The Daily Worker

30,000 WORKERS
FIRED BY FORD
Ford's Wage Talk Is
Screen Hiding Layoffs

WASHINGTON, Nov. 22. -

Henry Ford's statement on wages is the smoke screen behind which national and drastic wage cuts are proceeding.

The fact that a wage slashing campaign was the chief issue at the Hoover imperialist crisis conference is shown by the statement in the New York Times:

"The wage question was thoroughly discussed by the industrial leaders in the conference as a chief issue. Some of them declared that it would be very difficult for them to keep up the present wages and maintain the relative labor enrolment."

All of the bosses present insisted on drastic cuts and reduction of forces. Ford issued a statement saying that higher wages "as a principle" would be a good idea.

Meanwhile, over 30,000 Ford workers have been fired during the past month in Detroit plants; 800 were laid off indefinitely by Amory Affton, manager of the Denver Ford assembly plant. Other Ford plants have closed. The Ford plants remaining open, mostly on accessory work, operate only two to five days a week.

In many instances, Ford workers receiving $6.00 a day were fired and other workers hired to take their place at $5.00 a day.

Ford's statement on wages is a part of the Hoover propaganda scheme to enable the bosses to proceed with the wage cutting campaign agreed upon at the crisis conference yesterday.

William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor, and John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers, when questioned by capitalist reporters on the Ford wage statement, expressed surprise at any mention of raise in wages because they had entered into the fascist agreement with the leading strike-breaking corporations of the country in which they wholeheartedly promised to smash strikes and resist any action on the part of the workers for a betterment of their conditions.

The working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes....This new (Commune) breaks the modern state power.--Marx.