Miami Citizen

ATLANTA TAXI DRIVER POINTS OUT CARPENTERS HAVE SAME RIGHTS AS HAVE ALL THE PROFESSIONAL GROUPS
Article on Subject of Initiation Fees. by L A Lundl of Taxi Drivers Local No 150. Considered So Fair That Congressman Robert Ramspeck of Georgia Has Reprinted in Its Entirety in the Congressional Record: Article Also Reprinted in The Carpenter Official Organ of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America After First Appearing in the Atlanta Journal of Labor
(From The Carpenter)
The Carpenter made only one protest in defense against the recent attack on the Brotherhood as whole by the press ridiculed Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt and several senators and state representatives with more words at their command than facts and knowledge when the Brotherhood was the target from the above mentioned sources over so-called high initiation fees. It was felt that was sufficient notice of an apoplectic tirade by group of anti-labor fault-finders who would soon go baving off on another trail anyhow An article in the March issue was written by Harold C Hanover. secretary-treasurer of the New York State Council of Carpenters and Buffalo District Council under the heading "How High is High However, an article has recently come to the attention of The Carpenter which is very unusual in more ways than one. In the first place it was not written by a carpenter or by a member of any trade remotely related to the Carpenters union. And in the second place it was reprinted in the Congressional Record after being brought to the attention of the House of Representatives. Whatever you think of the Congressional Record is inviting reading _ makes little difference. The important fact is that the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD and not one of those who ranted against the initiation fees can find their words bound within its dignified covers for posterity as having some merit on the subject at hand. The Brotherhood is indebted to I A. Lundl of Taxi Drivers' Local 450 of Atlanta, Ga.. for his fine defense on the question of carpenters' initiation fees as a whole and at Camp Gordon. Ga., defense project in particular. The article was originally printed in the Atlanta Journal of Labor, February 14, under the heading "Taxi Driver Defends Initiation Fees of Carpenters' Local 225." When the article was called to the attention of Congressman Robert Ramspeck of Georgia he presented it before the House of Representatives. Mr. Ramspeck said in his introduction to the article on the House floor: It is not my purpose to approve the action of any labor organization if it exacts excessive fees for membership and especially in connection with the construction of national defense projects. However, I believe the situation has been misrepresented and magnified. There is another side of the question which we should consider before reaching hasty conclusions. "The article I include with these remarks, it seems to me. will contribute something to sane thinking regarding this subject." Before we present Taxi Driver Brother Lundl s frank opinion regarding initiation fees, we must remind you that any future requests for this historical document will be transferred to the Congressional Library. And since the grammatically correct wording and carefully punctuated phrasings of our highly educated opponents' argumentative efforts have long since been filed in that bottomless limbo of literary ambition.the waste- basket, we hasten to inform all that they were juvenile in comparison with Brother Lundl's Congressional Record piece and we frown on dignifying further a matter of deliberate misrepresentation that has already received more attention than its original worth We give you, without further delay the posterity-ized words of Brother Lundl By I. A LUNDL We disagree completely with the attitude of certain representatives of the Georgia Senate and the House in the current labor topic whether the carpenters Gordon project shows $50 initiation fee. am there they should join the Car- penters' Union lets first look around us and see how things are going on Take any Senator or Representative how did they get their job Didn t they pay $150 entrance fee before they could ever run in the election? (Unless someone paid it for them). How about their rivals who were defeated in the election didn't they pay not so but $150 and didn't even get a job?Well. that's O K.; we will let the government run the government. Now take an attorney and there are lots of them who represent us How did they get to practice? Well, to be an attorney they had to get initiated by paying some $28 to the various courts before they could practice in them. they had to be a member of the Bar Association before they could speak a word and trend, "if yer un t a member vr ant even talk to the court." But that's not all. you must pay th State Bar Association and also the local Bar Association.and the Lawyers Club, and subscribe to reports. then. if you can qualify and get another $50 you an be an attorney Well, that's O K.: we agree to that, the attorney may consider he is getting something for his money that attorneys before him have built up that is. improvement of the profession. And from the! we could name organization after organization outside of labor with all kinds of initiation fees. A prominent man of this locality admitted he paid $250 to get into an organization and did not receive anything except the fellowship. and dues are $65 a year. And that's O. K with us. Then let's invade another field: What about the private employment agencies? For a fee of some $2 they will "register" you. and if they award you a job they take from 45 to 75 per cent of the monthly wage for one month's pay or you can pay it in three installments of from 15 to 25 per cent per month for three months. This is a business, not an organization. So if you lose that job you can do it all over again. Well, just let all of this go as is--and also let the carpenters go, too! You can pay only $50 (in installments) and it's good for life with the payment of your dues, which the organization itself set up. What does the $50 stand for? It represents a pittance that you pay against what the others paid before you. and out of which the job was brought to the condition so that you would even have it. Or. putting it the other way around. if it hadn't been for the many carpenters and other unions, you very likely would not have been what you are today. nor would the condition surrounding a carpenter job attract you in the least. And so now that the car- penters who have paid their $50 initiation fee 20 years ago, and the dues ever since, have thusly created a profession, and they put thousands of dollars into attorneys and other channels to bring about not only a job in which they can make a living, but, together with the other unions. have sponsored citizenship free school books, so- cial security unemployment insurance, aid to the needy and numbers of agencies, and law for the benefit of all even you who are not in any union or any organization which tries to build a community instead of just live off of it. Why. you ought to be ashamed of yourself you should be willing to say Here, for what I now earn as carpenter, I owe the union more than $50" And after you are member, stay a member Back during the depression the Carpenters' Union paid the dues of its non-working members to keep their membership in good order And as a member you have representative to handle trans of the camps mu get into and you get sick they I look after you In fact they have a wonderful Carpenters Home akejand FA about fine . home hotel benefit penters And then after four years a carpenter. soy don't have t again you don't have to pay other hundred and fifty Sance fers t another cent you just pay monthly dues which are regulated by a vote you have and a chol the affair exactly have in the government"Butl cally and nationally If carpenter ering onu get and wh been binlt toward the adake- ment onr profession by the Carpenters Union you owe to tie Carpenter Union more thar whether'sou join or not' To cant to work carpentry ob which has been made into a real job by the union you shoaild be ashamed not to contributs toward the tuture of that srofessjon for what you ac- tually mjoy in the present And wer not (or the Carpenters Union would not be there for youtemjoy at all The arpenters, togetherwith other dlied organizations, hav. mad Ameriea what it is today the ountry with the highest standard of Hiving in the world Therfore everybody enjoys the udvantages which are beng built up The latr and lamented Fret Carpenters Unon" bit the hand that ed them. and, although they should reap the woes and misery they nvite upon themselves it would be a calamity to permit them to tear down all that has been built into that Amercan in- dustrv today. and it will not be permitted That how the Cabbies feel about t"