A

brief...

Afro-European conference

tative Conference on Solidarity of African and Euro-
Unions is being organized for February 17-20 by the
tion of Trade Union.

me of the Conference to be held in Prague will be
of the African and European trade unions for their joint
against the imperialist monopolies, colonialism, and for
pment of economic and social aid within the framework
for sovereignty and national independence.

Strikes down in December

ber daw a total of 58 industrial work stoppages across
12 fewer than in November. During December, 29 strikes
hile 17 began. At January 1, there were 31 stoppages in
ving 4,078 workers.

tal time lost from all work stoppages during December
0 man-days, equivalent to 8 man-days lost for every
days worked by non-agricultural paid employees. Com-
‘figures for November show 16 man-days lost for every

Peninsula peace group

fents of four Niagara Peninsula communities met at Mt.
| College here Jan. 5 and established an anti-war committee
first task was the setting up of a seminar early in February.
seminar is expected to initiate a program of study and action
it involving Peninsula citizens—especially young people—in
movement. Chairman of the meeting was John McIntyre,
Electrical Workers Union Local 523 official.

of the new committee is Rev. Robert Wright of Wel-

| Wright urged that opposition to the war in Vietnam should
be seen in relationship to the whole tendency toward imperialism
inherent in the social and economic system under which we live.

Newsmen protest Allan bar

Allen, U.S. Daily World Michigan correspondent and
it contributor to the Canadian Tribune was recently refused
rship to Detroit Press Club. The following story about that
‘appeared in the Guild Reporter, official organ of the Ame-
spaper Guild:
Detroit Press Club’s refusal to admit communist Daily
a correspondent William Allan to membership has touched
off ‘Sharp controversy in the city’s press corps.
H an at-large member of the Detroit Guild, was blackballed
to-5 vote of the club’s board of governors on the ground
that he is a ‘propagandist.’
“But two groups of newsmen at the Detroit Free Press and an-
His group at the Detroit News signed petitions urging the board
Teverse its stand.
ot pene Shine, city editor of the Free Press and a former member
= Detroit Guild executive board, led those on the club’s board
teal favoring Allan’s admission. Jack Crellin, city editor
fhe News, led the opposition.
ouan, a native of Scotland, is a veteran of the Detroit press
Corps, having worked for a labor paper before joining the old Daily
ier in the 1930s. He was editor of the former Michigan Worker.
ba: one petition, a dozen Free Press newsmen threatened to re
the press club board did not rescind its refusal to admit

“Another group of Free Press newsmen signed a second petition
the Detroit Free Press is replete with capitalist jour-
Capitalist publicists, capitalist politicians and’ just plain

,

whereas there is not a single publicly admitted Commu-
its membership;

Whereas . . . we often find the present non-exchange of
aS that takes place at the press club boring as hell;
erefore petition the board of governors. . . to

>”
ee {3 a? 1) 7 ; Cee a. TID 1

as made at Fords in Windsor in 1946 when striking workers threw up a picket line of 1,000 cars.

admit

we

By WILLIAM ALLAN .

This is the time of anniver-
saries, and the heavily subsid-
ized public media are slavering
here over the item that back in
January, 1914, Henry Ford, Ist
came out with his $5 a day
wage. Ford was paying $2.34 a
day for nine hours in the worst
hell-hole of auto plants here in
Michigan, the Rouge.

The public media are careful
to omit that production in the
Rouge doubled in the period fol-
lowing the $5 a day installation.
By December, 1919, the cost of
living in Detroit had climbed to
107.9 percent over that of De-
cember, 1914. This wiped out
any raise, but the increased pro-
duction remained:

Ford’s second “profit-sharing”
scheme, was the bonus plan,
likewise a speedup manoeuvre,
paid to workers according to
their length of service and in-
come. But war fed inflation re-
duced that to about a 48 cent
a week raise or a penny an hour.

In 1919, the restiveness of the
workers caused by news of the
big 1919 steel strike, the pack-
inghouse strikes, led by William
Z. Foster, special organizer of
the’ American Federation of
Labor, later to become national
chairman of the Communist
Party of the United States, saw
Ford declare a $6 a,day mini-
mum, received after working
sixty days for Ford. Ford sought
to keep out unionism and keep
his workers from going off to
other shops, but inflation wiped
out his raises and bonuses.
After two years Ford abandon-
ed the $50 a year bonus.

Ford’s demagogy was hard at
work in this period.

“We believe,” said Ford, “in
making men prosperous and
contented rather than follow the
plan of making a few slave driv-
ers multi-millionaires”.

The announcement of the $5
a day was published on a Mon-
day afternoon, in January, 1914.
By 2 a.m. the next day in spite
of a marrow freezing cold, an
army of jobless workers began
to gather before. the Ford Em-
ployment Office on Manchester
Street, Highland Park, Mich.

Ten thousand workers, Negro
and white, native born, foreign
born, were packed intg the
street, so tightly that those
who worked in the Ford High-
land Park shop couldn’t get in.

After an all night wait in the
below freezing weather, the
crowd roared out in anger when
cops posted up signs, “No Help
Wanted Here’. Ford’s big pub-
licity of paying $5 a day and
hiring “thousands” was a phony
public relations gag to sell cars
and get his name in the papers.

This reporter remembers an
almost identical scene in Det-
roit, Oct. 30, 1967, when we
went before dawn that morning
and saw 7,000 Negroes, men and.

HENRY FORD

THE
"WORKER'S
FRIEND’

women, from the ghetto, lined
up to apply for jobs, after
Henry Ford, Il, grandson of old
Henry, announced that 5,000
poverty stricken ghetto workers
would be hired. Thousands of
eager, desperate, jobless Ne-
groes, swamped old Providence
Hospital where the applications
were being taken, only to be
told that job interviews were
restricted to applicants “whoval-
ready had appointments”. Also
the Michigan Employment Se-
curity Commission (MESC)
told newsmen they had given
Henry Ford, II, names of 5,000
jobless from their files over a
week before. Thousands were
turned away, also signs were
posted, “No Women”, and oth-
ers told, we'll call you, don’t
call us’.

On that cold January day in
1914, the rebuff of Ford did not
drive the desperate, hungry,
jobless workers off Manchester
Avenue. They lit bonfires in the
street and thousands: stayed all
night so as to be close to that
Employment Office door when it
opened the next morning.

Came the dawn and over
10,000 were jammed in Man-
chester Avenue, waiting for the
$5 a day job. It was like a rush
to the gold fields. Men walked
for miles, some came on bikes
and old jalopies. Freight trains
coming into the yards in Detroit
carried hundreds, most of the
workers penniless.

Still no one was hired that
Friday. Came Monday, there
was the worst weather of that
winter of 1914. This was the
greatest crowd yet. But they
were tired of the Ford flim-flam,
the lying stories in the kept
press, the smiling pictures of
Henry Ford, Ist, with cutlines,
“a pensive Ford wants everyone
to share in the wealth.” P

Hoots, yells, angry roars,
when again the signs went up,
“No Help Wanted”. The desper-
ate workers surged against the

big iron gates.

The day before the chief of
police in Highland Park threat-
ened to turn fire hoses on the
jobless workers if they wouldn’t
disperse. Now the threat was
turned into actuality. A freezing
torrent of water was turned full
force on the front ranks of the
jobless. Many were swept from
their feet. Others tried to es-
cape, but were pinned by the
press of bodies. The Detroit
press admitted that over 3,000
were drenched to the skin. In
nine above zero weather, with a
strong gale blowing; the thin

clothing, soaking wet, and hair.

almost’ instantlyturned to” ice.

Freezing, numb, with all hope
of a job gone, the ice-encased
workers slowly retreated back
into the streets.

Henry Ford’s next comment
was that no one would be hired
who was not a resident of De-
troit or Dearborn for six months.
He then turned all hiring over to
the Employers Association. Fol-
lowing this, those that got $5 a
day soon found themselves
being visited by investigators,
who turned them in if they
didn’t go to church, smoked,
drank, or had any “radical” ten-
dencies. These investigators
came from the “Sociology De-
partment,” which in later years
was run by the Ford Service
thugs, headed up. by the murder-
ous Harry Bennett.

But the one thing that never
changed was the inexorable
speedup, the brutality of the
Servicemen, the slave-driving of
the foremen, the arbitrary dis-
charge of workers with many
years’ seniority for the slightest
indication of independence or
militancy.

Negro workers were always
in the Foundry, Press Steel,
Frame and Cold Heading, hard-
est, hottest jobs, where silicosis,
tuberculosis ran rife and the life
span was short. A black face
never was seen in the skilled
trades, the offices, transporta-
tion, the glass plant, the less
murderous jobs.

Henry Ford Ist used to say,
“Never give anything without
strings attached to it.” And he
didn’t. If he gave the workers
$5 a day in 1914, he got it back
by doubling production. If he
paid them a $50 bonus, again
production went up and war-
time inflatien took the increase;
just like today, the UAW mem-
bers in Ford who got a 20 cents
an hour raise in 1967 saw it all
vanish under a 4.5 increase in
the cost of living. last year.

And in 1941 when the work-
ers sealed the gates with their
welding guns, and walked out
in the 13-day strike, Henry Ford
lst walked through the giant
Rouge plant and not a wheel
was turning, not a line was
clanking, or a Ford was rolling
off the line. The workers beat
him, built a union, and ended at
least a piece of his exploitation
that’s now carried on in new
style by his grandson, Henry II.
When Henry Ist died, he was
worth $900 million. In 1968, the
Ford Motor Company will make
after taxes close to a billion
dollars and Henry’s grandsons
Henry, Benson and William are
millionaires many times over
and the Rouge is still a hell-
hole. '’ D 2 (ORE: ait «Xt fort

PACIFIC HIBUNE JANUARY 31,:) 267 sPoee

‘