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Bubble-bursting
Office Union campaign is running
struggle against * Alger ’ myth
THE STORM CENTER of the unorganized is in the office.
Where a white collar Horatio Alger hero has become the idol for the social climber,
he’s a handicap to a union shop.
4
THE CHICAGO STAR, SEPTEMBER 7. 19^6
The old story of the poor clerk
who married the boss’ daughter
still dominates the mind of too
many office workers, say union
leaders.
« * •
THIS plain talk about the prob
lem of unionizing clerical work
ers came this week from leaders
of the United Office and Profes
sional Workers (CIO), 166 W.
Washington, the second largest
white collar union in the country.
Tough as the CIO and AFL’s
drive to organize the split, ex
ploited workers of the South, the
unionization of 15,000,000 office
workers is tougher, they dec'ate.
UOPW’s Midwest Regional di
rector brainy, Brooklyn-born
Morris Yanoff who spark-plugs
the union’s steady, persistent
probes into banks, social agen
cies, factories, insurance com
panies and industrial plants for
potential members.
# * *
“IT’s not easy picking,” admits
the 38-year-old ex-bookkeeper.
“Office workers have always
been considered the right hand
buddies of the boss. They identify
themselves with the boss and
hope to rise in the social scale.
They’re the first to fall for labor
baiting.”
This peculiar position of cleri
cal workers, shut-off from the
main stream of organized indus
trial workers, conservative and
timid, has been a major factor
preventing 13 CIO and AFL
white collar unions from enlist-
Specialists
in trade union
organizational
printing
Custom
printing co.
161 W. HARRISON ST.
WlSstar 4056
ing more than six percent of
their total.
* • #
URGENCY of the drive to un
ionize white collar workers is
stressed by Yanoff who points
out that “it is a matter of com
mon knowledge that white collar
workers provided one of the first
bases for fascism in Germany.”
Biggest leap in UOPWA’s cam
paign to crash the clerical field
was its unionizing of 1100 work
ers at Fort Wayne’s International
Harvester Plant. Its social serv
ice department, directed by Anne
Van Tyne has 500 members with
near-complete organization of
Chicago's major social agencies.
“Depressions and the beating
they took daring the war,” Ya
noff says, “shook the clerical
workers faith in the Horatio
Alger idea. Educated office
workers were getting 60 cents
an hour while organized fac
tory hands were making $1.35
25 civic groups unite in
vote registration drive
More than 25 civic organizations are joining forces for the pur
pose of getting the people of Illinois to register for the November
elections.
Such groups as the American
Veterans Committee, National
Association for the Advancement
of the Colored People, National
Lawyers Guild, Hungarian Amer
ican Council for Democracy, In
dependent Citizens Committee of
the Arts, Sciences and Profes
sions, Jewish War Veterans, Illi
nois Citizens Political Action
Committee, and almost 20 other
diversified civic and cultural or
ganizations are represented in
the Joint Non-Partisan Registra
tion Committee.
The first planning session of
the Committee was on Tuesday,
August 26th at Catholic Youth
Organization headquarters. Miss
Lillian V. Inke, Executive Direc
tor of the Independent Voters of
Illinois, was elected Chairman of
the Committee. Sherwood A. Katz
of the American Veterans Com
mittee is Chairman of Publicity,
and Miss Annette Budney of the
Independent Citizens Committee
of the Arts, Sciences and Profes
sions is Publicity Secretary.
Plans are under way for all af
filiated organizations to pool
their organizational and public
relations facilities for the regis
tration drive.
Headquarters of the Joint Non-
Partisan Registration Committee
are at Room 1700, 123 W. Madi
son Street.
an hour,” UOPW’s best rate
won in industrial shops is a
$40.20 minimum for clerk-typ
ists at General Motors.
* # #
Main success of UOPWA has
been its organization of insur
ance agents. The twenty-six in
surance companies already under
UOPWA contract covers more
than 30,000 agents.
Half are closed shop or union
shop.
Head of the local clerical divi
sion is Joe Moran, an ex-Metio
politan Life insurance agent, of
UOPWA Local 24.
While more than a half-million
Chicago office workers in the
teeming Loop area are unorgan
ized, UOPWA leaders see solu
tion to the knotty union problem
in the creation of a single white
collar center, backed by indus
trial and white collar unions, to
spearhead the campaign to bring
them into the" union.
! Altgeld residents
protest news slur
A mass protest against a de
rogatory news story carried by
the Calumet Index, community
newspaper, was staged at Altgeld
Gardens Thursday, Sept. 5, under
the auspices of the Altgeld Com
munity Council.
Taking part in the meeting,
which mapped plans for action to
be taken against the publication,
were representatives from the
Altgeld War Veterans, Consum
ers Co-op, Boy Scouts, Day Nur
sery, Health League, Communist
Party, all components of the Alt
geld Council and outside repre
sentatives of the Democratic,
Communist and Republican par
ties and the United Farm Equip
ment and Metal Workers of
America.
Bob Kennedy, chairman of the
Council, announced during the
session that labor unions, the
press and various civic and re
ligious groups will be called up
on to aid in the prosecution of
the Calumet publication.
The Altgeld residents charge
that they were slandered in an
Index article depicting the hous
ing project as the scene of wild
parties and gambling sessions.
inside LABOR
CIO meets lowa farmers
(During Pop Dearborn’s absence on vacation, guest columnists
will be filling in.)
By JOE UAUNCEMAN
A PATTERN was set in Mason City, lowa lately that the labor
movement of the entire country might well borrow with which to
make twin suits for labor and its natural allies, the family-type
farmers of America.
The tall corn delegates attending the lowa-Nebraska States an
nual CIO convention set aside a part of their program and shelved
★ the tenseness of the election situation for a time to
have a heart to heart discussion on the farm problem
with a group of lowa farmers led by Fred Stover,
President of the lowa Farmers Union.
Stover made national headlines last winter when
he attacked the packers during their sit down strike
when they refused to buy meat animals. Homer
Ayres, Farm Relations director of the CIO farm equipment union
and Lyle Cooper, economist from the packing house workers or
ganization were invited to make contributions to the discussion.
* # *
Without mincing words Stov
er painted a picture of the gen
eral farm situation and told the
labor representatives that they
should not overlook the fact that
corporations are penetrating the
rural areas which will drive city
ward half or more of the Ameri
can family type farmers when a
shift in farm income reduces
their margin to the point where
they can no longer make produc
tion costs.
“Solving the problems of ait
people, and those of low income
farmers and workers in partic-
• * *
THE; MOST fruitful part of the farm-fest was the farm rela
tions program passed by the delegates. One delegate jokingly said
the “farmers are now boring from within the labor movement.”
A resolution beamed to the lowa and Nebraska farmers pointed
out that they had not forgotten the Hoover days when farmers
burned corn while city workers went hungry. They pledged the
might of their 40,000 members to fight on all fronts for the family
type farmers and against the program of the U.S. Chamber of Com
merce that would drive from one-third to two-thirds of the family
type farmers from the land when times got hard.
They vied the family type farmers as the foundation ot democ
racy and called for a program that will bring the full benefits of
our bountiful natural resources and complex industrial technique
to the country so farm children may receive education and a cultural
life in keeping with children elsewhere.
* * *
THE delegates mandated the
incoming council to establish a
farm relations committee to
study and deal with farm prob
lems and establish farm rela
tions committees in every af
filiated local which will draw in
farm, civic and other labor re
presentatives for joint action of
mutual benefit and bring for
ward political candidates whicli
will put these programs into ac
tion. And interchange of labor
and farm speakers with appro
priate literature that enlighten
* *
HOMER Ayres, of F.E. (CIO) pointed out in his remarks that
the German counterparts of the National Association of Manufac
turers were the ones who brought Hitler to power mainly because
a wedge had been driven deeply between German farmers and work
ing people and warned the convention that unless hundreds of thou
sands of American farmers were won as allies for labor, the farmers
would follow the reactionary monopolies and constitute a force
that would make it impossible for labor unions to exist.
He cited the Case Bill as example of what might happen if rural
people were too long neglected by labor.
Plan anti-lynch rally
in loop September 16
A giant anti-lynch rally to protest Southern race terror
was set this week for Sept. 16 at 7 p. m. on the corner of
State and Madison street.
Sponsored by the Chicago Citi
zens’ Committee against lynching
the demonstration climaxes a
number of neighborhood rallies
held since the mass-killing of two
Negro couples in Monroe, Ga.
It will be the first such rally
to be held in downtown Chicago.
• • •
SPONSORS of the demonstra
tion include the Chicago Chapter
of the American Veterans Com
mittee; the United Negro and Al
lied Veterans of America; the
Giles Post of the American Le
gion; Charles Lawson, president
of the Lake District of the Unit-i
ular,” Stover said, “challenges
our social and economic ingen
unity more than any problem of
the past. We are heartened
therefore to have such a mili
tant ally as the CIO, an ally
that is articulate and unafraid.”
Few farm leaders have as
much courage or see as clearly
today as Stover. “We sometimes
have the right to be discouraged
when we look at all of our dif
ficulties but we don’t have a
right to quit,” he told the CIO
delegates.
the farmers about trade unions
‘and city workers about farmers
part of the duties of the farm
relations committees of the un
ions.
The convention further
pledged to memorialize the na
tional CIO to develop a broad
national farm relations program
as one of the musts of the la
bor movement so farmers and
the genera] public will learn the
true story of labor’s great con
tributions to America.
ed Farm equipment Workers
(CIO); Ernie DeMaio of the Unit
ed Electrical Workers (CIO);
Herbert March of the Packing
house Workers of America
(CIO) Abe Feinglass of the Fur
nad Leather Workers (CIO);
Margaret Snowden of the Doug
lass League of Women Voters;
Mrs. Ella Mitchell of the North
ern District Association of Col
ored Women’s Clubs; Rev. Jos
eph Evans of the Metropolitan
Community Church and Rev.
James Horace of Monumental
Baptist church.