The Union Review (Galveston, Tex.), Vol. 15, No. 22, Ed. 1 Friday, October 5, 1934 Page: 1 of 4
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I
Official Organ of the
Endorsed by the Texas State Federation of Labor
VOL. 15, No. 22.
Subscription Price $1.50 Per Year
GALVESTON, TEXAS, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1934.
)
XHEHHHHHHCHHGHHGHGHGHGHGEGAHGAGHGEGHAGHGHGEGHGHKHEHGHGEGHOHOHGHHGHHHHHHHHHHHH
By Richard Scrace.
)
BOSTON TRUCK DRIVERS Wages of Anthracite Miners
VOTE STRIKE FOR 2300
Suffer 6 Per Cent Reduction
scheduled for December 31.
Country’s Ten Million Idle
Persons Ignored by Proposed
Grocery Manufacturing Code
JAP IMMIGRANT QUOTA
PLANNED, SAYS A. F. L.
Personnel Regarded As Capable; Will Immediately Proceed to
Investigate Alleged Discrimination Against Strikers; Presi-
dent Supports Majority Rule Under Section 7(A); Other
Progressive Features.
Group Identities Would Be Retained In Plan Suggested In
Report of Officers To Meet Opposition To Craft Unions;
Widespread Violations of Section 7(A) and 200 Per Cent
Increase In Company Unions Charged.
Respectfully,
HENRY W. E. RABE, Sec’y,
Galveston Labor Council.
TEXTILE LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
NAMED BY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
AMERICAN
FEDERATION
OF LABOR
Galveston Labor
Council and Building
Trades
eU-
Wvoouaum
Employers Refuse to Meet Conditions
Of Regional Labor Board.
RUMBLINGS OF
THE LABOR COUNCIL
Official Organ of Galveston Labor Council, Dock and Marine Council
and Affiliated Unions
A. F. L METAL TRADES DEPT.
SUGGESTS COMPROMISE
ON INDUSTRIAL UNIONS
LOCAL VOICE
OF THE
“The Executive Council restates its
opposition to any modification what-
ever of the exclusive section of the
United' States immigration laws.”
----------o-----------
Mexican Oil Workers Strike
--o--
CUBAN CENSUS TAKERS
DEMAND LIVING WAGE
By AFL News Service.
Havana.—The 4,500 census takers of
Cuba, who have been getting only
seven cents per registration, declared
a strike here September 21, demanding
a higher wage rate that could enable
them to make a living.
The census takers were appointed re-
cently to register all voters in 'Cuba,
Basis Code Offered Proposed Up To
56 Hours Weekly, With Wages
Down to $12; Other Provisions Held
Likely To Benefit Industry.
By AFL News Service.
%, \
2
‘8,*
Che ICnion eview
for Constitutional Assembly elections, overtime at time and a half, with pres-
ent basic wage scales to remain.
nore President Roosevelt’s request
that strikers be returned to work with-
out discrimination. He said that “dis-
crimination” could be proved.
Mr. Gorman, in announcing his com-
plaint on behalf of strikers, charged
that George A. Sloan, president of the
Cotton Textile Institute, indicated yes-
terday that individual mill operators
mean to reemploy strikers according
to their own dictates. He said that
telegrams had* been received from
eight scattered sections asserting that
mill owners were refusing to reemploy
strikers.
Special Investigations Are Ordered
In the same order which set up this
board as arbitrator of all labor dis-
putes in the far-flung textile business,
Mr. Roosevelt ordered two investiga-
tions recommended by the Winant
board.
The first is a study of wages and
working conditions by the Bureau of
Labor Statistics. The second is a sur-
vey by the Federal Trade Commission
to determine “whether wage increases
based upon reduction in hours or
otherwise can, under prevailing eco-
nomic conditions, be sustained.”
Extensive Poweers Are Granted
To Board.
Like the board appointetd for the
steel industry, the textile board is or-
dered to certify the results of elections
conducted by workers for collective
bargaining.
Not even the President, under the
terms of the order, may interfere with
acts or decisions of the board except
where decisions involve Section 7(a)
of the National Labor Relations Board
either at the request of the textile
board or at the instance of the nation-
al board.
President Roosevelt Accepts
Majority Rule.
In the executive order creating the
Textile Labor Relations Board and
outlining its powers and duties, Pres-
ident Roosevelt came out definitely,
for what is believed to be the first
time, in favor of majority rule in elec-
tions held under Section 7(a) of the
National Industrial Recovery Act. Sec-
tion 5 of the order states:
“The board shall certify the results
of all elections conducted by it or by
its agents to parties concerned, and the
person, persons or organization certi-
fied as the choice of the majority of
those voting shall be accepted, for the
purpose of collective bargaining, as
the representative or representatives of
the employes eligible to participate in
the election,' without thereby denying
to any individual or employes or group
of employes the right to present griev-
ances, to confer with their employers,
or otherwise to associate themselves
and act for mutual aid or protection.”
" ‘Shabby-Genteel
Washington.—A number of labor of-
ficials contend that reemployment of
workers in the grocery manufacturing
industry would not be effected, because
the code proposes hours of labor up
to 56 per week. Proposed wages are
as lo was $12 per week.
It is held that the administration of-
ficials should not ignore the fact that
10,000,000 people are unemployed in
America; 10,000,000 people who, are
clamoring for a chance to make an
honest living, and all codes should be
so constructed by shortening of hours
and adjustment of wages that re-
employment may become a; fact in-
stead of a hope.
A maximum work week of 40 hours
is established with engineers and fire-
men permitted to work 44, delivery-
men, outside truck drivers and chauf-
feurs, 48 and watchmen 56. An extra
6 hours per week for eight weeks in
any calendar year, to be paid for at the
rate of time and one-third, is provided
By AFL News Service.
Mexico, D. F.—Unless satisfactory
labor reforms are instituted, a strike
of all workers of the Huateca Petro-
leum Company will become effective
October 1.
The employees seek conditions sim-
ilar to those enjoyed by employes of
the Aguila company, the competitive
British concern, as determined by
President Rodriguez during the recent
Aguila strike. These include strict ad-
herence to the Mexican labor law, a
forty-six hour week,- annual holidays,
indemnities for accidents, as well as
medical assistance, a 50 per cent in-
crease in wages for dangerous work,
such as handling dynamite, payment
of full wages when work is suspended
because of bad weather, double wages
when work is necessary on holidays
and hygienic workmen’s dwellings.
By AFL News Service.
San Francisco, ICal.—The annual
convention of the Metal Trades De-
partment got under way here Wednes-
day, October 26, with a large attend-
ance of delegates and apparent enthu-
siasm, the work of the convention be-
ing completed Friday.
The outstanding action of the con-
vention is held by many to be con-
cerned with a section of the report of
officers of the Department in which a
plan and policy is suggested to har-
monize the conflict between two not-
able schools of trade union philosophy,
the “horizontal” or craft unions and
the “vertical” or industrial unions.
“Professional Economists” Criticised.
Presented by John P. Frey, secre-
tary-treasurer, and approved by James
P. O'Connell, president, the report on
the craft versus industrial form of or-
ganization severely criticizes employ-
ers, “parlor reformers,” “professional
economists” and “some of the highest
authorities in the NRA” who favor
“vertical” unionism as “men who are
without any actual experience as trade
unionists, who know little if anything
concerning the practical problems
which wage-earners must face every
day” and who “are launching a cam-
paign to reconstruct the form of or-
ganization within the A. F. of L.”
Department officials favor as emi-
nently practical a plan whereby the
craft unions would federate their ef-
Be careful, friend, how such slight words escape you:
The livery of wealth—the silken coat—
Is donned with far less pomp and surety
Than these pale votaries of Form assume!
Moth-eaten fur and shiny broadcloth—all
An outer world can see, yet such poor screens
As shrunken purse affords are but a mask
Worn by a tragic Muse on life’s bare stage.
Decked in weird guise of headgear, out of date.
Black, browning at the seams,
The beads and bugled gimp where none should be—
(The little tabs and oddments hide at times
A world of bravery and sturdy pride).
So, honoring their makeshifts, forth they go.
(One is a princess of her attic room,
And one again, a starving artist-soul.)
Beware, my friend, they walk with those of us
Whose trappings cannot hide our shabby souls.
Philadelphia, Pa.—The statement in
Washington by Secretary of Labor Fran-
ces Perkins that the number of em-
ployed workers in the anthracite mining
industry and the wages paid suffered a
considerable loss during August is con-
firmed by statistical data prepared by
the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadel-
phia on the basis of reports received
from the Anthracite Institute from 34
companies operating 136 collieries.
The bank declared the number of
workers employed in the anthracite in-
dustry declined nearly eight per cent
and the amount of wages paid six per
cent from Juy to August.
Measured by the employe hours work-
ed each week in collieries of 30 com-
panies, the management curtailed operat-
ing time five per cent.
These reductions in both wages and
hours were declared to be less favorable
than usual, past records showing that in
most normal years there were gains in
the number of workers employed and the
amount of money in pay envelopes.
By AFL News Service.
Boston—Truck Drivers’ Local Union
No. 25 has voted unanimously to go
on strike to seek enforcement of an
arbitration decision arranged by the
New England Regional Labor Board.
Date and other details of the strike
were left in the hands of the Executive
Board. The union has 2,300 members.
The strike would affect every truck-
ing firm in greater Boston where the
managements refused to sign a con-
tract containing terms of working con-
ditions arranged by Judgee John J.
Burns, chairman of the New England
regional labor board. The judge, who
was reviewing authority of an arbitra-
tion decision recently announced, ar-
ranged for an eight-hour day with
Otober 1st, 1934.
Are you affiliated with the Galves-
ton Labor Council? Do you contrib-
ute anything toward its maintenance?
What interest do you take in the labor
movement, outside of your own union?
Those are three questions that you
should give vital consideration if you
are a member of organized labor. If
you are not interested in any of the
three questions, then you are standing
on your own bottom and cannot ex-
pect others to -be interested in your
affairs: Why should you think that
every labor union in the city must
come to your rescue when you are in
trouble. Just because your interna-
tional is affiliated with the American
Federation of Labor? No, brother,
just get right, nature is not made up
of that kind of stuff. Of course some
of us are just a little better than the
rest of us. But take it from us, the
majority of us doesn’t take much stock
in matteers that don’t concern us, and
your indifference towards the three
propositions will gradually get you
into a position where you will need
the assistance of the central labor
union, and while they-might not turn
you down you have no right to expect
the assistance that would be given an
active member or organization of the
Council.
This is a very important proposi-
tion, something of vital interest to
your local union. You are not inter-
ested in* the Galveston Labor Council?
You are not contributing towards its
support? And you are not interested
in only your own union? Neverthe-
less you expect the support of organ-
ized labor, you expect them to employ
members of your union. Well you ex-
pect everything and you don’t give
anything, rather inconsistent, don’t
you think? Then the first thing you
know your stronghold is invaded by
the enemy, and .you expect the entire
labor movement to come to a stand-
still and take up your difficulty, and
if your expectations are exploded you
proceed to low rate the entire move-
ment. When you have never done one
single thing that merits the support
you are expecting. Now, brother, just
get busy and line up, get where you
can nip the trouble before it gets to
proportions out of your reach. Re-
member the golden rule, and do unto
others as you would have them to do
unto you. The Galveston Labor Coun-
cil is building up, getting more affili-
ations. Has all of its obligations cared
for and is on a rapid road to recoy-1
forts in all industrial plants, the re-
spective unions retaining their identity
without merging their combined mem-
bership in separate vertical groups.
It is probable that the matter will
be taken before the 54th annual con-
vention of the A. F. of L., opening
here October 1, and presented in the
form of a resolution.
Brief Outline of Plan Is Given.
Just as separate military units in an
army are welded together for effec-
tive action under a general staff and
a commander-in-chief so the interna-
tional unions of various crafts would
be joined together through the various
departments in the A. F. of L. which
are directly responsible to the feder-
ation.
Condemn Section 7(A) Violations.
The report neither defends nor at-
tacks labor’s experience under the
NRA, explaining that the Recovery
Act and the National Recovery Admin-
istration were part of a “method”
adopted by Congress and the Presi-
dent to deal with grave problems and
the method could not be expected to
work perfectly from the outset.
Nevertheless, the report asserts that
there have been widespread violations
of Section 7-A, that the right of labor
to organize has been thwarted by em-
ployers, while company unions have
been organized “in open defiance of
Section 7-A,” and have increased 200
per cent in a year.
By AFL News Service.
San Francisco, Cal.—All attempts of
the Japanese -Government to increase
the number of Japanese immigrants to
the United States during the past year
have been futile, according to the re-
port made by the Executive Council of
the American Federation of Labor to
the 1934 convention in San Francisco.
The Council1 said:
“Japan -continues her persistent agi-
tation for the placing of both Japan
and China under the quota provisions
of our immigration law. It is reason-
able to conclude if Japan were placed
under the quota all countries in the
barred zone would of necessity be
treated likewise.
“The American Federation of Labor
joined with other groups in the rejec-
tion of the exclusive immigration
statute applicable to oriental countries.
We have never been convinced that
there should be any modification in
this position which we have consis-
tently maintained.
By AFL News Service.
Washington.—A Textile Labor Re-
lations Board, as recommended in the
report of the Winant textile inquiry
board, has been named by President
Roosevelt and will proceed immediate-
ly to attempt to straighten out the
tangled situation existing in the textile
industry.
The Textile Labor Relations Board,
which will replace the Winant board,
will be accountable, under the execu-
tive order, only to the National Labor
Relations Board. It will make quar-
terly and annual reports to the Presi-
dent through the parent board and the
office of the Secretary of Labor. A
fund of $50,000, to be expended under
the direction of Secretary Perkins, is
granted for the use of the board.
The powers of the new body in-
clude authorization to set up such
agencies as it may see fit to investi-
gate labor conditions affecting tex-
tiles, either on its own initiative or on
complaints laid before it. It may also
conduct voluntary arbitration proceed-
ings and “exercise such powers as may
be conferred upon it by any code of
fair competition.”
The order was issued after a final
conference on its terms at the White
House participated in by Donald R.
Richberg, acting director of the exec-
utive council; Secretary Ickes, Charles
E. Wysanski, Jr., solicitor for the De-
partment of Labor, and Harry L. Hop-
kins, Federal Relief Administrator.
Board Has Strong Personnel.
The membership of the Board is re-
garded as very strong and likely to
prove capable. Those named include:
Judge Walter P. Stacy, of North Car-
olina, chairman; James A. Mullenbach,
of Illinois, and Admiral Henry A.
Wiley, retired.
Judge Stacy, the chairman of the
new board, has had wide experience
as an arbiter in industrial controver-
sies, having been named chairman of
the National Steel Labor Relations
Board last June after previous experi-
ence on five railroad arbitration
boards and numerous emergency
boards.
Admiral Wiley has had a similar al-
though not as broad an experience.
Mr Mullenbach, a farmer member of
the Board of Education of Chicago, is
a member of the Petroleum Labor Pol-
icy Board and was appointed to the
Steel Labor Board. He has been ac-
tive as a labor arbiter in the clothing
trades in Chicago, where he began
such work in 1912.
Gorman Charges Discrimination.
Immediate work for the new board
was forecast by Francis J. Gorman,
vice president of the United Textile
Workers of America, who charged
that some mill owners intended to ig-
to take care of unusual or peak de-
mands. Time and one-third must also
be paid for all hours worked on na-
tional and legal holidays.
Minimum weekly wages for clerical
workers are based upon population,
the rate being $16 in cities of over
500,000; $15 in cities between 250,000
and 5100,000, and $14 in other places,
with the following exceptions; a lim-
ited number of office boys may be paid
at the rate of $2 less per week than
the standard established and watch-
men must be paid no less than $18 per
week for a 56-hour week. A minimum
hourly rate of 40 cents in the north
and 35 cents in thirteen Southern
states is provided for other employees.
Employess engaged in light work
commonly performed by female opera-
tives may be paid 5 cents less than the
minimums established, but females per-
forming substantially the same work
as males must be paid at the same
rate.
ery. We have had a hard go of it,
but have come out victorious and it is
up to us to keep pushing it along. If
you are not already a member come
up next meeting, the cost is nominal.
Ring up the secretary for information
or ask almost any of the affiliated
unions. There are but a very few that
are not with us. The next meeting
will place October Sth, 1934, at the
Hotel and estaurant Hall, 309% Tre-
mont Street.
While we are on the subject, we
may as well go a little further. Like
and- dislikes should not dictate the
policy of the Labor Council. If your
delegates are not functioning and do-
ing their part, as you think they
should do, then it is your duty to
bring the matter before your union,
and decide for the best interest of the
union as to what action is- best in the
matter. But under no circumstances
should a delegate or union be railroad-
ed out because of likes and dislikes of
some few individuals. We do not be-
lieve that there are any perfect dele-
gates in the Council, all of us are sub-
ject to mistakes, and no man should
be condemneed and convicted without
a fair and impartial trial in his union.
We have had some experience in this
line during our career in the move-
ment. Build up your Council by ad-
hereing to its laws let every delegate
voice his opinion, remember, that we
are not always right. Help the peo-
ple that are helping you. Use strikes
only as a last resort. Keep,your mem-
bers on the job and remember that
the most satisfied person is the fel-
lowl that has a job. We have had lots
of experience on these lines, and while
you do not always agree with us, we
believe that experience is a good
teacher. Trot your delegates up and
let’s get together in Galveston. Let's
not be governed by what is ‘being
done elsewhere. What we do right
here is what counts. Get the chips
off of your shoulders before you come
up to the meeting, the janitor is kick-
ing about the cleanup after every
meeting. Leave your likes and dis-
likes on the outside. Remember that
you cannot run it alone and it is better
to pull together than apart. Bring up
your credentials; get your delegates
lined up and have them attend regu-
larly, exchange your opinions honor-
ably, and beyond any question success
will be assured.
Don’t forget the date—October 8th,
1934.
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The Union Review (Galveston, Tex.), Vol. 15, No. 22, Ed. 1 Friday, October 5, 1934, newspaper, October 5, 1934; Galveston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1411072/m1/1/: accessed July 10, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rosenberg Library.