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Newspaper Page Text
STATE VERSiTY The No. 133. TOILER CLEVELAND, OHIO, FRIDAY, AUG. 20, 1920. Price Five Cents. Workers' Shop Committees vs. Bosses' Committees The smartest among the capitalists who own the industries are beginning to understand that the time when they can act as czars and kaisers in their factories is gone. They see that some thing new is on the way that the workers are going to have a voice in the management of the shops and factories. These capitalists have come to the con clusion that their is no use trying to openly fight the workers' movement toward industrial democracy control of the shops by the work ers and for the workers. But that does not mean that they are going to give in and let the work ers take control. Since in an open fight they are hound to lose, they arc trying the trick of seeming to give the workers what they want without any fight. At the same time that they seemingly are making their surrender, they manage to trick the workers into maintaining the same old system. This is what the shop organizations and shop committees which are being organized un der the direction of the bosses mean. There are now hundreds of industrial plants in which the bosses have given the workers gome sort a part in the management through committees or some other organization within tho plant. There are a number of concerns that have houses representatives, senates and cabinets organized within tne plant, all for the purpose of making the workers believe that they really have something to say in running the insti tution. This "industrial democracy" which the bosses hand the workers as a gift is a fraud. In all such organizations there are strings tied to the proposition or the thing is so organized that the bosses are able to keep control. The reason why the bosses can control these organizations is clear. Usually when their are elections they are "conducted under the direction of the management of the shop. There are enough willing tools of the bosses in every shop so that a committee satisfactory to the bosses can be elected. Furthermore, if aggres sive workers are elected, they are usually afraid to take any action contrary to the wishes of the management. They know that they have been elected by instructions from the bosses, that the whole proposition came down from above, and that there is no solidly organized body of workers behind them, and consequently they are afraid to take any independent action for fear of losing their jobs. In practically every instance where such "industrial democracy" has been established it has proven worse for the workers than if it did not exist. By clever manipulation the bos ses can always get these committees or other organizations, which are under their thumbs, to make rules which are harsher than those the bosses could make on their own account, and if their is complaint, the workers are told that they themselves are responsible for these rules. The workers should boycott shop organizn lid)i ;iml shop committees which the bosses offer them as a gift. Such organizations only fasten the chains of wage slavery tighter. They play the bosses game and that is the reason they are organized. In place of this fraudulent "industrial de mocracy" from above, tho workers must in dependently create their own shop organiza tions and shop committees. The first thing to (Continued on pge 6.)