STRIKES IN U.S.A.

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 August 1934, Page 7

STRIKES IN U.S.A.

HUGE STOPPAGE THREATENED NOVEL UNION REQUEST [By CABLE—PBISS ASSN. —COPYBIGHT.] WASHINGTON, August 27. Faced with the largest industrial strike either actual or threatened, under the New Deal, the officials of the National Labour Relations Board have started a series of last minute negotiations to-day in. an effort to prevent fho scheduled walk-out of between 750,000 and one million textile workers f>n Saturday night. Only the cotton textile workers have definitely been ordered to strike, but the silk, woollen and rayon textile workers are expected to follow them almost immediately. The Unions are demanding the complete revision of the N.R.A. Code, and the granting of fewer hours of work and higher wages; while the operators insist that, with the raw cotton prices higher and textile sales in a slump, the Union demands cannot be met. The centres of the textile industry are concentrated along the Atlantic seaboard, from Massachusetts to Alabama.

One of the unusual features of the controversy is the attitude of the Union leaders, who believe that a strike can be won through an extension of the Government-unemployment relief to the strikers, so as to compensate them for their loss of wages. They admit that, with less than one million dollars in their treasury, a strike cannot last long unless the Government aids the strikers and their families, aggregating some three million persons. The Relief Administrators say that they would be bound to extend aid to all destitute persons, and that they will do so unless the Department of Labour declares the strike to be unreasonable.

The possibility of violence is foreseen, as the Unions have alleged that the mill owners in Alabama and elsewhere are accumulating machine guns and other weapons. N.R.A. RE-ORGANISATION. WASHINGTON, August 27. As the first step in the long contemplated reorganisation of the N.R.A., it is announced that all of the Codes are to be classified into four main divisions, and 22 sub-divisions. The four main codes will include: (1) The industries involved in the production of basic materials from the soil; (2) those involved in the fabrication of the materials into finished products; (3) the services ranging from transportation to amusements; (4) those engaged in distribution, both wholesale and retail. For weeks there have been rumours of the reorganisation of the N.R.A. down to a change of the directorship. To-day reports were published that General Johnson had actually resigned in a disagreement with subordinates, but this report, is denied both by the White House and by General Johnson himself. The general belief is that a new Board will eventually be constituted to direct the organisation, with General Johnson in an important position, but not as sole administrator as he now is.