The Omaha Guide

COMMUNIST PAPER SCORES MOTON'S BID FOR LOWER WAGES FOR NEGROES

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (CNA)—

Following reports in the Alabama lynch press that Dr. Robert R. Moton, head of Tuskegee Institute, had requested General Hugh S. Johnson to set different wage standards for white and Negro workers, the "Southern Worker," Communist newspaper published in the South, sent the following open letter to Dr. Moton:

The Southern Worker

Box 572, Birmingham, Ala.

Dr. Robert R. Moton,

Principal, Tuskegee Institute,

Tuskegee, Alabama

The Montgomery Advertiser of July 28 carries on its front page a story to the effect that Montgomery businessmen are "Encouraged" over the report that Dr. R. R. Moton requested Hugh S. Johnson, national administrator of the N.R.A. administration that it would be to the disadvantage of Negro labor to have a $14.00 minimum wage.

The Southern Worker, which is the paper of the white and Negro workers and toiling farmers of the South, is addressing this letter to you to discover whether or not the statements attributed to you are correct, and, if so, in what way you justify such action.

CODES ALREADY DISCRIMINATE

The actual fact is that the industrial codes being adopted by the N.R.A. do differentiate in practice between white and Negro labor by excepting the lowest-grade jobs from the minimum wage provisions. These lowest grade jobs are those which are forced upon the Negro workers by the employers and by the discriminatory practices of the A.F. of L. unions.

The textile code specifically exempts outside workers and cleaners from the minimum wage provisions. Practically all Negroes in the Southern Textile industry come under these classifications, as it is a well established practice in the South to employ no Negroes on skilled or semi-skilled jobs.

LOWER PAY FOR SOUTHERN LABOR

The lumber industry is another case in point. The difference between the minimum for Southern labor and the minimum for Northern labor is greater in the proposed lumber code so far considered. Under the code, labor in Southern saw and planing mills will work at 22½ cents an hour, while the same labor in the Northern mills will bring 40 cents an hour. This is a much greater difference than exists in the textile code. The explanation is that labor in the lumber industry of the South is predominantly Negro, whereas in the North and West it is predominantly white.

$6 WEEKLY FOR NEGRO PORTERS

Or take the following figures from the code adopted by Montgomery retail grocers: minimum wages of $25 for store managers, $15 for clerks and helpers and $6 for Negro porters.

The Alabama coal operators have asked to be exempted from the national mining code and have submitted a special code under which miners in Alabama will receive far less as a minimum wage than miners elsewhere. There is a definite connection between this special code and the fact that three-quarters of the Alabama coal miners are Negroes.

The N.R.A. officials have announced in response to queries that the provisions of the blanket code do not apply to agricultural laborers and to domestic workers. Agricultural work tops the list of all occupations for Negroes, and domestic labor absorbs the second largest number of all Negroes gainfully employed.

But what you, Dr. Moton, evidently desire, if the reports in the press are correct, is the stamp of legal approval on the payment of lower wages to Negroes—a written and open agreement that Negro workers shall receive less for the same work than white workers receive.

CODES ACTUALLY SLASH WAGES

The industrial codes being adopted by the government, though they pretend to raise wages, actually slash wages for the enormous majority of the workers, in an increase in wages of most other workers as they are. In no case do they result in an increase in wages proportionate to the rapidly rising cost of living. And now you, Dr. Moton, propose that in addition, the codes specifically provide for a lower wage for Negro labor.

It is not only the Southern Negro workers who will be interested in your answer. Everyone knows that the white workers of the South are paid far less for their labor than workers on similar jobs in the rest of the country. The industrial codes now being adopted provide a lower rate of pay in the South. In other words the entire working class of the South is forced to live at a lower standard than the working class in the north, East and West. And why is this? Chiefly because of the existence of a group of workers—the Negro workers—forced to take lower wages and work longer hours than the rest of the working class in this section of the country. And because, also, the white rulers have tried to keep Negro and white workers apart, have spread among them hatred for each other, and have thereby to some extent prevented them from taking common action for their common benefit. If reports in the press are correct, your action injures the interests of the white as well as the Negro workers of the South.

You speak of the possible substitution of white for Negro labor if the rate of pay is the same. Such substitution is going on all the time. What solution do we, the Communists, propose? Not the legalization of lower pay for Negro workers but a united struggle of Negro and white toilers, together, for higher and equal pay.

Yours truly,

JIM MALLORY,

Editor the Southern Worker