Che Charlotte labor Journal
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Official Organ of Central Labor Union; Standing
for the A. F. L.
VOL. XII.—NO. 14
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INVESTMENT
CHARLOTTE, N. C„ THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 1942
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President Roosevelt Thanks AFL
For Starting Drive Against Inflation
WASHINGTON, D. C.—President Roosevelt expressed “great pleasure”
in a letter to AFL President William Green over the nation-wide drive being
conducted by the American Federation of Labor to enlist its six million
members and their families and friends in a patriotic drive to make price
control and rationing effective.
In securing pledges from union members and their families not to buy
above ceiling prices and not to “wangle” more than their fair share of
rationed goods, the “American Federation of Labor is making a direct con
tribution toward checking inflation and toward winning the war,” the Presi
dent of the United States declared.
The text of his letter follows:
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
Dear President Green:
August 6, 1942.
I learned with great pleasure from your letter of July 31 of the exten
sive campaign which the American Federation of Labor has undertaken to
help make price control of consumer goods effective. The Consumer War
Pledge which you are distributing deserves the full support not only of
organized labor but of every patriotic citizen.
In pledging every member and his family not to buy above ceiling prices
not to “wrangle" more than his share of rationed goods, but to buy only what
he absolutely needs, the American Federation of Labor is making a direct
contribution toward checkwing inflation and toward winning the war.
Total war demands total sacrifice. There is no escaping it for any of us.
On the home front, we have already set up the machinery through the
Office of Price Administration to see to it that sacrifice shall be equitable,
fair and just among all consumer groups. Loyal and voluntary observance
of O.P.A. regulations and ceiling prices is an effective way for consumers to
protect themselves against unwarranted increases in the cost of living.
As you know, total war can be won only by fighting simultaneously on
many fronts. All these fronts are interlocking. Our actual battle lines now
extend around the earth. But the victories already won and the greater
victories to come depend in no small measure upon what we in civilian life
achieve on the production front and in the fight against inflation here at
home.
By exerting every ounce of energy in turning out equipment for our
armed forces, by reducing personal expenditures to the utmost, and by
investing in War Bonds every dollar that can be scraped together, the
workers of America can win victory on the production and consumer fronts
and thereby help to insure victory on the fighting front.
Sincerely yours,
(Signed) FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT.
F. D. R. OKAYS
AFL LEADER’S
ENGLISH VISIT
Washington, Aug. 26.—Daniel
J. Tobin, president of the Team
ster;-, Union a>.d a vice-president
of the American Federation of
Labor, will leave for England
shortly with the full approval of
President Roosevelt” to investi
gate British war production and
explain the production effort be
ing made in the United States.
Stephen Early, White House
secretary, made this announce
ment today in relating a confer
ence recently had with the
President.
Early said the labor leader
would visit “many friends in la*
bor circles and will take the op
portunity to look into the whole
area of production on the other
side.”
“He will'explain,” Early added
“the whole of the war production
effort being made in the United
States and will visit many indus
trial centers in Britain, in order
that, on his return, he may give
to the American public a true
picture of the efforts being put
forward in Great Britain to win
the war.”
8.000. 000 Workers Held to Jobs
In essential industry in Britain
8.000. 000 workers cannot quit their
jobs or be dismissed without the per
mission of the government, reports
Wide Wrorld.
Aids Driver, Killed
FITCHCURG, Mass., Aug. 26.—
Henry P. Edgarton, 18, of Concord,
was killed today when he ran to assist
the driver of a wrecked truck and
touched a door handle which ‘was
charged electrically by high tension
power lines dragged down with the
wreck.
1,800 Operations in Making Gun
One type of machine gun being
manufactured by an automotive com
pany involves more than 1,800 sepa
rate machining operations, of which
sixty-six are required on the bolt
alone, reports Wide World.
Drear.) becomes Rude Reality
DURANGO, Col.—Eddie Edwards
dreamed he was in a truck running i
wild down the highway, and he
jumped. A bus picked him up and re
turned him to the truck in which he
had been riding when he fell asleep.
War Bonds in Place of
Convention
BUFFALO.—The American Legion
Founders, composed of World War I
veterans who organized the American
in 1919, has cancelled its 1942 reunion
and will buy war bonds with the
money intended for the sessions, Cap
tain George Maines, press relations
officer, said he had been informed
by Major John E. Ferris, national sec
retary. He estimated the members
would purchase about $300,000 of
bonds.
Deaths Higher
From Alcohol
Bureau Reports Average Fatali
ties of 1.9 Per Every>100,000
In 1940
WASHINGTON, Aug. 26.—Deaths
from alcoholism averaged 1.9 per
every 100,000 population during 1940,
the Census bureau reported today.
The figure was nearly twice as
great as the record low of 1920, when
only one death for every 100,000 popu
lation was attributed to alcoholism,
and less than half the high mark of
fourdeaths per 100,000 in 1927 and
1928.
Nevada’s percentage of 19. Wash
ington’s .4.2 and Massachusetts’ 4.1
per 100,000, led the states, while the
lowest were reported from North Da
kota, Arkansas and Kansas with rates
of .5, .7 and .8 per 100,000 respective
ly. Rates for other states were not
reported.
GREEN PLEDGES AFL SUPPORT
“This job of producing more war equipment and producing
it quickly is not an easy assignment,” said Mr. Green, president
of the AFL. “But we’ll do it. We’ll do it because it’s got to be
done. We’ll do it because we’ll all unite to do it. On behalf of
the 6,000,000 members of the AFL, I pledge you that unity. We’ll
do our part. And we’ll do it so well that in plants all over America
where AFL men are at work we hope to see the banner of that
Army-Navy Production Award flying. This is a magnificent
recognition of a job well done.
“We have only one objective today: to free the world from
oppression, brutality and the creed that one nation has the right
to impoverish and enslave all opposed nations. To this task our
untiring efforts are dedicated.”
WISDOM
“There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the
flood, leads on to fortune.”
“Julius Caesar”—Wm. Shakespeare.
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POUR IT OH!
PRESIDENT SPANKS NEWSPAPERMEN
SEEKING ANTI-LABOR PROPAGANDA
WASHINGTON, D. C.—Journalistic “trained seals” who have been try
ing to drum up a new wave of hysteria against labor were verbally chastised
hy President Roosevelt.
He gave them one of the most thorough spankings ever administered
to newshounds in the history of White House press conferences.
Correspondents for anti-union papers—particularly the extra-vicious
Scripps-Howard “string”—trooped into the President’s office primed with
a barrage of questions calculated to trap him into some kind of statement
critical of the nations’ workers.
The setup was just too pat to have been accidental. The President real
ized that the newspmen were trying to “gang up” on him and made no effort
to conceal his resentment. On every question put to him he demanded facts,
and when they were not forthcoming, he dismissed the questioner with scorn.
The President recalled that a few months ago the newspapers were fill
ing their columns with misrepresentation about labor and giving the public
an entirely erroneous picture of war production.
Some six months ago, the President asserted, newspaper reports gave
the average reader the impression that 75 per cent of the nation’s war plant
workers were on strike. Actually, only one-half of one per cent were on
strik.
The newsmen were told point blank they were either guilty of lying
themselves about labor and strikes or were getting orders to distort the
news from the publishers of their papers. Either way, the fact remained they
were lying to the public.
The “unkindest cut of all” was the President’s assertion that the “train
ed seals,” at the very least, were guilt of “sloppy” reporting.. Typical of the
catch questions put to the President was one about a union steward at a
war plan who was supposed to have told workmen to soldier on the job.
The President promptly demanded the name of the steward, the name of
the plant, and other details, but the correspondent, who representd a Detroit
anti-labor paper, could only say that “my newspaper has published a lot of
stories about that.” The President asked him to turn in the facts, if any,
in writing.
A representative of the Scripps-Howard papers, which have been no
torious for their mendacious attacks on labor, tried to get the President to
issue a blast against a purpored “epidemic of wildcat strikes.”
However, “F. D.” pinned back this gentleman’s ears by demanding a
list of the strikes and where they were taking place. That caught the re
porter flat-footed. He could name only a single walkout—at a ‘“Carnegie
Illinois” steel mill—which the Scripps-Howard papers had probably distorted
to begin with.
UNION LEADERS MEET
IN INFLATION BATTLE
Ray Nixon Named Chairman of Committee to Undertake
Anti-Inflation Fight in Labor Circles—To Discuss
Week’s Results Next Sunday
Representatives of various unions within the organized labor group in
Charlotte organized a committee to aid in the city’s campaign against in
flation.
Ray Nixon, prominent in organized labor in the South and a member of
the Typographical union, was named chairman of the committee.
The committe will hold regular meetings to discuss results of the work
and make further plans for advancing the campaign, which supports the
Office of Price Administration in its fight to check inflation before it gets
a headway in the nation.
Other members of the committee, each a representative of one of the
large divisions of organized labor, were H. L. Davis, J. R. Fullerton, W. R.
Grier, T. V. Griswold, J. A. Scoggins, Howard Beatty, and J. W. Powers.
Other members will be added as the campaign progresses, it was decided.
Mrs. Wanzer, chairman of the local committee, presided at short dis
cussions. Explanatory information about the campaign, together with con
sumer pledges to be distributed for the signatures of Charlotte citizens, were
distributed. Members of the committee will develop plans for labor’s enthusi
astic participation in the drive, which will be of great importance to the
working people in keeping prices from mountaing, as Chairman Nixon pointed
out. Any rise in the cost of living, now that wages and salaries are not be
ing boosted, means just that much out of the pay envelope, said Mr. Nixon.
LABOR RELATIONS IN WARTIME
WAR LABOR BOARD FURTHER APPLIES WAGE
STABILIZATION FORMULA
On the basis of its wage stabilization formula, the National
War Labor Board last week denied a general wage increase to
2,750 workers in the Bayonne and Perth Amboy, New Jersey
plants of the General Cable Company and the Board’s opinion
stated that the formula would add “well under 11/2% to the pres
ent national wage bill.” The International Brotherhood of Elec
trical Workers, AFL, which represents the employees, had asked
an increase of 10 cents an hour.
The Board also refused the union’s reuest to increase the
present annual vacation allowance of one week and cut down
from 5c an hour to 3c the union’s request for a night shift dif
ferential. The vote of the Board was 7-2. The public and em
ployer members and the AFL member participating in this case
constituted the majority. The two CIO members dissended.
1. Cost of living yardstick:
“The President’s message of April 27, 1942,” Dean Morse
stated, “entrusted the National War Labor Board with the obli
gation and responsibility of stabilizing wages. The Board sought
a stabilization standard which would put an end to the infla
tionary cycle of wage increases. Its analysist of the reliable
wage figures of the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics showed
that from 1937 to January 1, 1941, the national wage and price
curves remained by and large on parallel levels. However, begin
ning in. January 1941, the price curve shop upward, with the re
sult that by May 1942 there had developed a spread of 15% dif
ference between the cost of living as of January 1, 1941, and
May 1942.
In applying the cost of living yardstick to the wage in this
case the Board found that the workers had received wage in
creases considerably more than 15% from January 1, 1941 to
May, 1942. Therefore, the Board decided, they were entitled
to no further increases.
U. S. FARMS TO GET LABOR RELIEF FROM MEXICO
In contrast with Nazi Germany’s importation of the enslaved
peoples of Poland and France to meet labor shortage, the United
States and Mexican governments have concluded an arrangement
for voluntary enlistment of Mexican workers to harvest crops in
the far west. Japanese formerly did much of this farm work, and
the expanding war industries of the west have absorbed most
of the available labor formerly used at the harvest peaks.
Under the arrangement announced by the State Department,
the Department of Agriculture and the War Manpower Commis
sion, Mexican workers are given specific guarantees as to wage
rates, living conditions and repatriation. United States workers
at the same time are guaranteed against reduction in prevailing
rates of pay or displacement by foreign labor.
U. S. government agencies will supervise the recruiting of
Mexican workers, each of whom will enter under a written con
tract providing that he be paid at least the previling wage rate,
with a minimum of 30 cents an hour. In addition, he will be em
ployed at least three-quarters of the time he is in the labor area.
His transportation from his home to U. S. Employment centers
and return will be paid, and he will not be suject to compulsory
military service in the U. S. Armed forces.
For Jules Souza, member of the Seafarer’s International
Union, the torpedoing of his ship in the Atlantic was followed by
32 days of horror before he was rescued. Souza’s three compan
ions on a life raft died one by one. Souza himself lost 80 pounds
during those 32 days.
An airplane flying more than 100 miles an hour has picked up
gliders from the ground at the Army Air Forces Material Center,
Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio.
Every Army station and depot has a special salvage officer
to collect and sell to licensed junk dealers reclaimed waste.
Using the facilities of 15 commercial airlines, the Army Air
Forces flies an average of 1,000,000 pounds a week priority cargo
with its new Contract Air Cargo Division.
Army Services of Supply have saved as much as 60 per cent
in ship cargo space on certain items by scientific reduction in the
bulk of packaging.
26 sheep will equip and maintain one soldier for a year.
Old toothpaste and shaving soap tubes being turned in for
new ones are netting war production 40 tons of critical metal a
month.
Toys are now being made of wood, cardboard and other ma
terials less critical than metal, and are being brightly colored.
Shellac for civilian use has been practically eliminated.
“NAZI MIGHT IS RIGHT”
Nazi Hangman Heydrich was assassinated in Czechloslovaki
—and 200 Poles were shot in Warsaw as part retaliation.
As usual, there was no reason for the Nazi act. Even the
Nazi authorities in occupied Poland never charged the Poles with
any complicity in the Heydrich murder. Still, by order of the
Gestapo, the warden of a Warsaw prison drew up a list of 200 in
mates at random. The list included the name of several women,
brought to the prison from a concentration camp, and to be re
leased the following day.
But there was no release. The victims, wantonly selected in
retailiation for a crime their country had no hand in, were piled
in Gestapo cars, rushed to the place of execution, summarily shot.
There is no right in Nazidom but Nazi might.
USE THE PAYROLL PLAN
10% EACH WEEK FOR WAR BONDS