STRIKES IN U.S.A.

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 April 1937, Page 7

STRIKES IN U.S.A.

“FIRING THEIR BOSS”

MEN’S NOVEL WIN [BY CABLE —PRESS ASSN. —COPYRIGHT.] NEW YORK, April 15. A message from Milwaukee states that a “sit-down” strike of 115 employees of the Yahr Lange Drug Company has been settled. The single demand of the strikers was met when the general manager, Mr. Fred Yahr, who has been head of the company for 37 years, resigned. He agreed to relinquish the active management of the company and sail for Europe on a. holiday. He will retain the presidency of the company.

This is the first time in the current Labour strikes, in which the workers have “fired' their boss.” They accused Yahr of discharging employees as soon as their length of service justified a wage increase.

RAYON CO.’s WAGES

NEW YORK, April 14.

A British-owned company, the Viscose Corporation, which is the largest manufacturer of rayon’ yarn in the United States, has signed a contract with a union affiliated to the Committee of Industrial Organisation. The contract means the granting of a ten per cent, increase to the twenty thousand employees of the Corporation. The wage increase will amount to three million dollars a year.

CHRYSLER STRIKERS.

DETROIT, April 15

The employees of the Chrysler Motor Corporation, who are involved in a strike, have affiliated with the Committee for Industrial Organisation, Mr. J. L. Lewis’s labour union.

CLASH WITH POLICE DETROIT, April 15. After a battle lasting half an hour in which tear gas and lead weights were used, more than 300 policemen, sheriffs, and deputies, arrested 150 “sit-down” strikers,, mostly women, at the premises of the Yale and Towne Lock Manufacturing Company. Three men were sent to hospital. The entire neighbourhood was hazy with smoke and gas fumes. The sheriff read the Court order for evacuation to the strikers, who refused to comply. The police smashed the doors and windows of the building and hurled bombs, while strikers on the roof dropped lead weights. The plant was soon filled with gas, forcing the strikers to surrender.

LINER DELAYED

NEW YORK, April 14

The liner “President Roosevelt,” with 217 passengers aboard, has been unable to sail for Europe. This is due to a sit-down strike by sixty-five members of her deck and engine crews. They opposed the hire of nine engineroom men for replacements, as they accused the nine of supporting the recent strike.

HIRED ASSASSIN ?

WASHINGTON, April 14.

Lark Baker, Harlan County Kentucky coal miner, testified before the La Folette Civil Liberties Committee that he negotiated for five or six months in 1933, and 1934 in an attempt to get a man to kill Lawrence Dwyer, a Union organiser. Baker said that these negotiations were started at the request of Ben Unthank, the chief Deputy Sheriff of Harlan County. Unthank wanted to have Dwyer killed before five men, who -were charged with dynamiting Dwyer’s house, came up for their trial. Unthank was willing to spend eight hundred dollars “to get the job done.” Chris. Patterson who served one year in prison in connection with the dynamiting of Dwyer’s house, testified that Sheriff Unthank had paid him one hundred dollars. He gave half of the money to another man whom he had hired to do the actual dynamiting.

The testimony of the two witnesses was offered in connection with a plea by the United Mine Workers for Federal protection for a new drive in order to unionise the Harlan County mines. CANADIAN DISPUTE TORONTO, April 15. Mayor Hall, of Oshawa, has issued an ultimatum demanding that Mr. Martin (union leader) shall call a strike of all of the General Motors plant workers in the United States by Monday, or he (Mr. Hall) will call a mass meeting of the strikers at Oshawa and will advise them to abandon their demand for the recognition of members of the International Union, since the General Motors Company is will-

ing to deal with a Canadian union. Premier Hepburn said that if life were threatened, the Federal Government had promised police and all the other resources needed for dealing with the strike. The Premier has start’ed to make changes in the Labour Department staff. Mr. Lewis (C. 1.0. leader) after a conference with President Roosevelt, declined to state whether the C. 1.0. would abandon sit-down strikes in view of the Wagner decision. He criticised Premier Hepburn’s charges against the Communists. He said that only employees of the companies were members of the union. If Communists were among them, it was the fault of the companies for hiring them.

N.SW. FOUNDRIES DISPUTE

SYDNEY, April 16

Negotiations for a settlement of the foundries dispute collapsed. The Union leaders announced that they are now prepared for a prolonged struggle.