion today, according to report of their employer, Clark Lewis, of Lewis Bros. Co.
 The statement of MT. Tata, the union business agents, follows:
 In answer to the statement of my esteemed friend William J. Larkin which was published in Tuesday evenings paper which I have been unable to answer due to the fact that I had to leave to att tend a meeting of the executive boards of the New York local un- ions which was calle6 for the pur- pose of preventing the shipment of produce into the State of Con- necticut if the New Haven, Bridgeport and Hartford produce dealers do not desist in furnishing the Waterbury dealers with prod uce. I would like to enlighten the public to the fact thatSall the de- mands for wages were not offered to the men and that the only wages on which we agreed upon, were drivers and helpers, but the wages of 55 cents per hour for celery and celler men was not met. by the employers and the deadlock is not purely closed shop issue as stated in his article.
 I am glad to learn upon my re- turn to Waterbury, that if the strike does not accomplish another thing, it has made MT. Larkin's clients conscious of the fact that the exposure to the public of 15 and IS cents an hour labor is not what the public desires.
 One employer, am informed, broadcast over the air for help at 65 cents an hour. Even in this they as yet have not reached our American standard of wages for strikebreakers. The 65 cents would have been appreciated by the men who worked for the Frank Pope company over period of years but such is the lot of most men working for firms who pay pitt for strikebreakers-and plenty of money to hire policemen to ride with 65 cents an hour strike breakers-but no more than A cents per hour for their old em- ployes.
 In regards to the un-American phase of a closed shop, I would like to know from MT. Larkin if he considers Musante, Berman and Steinberg and the Randall Bros. Produce Go. un-American due to the fact that even though they were the fairest employers, even previous to the organization of their men they signed a closed shop contract and met all the de- mands of the union, which if it were not for the fact that work ing conditions in the produce in- dustry were so deplorable at the beginning of our organizing cam- paign, our union would have been ashamed to accept 371a, A and 55 cent scale of wages for any man under our jurisdiction? Does he consider these two firms violating our American Bill of Rights be- cause they signed contract with our union granting our men an in- crease in wages and reduction in working hours? Does he con- slider it un-A n-American because these two firms refused to join his group of clients in stand against the closed shop and better wages for all their men, not only drivers and helpers, and because they chose to settle their differences amiably without having to resort to the aforementioned practices of car rying on their business with strikebreakers? Are they by any chance sponsoring anything un- American because they thought enough of their men to not allow them after years of loyal labor to them, to go out on strike against them and suffer the bitterness and unpleasantness which necessarily follow in the wake of strike