The Daily Worker

Aluminum Ore Pay Is Cut By Relief Tactics

By a Worker Correspondent

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill.-Six hundred workers of the Aluminum Ore Corporation (Mellon interest) members of the A. A. voted to strike if the N R.A. code would be put into effect, a code which would reduce wages from 42 cents to 30 cents per hour. The majority of the workers in this plant work only two or three days a week. Many have been given jobs through a foreman in the plant who is working hand in hand with the Relief Commission: the workers are taken off the relief rolls and work in the plant, for the equivalent of the relief orders.
This whole strike maneuver is an attempt of the company and the top leadership of the union to prevent and curb the growing strike sentiment amongst the workers.
The workers must prevent this maneuver by preparing strike committees in every department, making every effort to win the Negro workers to the union. They should demand through their department rank and file committees that the demands of 80 cents per hour, 5 day week with maximum of 30 hours be presented to the company regardless of whether the code is changed or not.
The workers must constantly bear in mind that their union officialdom prevented them from joining the last strike in the industry and because of this the stretch out system and speed-up has increased beyond endurance. The question of the right of Negro workers to work in every department and to belong and have full rights and representation in the union must be raised and clarified to all of the workers.