The Omaha guide., 1945-09-22
|E&1 ks &c COMING
E#0nA EDS By ERIC HASS
I'll - eA@. s&. WEEKLY PEOPLE

edAs q Ike WEEKLY PEOPLE
Released by Calvin's News Service

The spell is broken. The whole U. 5. economy
shudders under the impact of peace. Mass lay
offs are from shipyards, aircraft plants, and other
industries where Negro workers made their great
est wartime gains. Government officials predict
that they'll reach 5000, 900 in sixty days, and from
100000 to 100000 0 by spring.
| find myself mulling over these figures. They're
not just figures to me. They're human beings
with mouths to feed and bodies to clothe. I ask
myself: Will the Negro boy who ran a drill press in
a Detroit tank factory go back tOs toop-labor in the
field? Will the girl in the clean, starched blouse
who boards the Eighth Avenue Express at 125th
Street and works in a Brooklyn office go back to
washing dishes for a Bronx housewife? Regular
wages have brought her new dignity. l mean dig
nifty, not false pride. She thinks she should have
something to say about how she is to employ her
own labor. Will she have a choice three months
from now? A year? Two years?
It's time, / think, we added up the score. Ac-
cord1ng to the free enterpriserS", mass unemplOy-
ment is only temporary. Once the switch is COM
pleted from war to ueace time production we shall
have several years of uneXampled prosperity. That
is what they say. What are the facts?
l. Under our resent social system production is
determined by what can be sold; when there is over
production, industries close down or operate part
time. There has been no OverproductiOn for the
past four years for the reason that hungry war has
been capitalism's Number One customer. Govern
ment expenditures have averaged around 100000
COO, 900 a year. If full production is to be continu-
ed, or resumed, therefore, a substitute for this col
OSSal war market must be found.
Much is said Of ''pent-up demand'. Granted
that this is considerable, with our present war-eX-
banded facilities and improved techniques this de-
mand can be satisfied in a few months, and with a
working force well under the wartime peak. 1t is
at best, equivalent to a years war production. After
that? After that we're back to 'nOrmalcy." After
that, the market is determined by CD the workers
current income, CO. what employers can consume in
lavish living, Co government pump-riming, and (d)
foreign exports.
Foreign exports may rise above the prewar level
although they will certainly fall far below the war
time peak. Government OUTLAWS will also be well
above those of 1889. What the employing class
consumes, though, can scarcely be increased apprec-
ably; there are limits even to %gluttony. AS for the
workers. current income, this will take a nose-dive.
Reconversion Director John w. Snyder says:
"We're shooting at a standard Of living for our
people as a whole that will be 80 percent higher
than we or any other people ever had" To put it
bluntly, Mr.. Snyder is talking through his hat.
When the supply Of workers exceeds the demand,
wages don't rise; they fall. And you don't buy
more groceries with less wages; you buy fewer gro
cerieS.
Total up the score and what do you get? Mass
unemployment-with Negro workers suffering a
dispropOrtionate share. And the pity Of it is that
the American workers are not prepared for this
crises. During the war, when the demand for labor
was high, their hands were tied by wage ceilings
and ''no strikes pledges. Now that the mo strike"
pledge is off the odds are against them. AS one Of
the labor leaders who helped to tie the workers.
hands, R. j. Thomas, put: "I've never been able to
figure out how people can strike when they are I'm
employed"
However, we cannot ignore some Of the entries
on the credit side Of the ledger. Competition for
jobs, which tends to divide the workers along the
lines Of race, color, sex and veteran or non-veteran
status, is offset in large degree by a rising miit-
ancy among the rank and file, and a realization
that insecurity knows no color line nor any other
kind of division among the workers. Nor can we
ignore the factor that everyone's imagine is stirred
to its depths by the memory of wartime production.
Each Of us knows now that there is no longer any
excuse for poverty. This knowledge will constitute
an important political factor in the angry days a
head.