The Daily Worker

MILLINERY WORKERS ARE TRICKED INTO GIVING FAKERS FREE HAND
Must Rally to Rank and File Committee Fast and Fight Or Will Get Sell Out Agreement

NEW YORK.-One of the most burning questions before the millinery workers today is the collective agreement which the millinery manufacturers and the officials of the Cloth Hat, Cap and Millinery Workers International are conspiring to put over on the workers.

Yet the meeting held a few days ago which was to have been a continuation of a meeting two weeks ago primarily to discuss the collective agreement was turned into a squabble between the several cliques for leadership.

The workers known to be against the agreement which is being plotted by the bosses and the officials of the company unionized International were not given the floor lest they expose the fact that the officials are working hand in glove with the bosses to put over this wage-cutting, speed-up agreement.

After the various cliques got through telling on each other and one rank and filer who spoke against the agreement but attacked it as something the bosses wanted without showing the role of the company union officialdom in maneuvering into effect the exhausted membership was himself maneuvered into voting for a proposition giving the officials the right to negotiate with the bosses on the collective agreement although the membership is flatly against it. Instead of a vote by a show of hands a "yes or no" vote was taken and the chairman arbitrarily ruled for the proposition of negotiating.

This Means a Sellout.

This actually means the enforcement of one of the worst wage-cutting, speed-up collective agreements ever known in the needle industry unless the workers awaken to the necessity of taking the matter into their own hands. Not by votes but through action in the shops.

Mr. Lederfarb, ex-chairman of the executive and leader of one of the local cliques in his anxiety to gain a following for himself told tales out of school and corroborated what the left-wingers in the local and the Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union has pointed out to the millinery workers. Piece work, Lederfarb stated, is being worked in many shops with the full knowledge of the executive although the agreement calls for week work. Many of the club members, that is the organized machine work overtime and Sunday in spite of the decisions against overtime in view of the widespread unemployment he admitted.

A Trick.

In order to prevent a real discussion from the floor on the collective agreement and a proper vote the cliques were permitted to take up the time attacking each other. The class conscious, fighting left wingers were deliberately refused the floor though they were on the list.

Discontent among the membership is so great that the rank and file committee recently organized by members of locals 24 and 42 for the purpose of fighting the collective agreement and the wage-cuts, speed-up, impartial machinery and general worsening of the already miserable conditions of the millinery is gaining many sympathizers, as indicated by the attendance of 200 workers at an open forum held under its auspices.

LOCAL 24 MEETING ORGY FOR FAKERS But Mass Resentment Shows Against Clique

NEW YORK.-A meeting of millinery workers of Spectors' local 24 was held Tuesday at Bryant Hall.

This meeting was a continuation of the meeting of Nov. 6. The order of business was the report for eight months "activity" with the collective agreement as the main point of interest to the workers.

The major portion of the time of the two meetings has not been utilized to expose the maneuvers of Zaritsky and the rest of the officials of locals 24 and 42 who try to force the collective agreement against the will of the workers. The Communists and the representatives of the United Front Rank and File Committee were not given the floor. This was done consciously, in order not to have a real exposure of the methods of the sell-out and real proposals of what the milliners must do to defeat the bosses and their union agents.

Lovestonites Attack Communists

But the floor was certainly granted to the Lovestonites. Zukowsky and Rosen, who speaking against the collective agreement, not only did not tell the workers how to defeat it, but utilized the opportunity to win favor with the administration by attacking the Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union and the Communists. Thus declaring themselves ready to be embraced in the folds of local 24 and to become, with Mustee's aid a part of the administration.

Most of the time of the two meetings was spent in discoveries and "revelations" made by the new messiahs of the millinery workers, Mr. Lederfarb and Mr. Maliniac (formerly chairman and secretary of the executive board and ousted about a year ago), and the answers by the administration.

These two "martyrs," who for years have been a notorious part of the administration now till about graft corruption and swindle in the union.

They pointed out the Fascist regime in the union. They proved that the executive board consists of scabs and persons who use their positions for their own purposes. They told how the officers permit their own clique to work piece-work, overtime for time and a quarter, on Sunday, etc.; how executive members would not go to work the following day after meetings and be paid by the union for first time: how in the struggle against the former local 43 of the trimmers, they had the police on the pay-roll. They made many more discoveries which are not now, having already been brought to light by the lefts at the time Lederfarbs and Maliniacs were still a part of the organized fascism, graft and corruption of this union.

Yet they did make one new discovery. Lederfarb openly stated "that members of the "Vancsord organization committee of the local have keys to the union headquarters and do their things which are too vulgar to be mentioned." "Ask Mr. Pressman," he said, "the man who sweeps the floors and he will tell you the things he finds in the rooms." The conclusion is reached that the union is turned into a brothel by this clique.

Of course, the administration did not keep quiet. They put up I. H Goldberg, a paid officers' and their best speaker to make the job. But even he could not drown in the sea of his demogogy the accusations made, though he urged that the millinery workers should depend on the "devotion" of the officers to their interests.