STRIKE FEAR IN AMERICA

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21255, 29 August 1934, Page 11

STRIKE FEAR IN AMERICA

- ---'♦ NEARLY ONE MILLION MEN MAY WALK OUT LAST-MINUTE CONFERENCES i mons k.\i'l-;ct relief pay FROM GOVERNMENT (I'SIIEU r.T.-ri AS-. '( !.\ I li»N T'Y M.Sl'TaiC IT.I Kii'.Ai'H -l,Lti TIIHJUT 'i (Received August 20, 7.50 p.m.) WASHINGTON, August 27. Faced with the largest industrial strike that lias occurred or been threatened under the New Deal, officials of the National Labour Relations Board began a series of lastminute negotiations to-day in an effort to prevent, the scheduled walk out of between 750,000 and 1.000,000 textile workers on Saturday. Though only the cotton workers have definitely been ordered to strike, silk, woollen, and layon workers are expected to follow almost immediately. The unions arc demanding the complete revision ot ihe industry's code, granting fewer hours of work and higher wages, while the operators insist that with jaw cotton prices higher and sales low, the demands cannot be met. The centres of the industry are concentrated along the Atlantic seaboard from Massachusetts to Alabama. One of the unusual features of the controversy is the attitude of ihe union leaders, who believe that the strike can be won through the extension of Government unemployment relief to the strikers to compensate them for the loss of wages. Thev admit that with less than 1,000,000 dollars in their treasury, the strike cannot last long unless the Government helps the strikers and their families, aggregating some 3,000,000 persons. Relief administrators say they are bound to help all destitute perrons and will do so unless the Department of Labour declares the strike "unreasonable." The possibility of violence is foreseen, as the unions have alleged that mill owners in Alabama and elsewhere are accumulating machine-guns and other weapons.