The Organizer (Minneapolis, Minnesota), 1934-07-19

              ^■eanaasnMi
DAILY STRIKE BULLETIN r&ie^
UNITED
LABOR
ACTION
SMASH THE
CITIZENS
ALLIANCE
TWO TWENTY-FIVE
SOUTH THIRD STREET
Volume 1, No. 7
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, THURSDAY, JULY 19, 1934
Price one cent
Bosses Fail To Roll Trucks
Drive to Make
Mpls.UnionCity
Is Necessity Now
574 Is Fighting the Cause
of Every Workingman
Minneapolis is an important industrial city, one of the most important
in the whole Northwest. But it has
never been a union town. The bosses
have the gall to boast in their advertising that this is "one of the leading
open-shop cities in the United States."
This is unfortunately the truth.
The bosses pass around a lot of dark
hints as to what Local 574 is trying to
do; they say it really is not interested
simply in the demands of this strike.
Well, if there is one thing beyond the
immediate demands of this strike that
Local 574 is interested in, it is this:
to make Minneapolis a union town.
And this is one reason why the strike
being conducted by Local 574 is so
popular with all sections of the working-class of Minneapolis.
And this is easily possible. The strike
now being conducted has already helped
build other unions. For example, 150
new drivers have signed up with the
Bakery Drivers Local since the strike
began. In every union the members
see new possibilities of extending their
influence.
Local 574 cannot swing the situation
alone. Every union must get into the
campaign to make this a 100 per cent
union town. We have a chance to make
Minneapolis a bright spot on the U. S.
labor map. It is time to do so. Let
every union throw itself heartily behind the truckers' strike, helping us
to organize every driver, helper, platform and inside man, and let every
union stage a drive to organize its own
industry completely. When we get that
done, Minneapolis workers will really
be in a position to defend their rights
and interests against exploitation and
oppression.
Now is the time! Make Minneapolis
a union townl Solidarity and Struggle,
the motto of Local 574, should become
the motto of all Minneapolis labor.
■
Attempts to Move Trucks
Flop When Pickets Appear
Several attempts made by bosses to
move trucks yesterday against the orders of the Strike Committee of 100
fell flat when cruising pickets turned
up at the critical moment. The Pliam
Linoleum Company, Washington and
West Broadway, loaded a truck manned
by scabs and tried to move it under
police guard. When the picket squad
arrived the scabs had a change of
heart and the whole scheme was abandoned. With considerable relief the
cops went back to the station. The
same thing happened a while later at
the Troy Laundry. Local 574's slogan
is maintained: No truck is going to be
moved 1 By Nobody 1
Driver Fired — With Company
11 Years
The Northwest Corrugated Box Co.,
1821 N. E. Marshall St., has just fired
a driver who has given 11 years of
honest service to the company. 574
must watch this firm, and see that
nothing that they sell moves. All union companies will cooperate with us.
THE BASIS FOR SETTLEMENT
t The representative of the new labor relations
board of the administration in Washington, the
Rev. Francis J. Haas, has arrived in Minneapolis
as the new federal mediator in the dispute between Local 574 and the employers.
He has already met with representatives of
the employers, and with representatives of the
striking workers and, according to the press,
has expressed himself as "quite hopeful" about
a speedy settlement of the strike.
The workers yield to nobody in their anxiety
to see an early conclusion of the walkout. In
the numerous meetings held -with representatives of employers, it was more than once emphasized by the delegates of Local 574 that they
were interested in arriving at a solution of the
dispute which would make a strike unnecessary.
And now, on the third day of the strike, we are
still ready to declare that every sincere effort to
bring the dispute to a satisfactory conclusion
will meet with the hearty cooperation of 574.
The members of Local 574 did not decide
upon the serious step of calling a strike merely
in order to parade its strength on the streets of
Minneapolis. It was only after every other means
of obtaining their rights had been exhausted
that the workers decided to enforce their legitimate claims by means of a strike.
Local 574 and the workers united in its ranks,
have never hesitated to present their standpoint
and to do it without concealment or equivocation. For that reason they have never felt the
need of camouflaging the real issues or of creating fake ones. Bluntly and simply, they have
used every occasion to state their case. There
has never been anything to bide.
The arrival of the Rev. F. J. Haas for the purpose of settling the strike offers an additional
occasion for restating our position.
The much debated section 7-A in the National
Recovery Act merely restates the right which
labor has won for itself time and time again in
the course of vigorous and bitter fighting and
which it must at all times be prepared to defend
to the last ditch, for in defending it, it is only
defending its own life. This right is the right
to organize into trade unions of their own choosing, run and controlled by themselves, and independent of the domination by any employer or
group of employers. Decades of experience
have taught the workers that the elementary
means of defending themselves against attacks
made upon their standard of living by employers, is the trade union. The union, strongly and
solidly organized, ever vigilant and militant—
that means the worker's job, that means the
worker's bread and butter.
Without the Union, the worker is at the mercy
of his employer. His wages can be reduced to
the starvation level. His hours of labor may be
lengthened until he drops from sheer exhaustion. His conditions of work may be reduced to
the level of the coolie. Unorganized, un-union-
ized, the worker must suffer all this pressure exerted to increase the profits of employers without being able to make an effective protest or
to offer effective resistance.
It is this right which is at stake in the present dispute. And the workers on strike have
made it clear beyond the possibility of doubt
that they will not budge a single inch in the
struggle for this right. On this point there cannot even be any talk about concessions.
A right which is acknowledged "in principle"
without being exercised in practice, doesn't
mean a thing. It becomes a downright deception. When the workers organize into a union
of their craft, trade or industry, and they commission their union and its officers to speak and
act in their name, they are doing nothing more
than exercising the right to organize.
And that is all that the members of Local 574
have done, and that is what they insist upon continuing to do. The Union is their protection,
their shield. They will not allow it to be shattered.
Entirely in harmony with this view and in
separable from it, the workers in Local 574 insist upon their right to be represented by their
organization in all negotiations with employers
concerning questions affecting their work and
wages. That, too, they regard as nothing more
than an elementary right which they will never
voluntarily surrender.
Last May, the employers refused to acknowledge this right. Local 574 was compelled to go
on strike in order to enforce its demands. Everybody knows that the mass of men who followed the banner of 574 in the May strike
proved beyond a doubt that the vast majority
of the truck drivers, helpers and inside men
were in the Union's ranks.
The irresistible strength of the Union obliged the employers to retreat from their position last May. But it was only a "strategic retreat," for it soon became obvious that they
were continuing their efforts to crush the Union
and break up the solidarity of the workers.
They discovered a new pretext for refusing to
deal with the workers in an organized form.
They denied Local 574 the right to speak in the
name of the inside workers.
With obviously ulterior motives, they insisted
upon snooping into the membership books of
the Union to see if it really represented the inside workers. Our Union, in common with every trade worthy of the name, contemptuously
rejected this demand. Our Union defends its
members; it does not expose them to the persecution and discrimination of employers. The
employers, who realized perfectly well that the
inside men had authorized us to act in their
name, were finally given plenty of proof of the
indisputable fact:
In May, the solidity of the strike and the
completeness with which the market was tied
up, showed plainly whether or not Local 574
had the inside men.
Now, in July, anybody who still doubts the
fact, can have his doubts dispelled—not by asking for membership rolls which no self-respecting Union keeps open for public inspection—
but by counting the men on the picket line!
The employers, who didn't need any more proof
than they had, but hypocritically demanded it—
well, they have it now.
The men in 574 want a Union that protects
their interests, one that is free from the control
of employers. They want a Union whose policy
the members themselves set down, whose leaders
the members themselves select. They want no
policy a nd no leadership rammed down their
throats from the outside. That is why they resent with increasing irritation the demands of
the employers, the Citizens Alliance, the press
and other reactionary elements, that the Union
should throw out their leaders and put in their
place individuals who will serve the interests of
anybody except the workers themselves. That is
why they have expressed their support of and
confidence in their leaders—time and again,
spontaneously and in deliberately drafted resolutions.
This is the fundamental stand that Local
574 has taken and for which it is prepared to
fight stubbornly and unyieldingly. It is this position that it has put forward in round-the-table
conferences with the employers. It is this position that it is defending on tin; picket line right
now. There is going to be no compromise and
no retreat on this score.
Local 574 is ready to meet half-way anybody
who understands and is ready to recognize these
fundamental rights. As they have shown many
times, Local 574 and its officers are always prepared to meet with the Employers for the purpose of adjusting the dispute PROVIDED that
these rights are not called into question.
We reiterate our views in plain language. A
clear understanding of them will make it easier
for the Rev. F. J. Haas to bring about a settlement of the strike which was forced upon us,
but which we are ready to fight out to the bitter
end.
Employers Plan
to Shatter Line
Flops Miserably
Emergency Farm Market
Relieves Distress
Thursday morning, the third day of
the strike, which was looked forward
to with tension and interest, gave encouraging confirmation of the fact that
Local 574 has succeeded in bottling
up the market in spite of all claims to
the contrary.
At the beginning of the strike, the
employers claimed in the press that
because they had previously seen to it
that stocks were plentifully supplied,
they would make no serious attempt to
start their trucks rolling until the
morning of Thursday, July 19. That
date was therefore regarded as a test
of the strength of the strike and its
effectiveness. And the strikers have
met the test with flying coolrs I No serious attempt was even made to move
any trucks out .of the market this
morning. A concentrating of pickets
was so obviously formidable that the
•bosses apparently decided not even to
try to match their handful of scabs
against the solid and determined picket lines of 574, larger this morning
than at any other time in the strike.
The total collapse of the employers'
plans to break through with scab
trucks, is enough to give the lie to the
statement appearing in yesterday's local press which claimed that an "investigation" had shown that less than
twenty per cent of the companies were
affected by the walkout. The strike is
as solid as a rock and the employers
are well aware of it.
While the city market is as quiet
and lifeless as a cemetery, involving
the companies in thousands of dollars
of loss every day, stocks are running
low throughout the city, bringing the
situation to a head. On the other
hand, farmers from the outskirts of
Minneapolis have set up a market of
their own in agreement with the Union's Strike Committee of 100. This
market is doing a land office business
and is alleviating any distress that
might have been caused the workers
and small business men as a result of
the strike. This smooth coordination
between strikers and small farm products distributors has served to put an
additional crimp into the employers'
strike-breaking plans.
Men and officers of the Union are
in high spirits as it becomes increasingly clear that the strike is 100 per
cent effective. No effort will be spared
to keep the situation at its present
status and the efficiency and determination of the pickets leaves no room
for doubt as to their ability to keep
the market sewed up as tight as a
silk glove.
Membership Meeting
Local 574
At General Headquarters
215 Eighth St. So.
Thursday at 8 P. M.
Important Business!
^HTT»»t»»t1
f w ww w*