13 YEARS OF
CONSTRUCTIVE
SERVICE TO
NORTH
CAROLINA
READERS
VOL. XIII—No. 17
YOUR AOVIRTIIKMMT IN TMI JOURNAL IS A OOOO
INVCATMINT
CHARLOTTE, N. C., THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1943
JOURNAL AOVCRTIRCRR DlIIRVI CONUDIRATION OW
TMI RCADCRR
$2.00 Per Year
Labor Is “Producing For Attack”
The ONLY REALLY INDEPENDENT WEEKLY In Mecklenburg County printed and compiled wcba*u»ttb anl For a Weekly Its Readers Rep.esent the LARGEST BUYING POWER in
pu ' — i will i ——l "iiUJL»L———MR HLCKLENBUKu COU NT* •" ilo BNTUuST) 11 1 ■■ | | —— ■
J. A. MOORE MAKES RADIO
ADDRESS OVER “WAYS” FOR
CENTRAL LABOR UNION
The following program is sponsored by the Charlotte Central
Labor Union of the American Federation of Labor. The views
are not necessarily the views of this station but are presented in
line with the WAYS policy of allowing responsible organizations
to express their opinions on controversial matters.
Mr. J. A. Moore, former Secretary of the Charlotte Central
Labor Union. Charlotte, N. C.
It is my privilege and pleasure this evening to tell you radio
listeners some of the story of what organized labor is doing in
the war effort. You are familiar with many of the aims and
accomplishments of Organized Labor, you have heard of the great
strides which it has made in recent years, and you have also heard
that the new progressive labor movement which cooperates with
management, capital, the public, the investor and the worker, for
the common benefit of the War effort, is marking a new era in
American progress.
This evening, in the short time al
lotted I want to call to your atten
tion just one of the phases of Organ
ized Labor cooperation which is s
contribution to the life of the entin
community and is not confined to its
workers alone, or to workers condi
tions, but benefits every America!
wage earner of every degree. I re
fer to the united, sustained efforl
which labor is making to combat in
flation in this country during this war
Labor has bought bonds generously
Almost every organized plant ir
America flies proudly the Treasury
flag which betokens Cooperation ir
payroll deduction purchases of bonds
and stamps, and bond quotas have al
ways been met in every organized com
munity. But Organized Labor has
gone beyond that in many fields.
One of the prime purposes of Or
ganized Labor has always been tc
make the working man’s dollar buy
one hundred cents worth of honest
value. As previously announced on
this program, and sponsored jointly
by the Charlotte Central Labor Union
and Teamsters and Chauffeurs Local
Union 71, we have made various stud
ies on the increased cost in living and
we find that the increase in the cost
of living from January 1st, 1941 to
May 15th, 1942 amounted to approxi
mately 15 to 20%. As you know, the
War Labor Board with the little Steel
Formula have only allowed an increase
in wages of 15% since January, 1941
to date which means that all increased
cost of living since May 15th, 1942
to the present date comes directly
from your own pocket with no possible
hope of additional income.
You also know that the American
Federation of Labor is not asking for
a general raise in wages as are now
being paid but we have found that the
increase in living cost has risen so
much faster and further than has
the wages that it has been found
necessary to assist the OPA in their
effort to lower the prices to that of
1942. Therefore, the one and only
way to overcome this inequality is to
operate more closely with the OPA.
It is with this in mind that labor has
extended its strength to the program
of the Office of Price Administration
in its attempt to ration scarce com
modities and control prices and rents.
In every organized community in the
United States the unions have offer
ed their complete cooperation to the
local War Price and Rationing Boards.
Organized Labor has singled out
their most capable men in each of
the communities and have asked them
to give their time and ability to as
sisting in the OPA job of rationing
and price control. These union men
who have offered themselves and their
time and ability to the OPA program
have come to these Boards, not as
representatives of a special group or
a special interest, but as good Amer
icans trying to take^a part in the job
to be done, and in “serving on these
local War Price and Rationing Boards
they have brought the added advan
tage to the community that they have
an organized body of them to help
with the job of OPA. Every member
of every War Price and Ration Board
is on the Board to serve every mem
ber of every community without fear
or favor and organized labor extends
its strength and support to every
member of every Board o tsee that
our wartime program at home is faith
fully carried out.
In every industrial plant in Amer
ica employing over 100 people there
is a transportation committee, com
posed of representatives of manage
and labor. It is the task of organized
labor serving on these committees tc
see that its members who are employed
• there use the gasoline and tires which
they get for transportaton to work as
• wisel yand with as much savings as
possible. And I might call your at
tention to the fact that no organized
plant in North Carolina has ever failed
to secure the praise of OPA and the
public for the way they have saved
these vital materials in this way.
Millions of gallons of necessary mo
tor fuel and thousands of tires have
been saved because labor knew the
exact needs of its workers and because
every member of organized labor ap
preciated this and ( cooperated with
OPA aims in carrying it out. But as
I said earlier in this talk, the task
closest to the heart of labor has been
cooperation with the price control pro
gram of OPA in preventing inflation.
Labor is all out for price control. In
price control organized labor sees the
salvation of the workman’s pay en
velope and the future of America.
To help OPA in the job of price
control, organized labor has provided
members to serve on price panels, its
auxiliaries have provided men and
women to serve as Panel Assistants in
various communities, it has promul
gated inormation to its members and
through them to the general public
on the essentials of price control and
on its necessity. Organized labor,
nationally and locally, has beer, un
tiring in its efforts to keep prices
down and to search out those who
would take advantage of the buying
public.
Organized labor asks the general
public as well as its own members and
their families not to buy from mer
chants who do not comply with the
Government’s wartime regulations.
Most food dealers in Charlotte now
are posting the required ceiling price
charts for groceries and meats where
they can be easily read by their cus
tomers. At the same time they are
also complying with the rule that
selling prices of groceries and meats
must be marked on the food item or
at or near the point of sale. Beef,
veal, and lamb must be graded and
the grade displayed along with the
selling price in the meat counter.
Our war against inflation connot
be won unless all citizens cooperate
with the government. Your share in
the fight is to make certain that you
do not encourage black markets or in
flation by paying over legal prices. If
his ceiling price charts are not posed
where you can read them ask him to
put them w'here they can be read.
In the matter of rent control, or
ganized labor in.this district is today
polling jts members to get a list of
any rents which have been raised
within the alst twelve months, and
organized labor has already requested
OPA to survey this community with
a view of establishing rent control
here as it has in 355 other communi
ties throughout this country.
Organized labor realizes that this
war is not yet won. Organized La
bor knows that the fight for Victory
and maintenance of. the American Way
of Life goes on as long as the battles
last and even beyond that time.
Organized Labor sees in OPA the
government’s instrument for provid
ing all of the people with a fair share
of the limited supply at a fair price,
and Organized Labor stands four
square back of this ana any other
activity which makes America a bet
ter place for all Americans.
-V
It has been aptly said that the
politics of the immediate post-vic
tory w orld will be largely that of
“bread, carrots, potatoes, beans
, and radishes.”
“PERIL IN UNEMPLOYMENT”;
“PRIVATE ENTERPRISES MUST BE
BACKED ” SAYS SECTRY MEANY
WASHINGTON.—George Meany, secretary-treasurer of the
American Federation of Labor, said in a statement last week
that American industry must be ready to provide decent jobs
for all who can work and want to work after the war.
He declared that the AFL believed
in and upheld private enterprise, but
“we have not only the right but the
duty to tell the nation’s industrialists
in plain language that the American
people—after fighting and bleeding
and sweating to preserve the nation
—cannot be expected to and do not in
tend to accept the misery of wide
spread unemployment for any pro
tracted period of time.”
While the war continues, he said,
it was vital for American wage-earn
ers to “continue to adhere to the pol
icy of subordinating everything to the
one paramount objective, the com
plete defeat of the Axis.”
CALLS FOR TOP OUTPOST
He called on labor to keep roduc
ing supplies with the “utmost speed.”
“We must never forget,” he said,
“that it is one thing to overcome three
Nazi divisions in Sicily and quite a
different thing to cope with perhaps
90 or 100 Nazi divisions in Western
Europe. When the Allied invasion
of the Continent takes place the cas
ualties among our boys can be held
to a minimum if we at home have
seen to it in advance, by our pro
duction, that they have been provided
with overwhelming, crushing superior
ity over the enemy in all the tools of
modern warfare."
ASSAILS “SELFISH CLIQUE”
But he asserted that labor would be
derelict if it failed to guard against
the “clique of selfish men who are
trying to use this war as a screen
behind which to undermind laboring
people and labor organizations.”
He added that these “enemies of
the working man are spinning the
propaganda wheels without pause and
spending vast sums of money in a
far-flung, well-planned campaign to
do injury to labor” with the hope of
putting themselves in a position to
“finish us off” when the war ends.
“It seems likely,” he continued,
“that they are encouraged by the
memory of industry’s all-out anti
union campaign after World War I.
“The time has come when we of
hbor must make it perfectly clear
that we know what the anti-labor
elements in the industrial, political
and journalistic worlds are attempt
ing to accomplish and that we stand
ready to thwart them.”
The Red Cross Is
Now Preparing
Parcels For Our
War Prisoners
—V—
WASHINGTON, D. C.—American
military and civilian personnel held ■
as prisoners of war in European i
camps will receive special Christmas i
food packages on time through prep- :
aration now being made by the :
American Red-Cross. >*
For the past three weeks approxi
mately 2,000 Red Cross volunteers,
working in shifts, have reported daily
to Prisoner of War Food Packing
Centers in Philadelphia, Chicago and
New York to prepare 400,000 stand
ard food packages for holiday dis
tribution to United Nations war pris
jners in Europe, who are receiving
lid through the American Red Cross,
in addition, 10,000 special Red Cross
packages are in preparation in the
New York Center. Paid for by the
fcrmy and Navy_ and distributed
through the International Red Cross
Committee, these packages differ
from standard packages in that they
will contain: baked ham, cheese, fruit
:ake, Army spread, peanut butter,
:offee, sugar coated and sweet choc
date, hard candy, candied nuts, ciga
•ettes and one game. Private orders
for the special packages are not ac
*pted from individuals, the Red
Cross announced.
PRODUCE
FOR VICTORY
mmmm
THE MARCH OF LABOR .
.'936
^?ROIA 1936 TO 1938 THE NUMBER
OF ORGANIZED WORKERS INCREAS
ED FROM 3MILUON T07MIUIO»i.
LESS THAN ONE OUT
OF 7 FAMDWEU.IN6S
IN THE US. HAD EliCfRl
LIGHT WHEN THE CENSC
OF 1930 WAS TAW*
A SCREEN m. IS A MINE
WORKER., WHOSE JOB IS
THE SCREENING OF CQ4U
tu
The government has
recently lifted -me
AGE LIMIT ON MANY
OF ITS DEFENSE JOBS
fO 61 YEARS .
- HE1EWN (MKMflCN “
TUKXfROMEXrtIUBa
£, m WISDOM or *e&
V WG OH THE WHOA
* lASEL. A SMART
UNION MAN HAS
J TWS UNION LAM.
1 UNDER THE SWEAl
6AND3 OF AIL
HIS HATS.
Free Labor Will Out-Produce Nazi Slaves
Free Labor Will Out-Produce Nazi Slaves
THE PLEDGE OF EVERY LOYAL
A. F. OF L. UNIONIST
“I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of
America and to the Republic for which it stands—One Na
tion, Indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for All!”
War Dept. Girls
Help Farmers
-V- I
WASHINGTON — A number of
War Department workers — clerks i
and stenographers—are getting their
sun tans the hard way these days
helping farmers in nearby Maryland
and Virginia to harvest their crops.
The number of volunteer workers
has increased as the crops ripened.
The farmerettes are housed and fed
“three squares” a day and are paid
at the prevailing rate. They arise
at 5:30 A. M.—by bugle—and “lights
out” is at 9 P. M. They’re nearly al
ways ready to retire by that hour,
the girls say.
-V—- |
Patronize Journal Advertisers
FOOD PRICES ALONE ARE
UNCONTROLLED—OPA CONTROL
IS CAUSING A BREAKDOWN
WASHINGTON.—With the lone exception of foods, the cost
of-living rise has been pretty generally halted in the past year, an
OPA survey discloses. Food prices, however, make up 40 per cent
of the total living cost, it is estimated.
I he UFA Labor Office reports that
between May 18, 1942, when the OPA
began to control retail prices, and
May, 1943, the cost-of-living rose
only 8 per cent and that most of this
increase was due to food prices. In
contrast, living costs rose 17.6 per cent
from the beginning of the war in 1939
to May, 1942.
Clothing prices jumDed 25.8 per cent
before OPA control; only 1.3 per cent
since.. Rent rose 5.4 per cent before;
1.7 per cent since.. House furnishings
rose 21.5 per cent before; only 2 per
cent since OPA control.
In contrast to these checks on liv
ing costs, OPA reports that food prices
jumped 17.6 per cent between May,
1942 and May, 1943, accounting for
seven-eights of the total increase.
The role of the OPA is indicated in
the following breakdown of food prices
between May, 1942 and May, 1943.
Foods under OPA control in May,
1942—4.1% increase.
Foods brought under OPA control
between May, 1942 and May, 1943—
34.7% increase.
The OPA Labor Office points out
that food price rises were accelerated
by an increase of 29 per cent in the
farm price of foods during the year
as well as by a 16 per cent rise in dis
tributor’s margins.
Increase in the cost of living during
this war have increased 29 per cent as
compared with an increase of 41 per
cent durin gthe similar period of
World War I.
“IN OUR OPINION”
By RUTH TAYLOR
How many men have you met who said “I don’t know?” It takes a lot
of courage to profess ignorance—but the bigger a man is, the more ready
he is to admit that he doesn’t know everything.
Too many people today claim exhaustive knowledge. They are continu
al critics of every one around them, of those in authority, even when they
have elected them—and they always know just what should have been done
under every circumstance. They have to express an opinion on each and
every subject.
Must we express an opinion? Must we always take time off from im
portant, even if monotonous tasks, to say something? Can’t we ever say
“I don’t know?” Can’t we learn to weigh our words before we speak?
If we stopped to consider what our opinion was worth, there are lots of
times when we wouldn’t give it.
It is that habit of ours of always having an opinion that has beene played
upon by enemy saboteurs. Our boys have died in burning oil on the high
seas because we must show our knowledge of sailing ships. Munitions have
exploded, shipments been lost or delayed at the cost of lives, all because we
must talk, we must express an opinion. We could have kept still or said “I
don’t know”—but we didn’t.
That other saboteur, the propagandist, has also used this habit of ours
to further his long range aims. Hasty speech means generalizations to
cover up the lack of facts. We have had an opinion that surh-*»»d.eueh a
group wasn’t doing its share in the-war. (FiKbh thfr n>unc 'r.-ttfc vwhwb* ver.
one you don’t like—the story is always the same, only the group is dif
ferent). We have carried profiteer at all groups except the one to which we
as individuals belong. We have condemned en masse the mistakes of an
individual. And what we have done those like us have done—which is just
what the enemy was after, a division into groups of an indivisible nation.
Must we express san opinion? If we must, then let us not talk of the
things we don’t know, of those things on which we have only opinions and
not facts. Let us talk of the things we do know and believe. Let us ex
press what is our real opinion, the opinion that made our nation, that kept
it together against hardships such as those who complain the most have
never known. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain un
alienable Rights, that among these are Life. Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness. That to secure these rights. Governments are instituted among
VIen, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” This
is the American opinion—let us express it in every word and deed!
ONE OP THE MOST
tWnilM) SENSATIONAL SCORERS
CMC An AND money winners
IN (30LPINS HISTORY/
SAM 15 ONE OF f.
THE MANY GOLF I"
CHAMPS WHO'LL I'
DO fUElP, DRIVING 1
FOR THE DURATION £
FOR UNCLE SAMS B
NAVAL FORCES, jg
BUY MORE:
! WAR BONOS!
V. S. Treasury Department
NOTICE TO THE PUBLIC
THE CHARLOTTE LABOR JOURNAL
is the only paper published in the Piedmont
section of North Carolina representing the
A. F. of L. It is endorsed by the North Caro*
lina Federation of Labor, Charlotte Central
Labor Union and various locals. THE
JOURNAL HAS A RECORD OF 13 YEARS
CONTINUOUS PUBLICATION AND SERV
ICE IN THE LABOR MOVEMENT.