The Organizer (Minneapolis, Minnesota), 1934-08-14

              ^MOBILIZATION
Tonight at 8
At Headquarters
215 S. 8th St.
DAILY STRIKE  BULLETIN ^5
UNITED
LABOR
ACTION
m W^m
CITIZENS
ALLIANCE
TWO TWENTY-FIVE
SOUTH THIRD STREET
VOLUME 1, NO. 30
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, TUESDAY, AUGUST 14, 1934
PRICE ONE CENT
Haas, Dunnigan Hear Rank and File Flay
'New' Boss Scheme; Deny Endorsing It
The kind of stuff the workers of Local 574
are made of was sensationally revealed at last
night's meeting of the Strike Committee of 100,
when men who have repeatedly shown their
moral and physical courage, revealed that they
are equally endowed with intelligence and insight. After hearing Rev. F. J. Haas and E. H.
Dunnigan's speeches recommending the bosses'
latest swindle settlement scheme, the rank-and-
file Strike Committee members took the floor
■one after another and fired a barrage of questions at the Federal mediators until the latter
retreated in complete confusion and shame.
The appearance of Federal mediators before
the Strike Committee of 100 was at the request
of the mediators, who indicated that they
thought they could put over the rotten settlement if they got a chance at the rank-and-file.
Always ready to demonstrate that there is no
difference between leaders and rank-and-file
in this strike, the Negotiating Committee which
had been dealing with the Federal men for four
weeks, agreed to bring Messrs. Haas and Dunnigan before the rank-and-file Strike Committee
of 100.
(During the afternoon, those members of the
Committee of 100 who are held in the military
concentration camp considered the new proposal and turned it down unanimously.)
The session began with speeches by Haas and
Dunnigan. They admitted that the new proposal is bad in many respects, but advised the
Strike Committee to adopt it, saying they had
done their best to get more but could not do so.
They explained the new proposal in detail, confessing that the clause enabling the bosses to
protest rehiring certain men was aimed at active pickets and that it could be used for discrimination. They also admitted that the absence of a fixed minimum 42*/2C and 52^c
wage would be a blow to the union, but said
that arbitration "might" get the workers more.
After these speeches, no union officials took
the floor until all members of the Committee
of 100 had full opportunity to address questions to the Federal mediators and to get fully
clear on the subject. Despite the efforts of the
Chairman, Grant Dunne, to confine this part of
the program to questioning, since the Committee had decided to hold off all discussion until
Messrs. Haas and Dunnigan had left, the members could not restrain their disgust and anger.
Man after man arose and either asked a question which made the Federal men squirm, or
threw in their teeth defiant refusals to consider the new rotten scheme.
In no instance was either of the Federal men
able to give a satisfactory answer to the questions addressed to them. Some of the typical
questions were the following:
Whose plan is this, yours or the bosses'?
The answer was that it is "neither ours nor
the bosses'."
Then whose is it?
No answer; laughter.
You speak of "give and take."  We give, alright, but what do we take?
General laughter.  No answer.
How do you know the arbitrators won't cut
us to 30c?
No answer.
Why do you go over the head of our Negotiating Committee and not over the head of the
bosses' Negotiating Committee? Are you trying to insult our Committee or question their
-sincerity?
Answer: Oh, no. Your Committee is made
up of fine men. We have no criticism of them.
They have done their best to get a good settlement in your interests. (Someone yelled, "You
bet!")
Why don't you force the 166 bosses to get
together and take a secret ballot on the Haas-
Dunnigan plan?   Answer: We can't.
Then why don't you at least ask them if they
are willing to do it?
No answer.
Why didn't you make the bosses accept the
original Haas-Dunnigan plan?
We did not have the power to make them do
anything.
Then how do we know   you   will have the
power to make them live up to government decisions on the basis of this settlement?
No answer.
Will the man from Washington who judges
"violence" cases wear a white collar or overalls?
"He will be fair in any case."
What is our guarantee?
No answer.
If you bad been a picket and were now asked
to sign an agreement which might bar you forever from a job, would you do it?
No answer.
Then why did you bring it up?
By this time the Rev. Haas was pale as a
ghost and sweating.
Dunnigan, however, did not yet know he was
beaten. He had the gall to say to men who ordinarily labor 60 hours a week for a few pennies,
and who have done 24-hour picketing duty day
after day, that they ought to have more consideration in view of how hard he had worked to
get the bosses to agree to this rotten proposition! He said he had worked 15 hours in one
day! A wave of resentment swept the room as
the Federal mediator made this insulting remark.
At this point one Committee member arose
and demanded an end to the horse play and a
return to the serious business of running the
strike. Now, however, leaders of the Union
took the floor and, one after another, drove
home the points the rank-and-file had made.
In a remarkable statement, which moved the
Cpmmittee to wild applause, President Bill
Brown informed the mediators that they might
well be ashamed of coming to the Union and
proposing that it accept something no better
than what it had before the strike. "We have
been fighting for four weeks; all of us have
sacrificed and struggled; two of our brothers
lie dead at the hands of the bosses' agents. We
accepted your first plan. And now you ask us
to bow our heads and go back to the old slavery
and you would speak of fairness and honor?
I tell you when we accepted the Haas-Dunnigan
proposal we gave up all we mean to give up.
We will not budge another inch."
Vincent Dunne pointed out that the Rev.
Haas had admitted that he had promised the
bosses to try to sell the strikers an agreement
which Haas himself would not endorse. Dunne
attacked the new scheme vigorously, characterizing it as just the same old bosses' scheme in
new words.   He continued:
"They want to penalize our best fighters, the
flower of the Union. You ask us to give the
bosses a license to discriminate especially
against our pickets for the very activity that
builds the Union and wins a strike. We will not
dishonor ourselves by delivering up our best
men, to the mercies of these vicious employers.
If we did we might as well abandon unionism.
And you give us no wage guarantee. What do
you mean 'present wage scales?' There are
none. We have been reasonable from the start.
We are still ready to consider any fair proposal.
Are you going to put us in the position of rejecting this rotten proposal?"
Miles Dunne now took the floor and pointed
out that the evening newspapers carried many
statements that this proposal had the approval,
endorsement and backing of the Federal mediators as well as of the Labor Department in
Washington and the employers, and that the
Union was being put out on a limb. He revealed
that newspaper men had informed him that the
source of this information was the Employers
Advisory Committee. Father Haas and Dunnigan immediately protested that they had not
endorsed the plan but only "recommended it."
"The damage is done," continued Brother
Miles Dunne. "You have let loose a pack of
wolves on us. The papers have begun to yell
that we alone prevent a settlement on a basis
approved by you and the employers. It is your
duty to issue a public statement that you do not
endorse and approve this swindle or else you
are guilty of playing the bosses' game, putting
us on the spot, and helping to break the strike.
I say that unless you publicly dissociate yourselves from this proposal -at once, you are lax
in your relation to the strikers."
In reply to this demand, Dunnigan reaffirmed that he would not endorse or approve the
new scheme, but that he would not publicly
dissociate himself from it. "We will not enter
into controversy with the papers," he said in a
high and mighty manner.
At this point The Organizer reporter asked
for the floor. He stated that he was prepared
to print the statements of Haas and Dunnigan
that they do not endorse the new swindle, and
he wanted to know whether when that appeared, Haas and Dunnigan would enter into controversy with The Organizer, or whether it is
only the bosses' press they do not like to fight
with. There was general laughter but no answer from the Federal mediators.
Dunnigan also refused to make a public
statement about the sincerity of the strike leaders, whom the bosses accuse of holding up a
settlement but who Dunnigan admitted had
done their best to reach a reasonable settlement in the interests of the workers.
In the end it was clear to all that Haas and
Dunnigan had placed the Union in a position
where it must accept the rotten proposals or be
accused of holding up a settlement approved
by the Federal mediators. Haas thereupon
stated that he did not desire to endorse the proposal but only to submit it for discussion. The
mediators then left the room.
A brief discussion followed and then by
unanimous vote the Committee of 100 endorsed
the Negotiating Committee's action in rejecting
the proposal (the letter of rejection is printed
on page 2)., reaffirmed the strikers' stand on
the original Haas-Dunnigan plan and went on
to problems of the strike struggle..
Outside the boss newspaper reporters asked
Haas and Dunnigan for a statement. "We have
absolutely nothing to say," was the answer.
• That is the story of how Haas and Dunnigan
went over the heads of the Negotiating Committee and met the rank-and-file.
MASS RALLY TONIGHT:    PRES. BROWN AND OTHER  SPEAKERS