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Where Taft-Hartley repeal was killed

- lay

Story below.)

This is the chamber of the U.S. Senate where the fight for outright repeal of the Taft-Hartley
W was lost. Instead the Senate passed, 51 to 42, a bill proposed by Senator Robert A. Taft which re-
ined injunctions amd other “essentials” of the T-H law. The bill is expected to be pigeonholed in
the House, leaving T-H still on the books. Right-wing labor leaders who had deferred wage struggles
Until the repeal of Taft-Hartley” now face the demand for fourth-round wage fights this fall. (See

hysteria under cover of which
they can impose new legal restric-
tions on political and union .ac-
tivity.

MacArthur concluded a long de-
nunciation of communism by ques-
tioning “whether such a move-
ment should longer be accorded
the validity, the sanction and the
protection of the law.” Japanese
rightists immediately took the
statement as a guide to action.

On July 5 the mangled corpse
of President Sadanori Shimoyama
of the Government Railway Cor-
poration, which was engaged in
discharging 95,000 workers, was
found beside railroad tracks in
Tokyo.

An exhaustive investigation has
fund no evidence whatever ‘to
connect Shimoyama’s death either
with the Communist party or with
the Railway Workers Union. How-
ever, this has not deterred the
U.S. and Japanese authorities from

tion media to convey the impres-
sion that Shimoyama was the vic-

Delayed U.S. wage drive
Showdown expected in fall

s The major U.S. unions’ wage drive will not reach a climax until early fall with all signs pomting
Smaller pay raises this year than in the so-called third round of 1948 and no raises at all for many

Workers.

leg :
tieg tension, has developed no uni-

The Wllegtive bargaining strategy.
the ate start can be ascribed to
nate that many unions were
. Us to delay wage negotia-
aes until repeal of the Taft-
of thie law was attained. Collapse
Unions prime objective leaves the
able S to bargain in an unfavor-
bee, “tMOsphere which had not
anticipated.

Contrast to former years
the unions in key indus-
€veloped roughly similar de-
ue €nd had at least a loose
leag °f collaboration, enough to
the establishment of a
the .°49..ne-
ny have seen the unions

ng their demands in iso-
» UNCoordinated fashion.

tM other. years, however,
ing Of the big unions are await-
tations outcome of wage nego-
fore .° in the steel industry be-
Wagg Pressing ahead with their
h campaigns,
St a Hen cwing steel union, larg-
Presiqan’ CIO and headed by CIO
ing y°Ot Philip Murray, is lean-
Ministre uw on the Truman ad-
Tang ttion to help win its de-
fan j, 12 negotiations which be-
Sora, 4 2Y, the steel union kept
askin € exact amount it was
nereas and submerged its wage
Pension, WemMands to demands for
Althou and social insurance.
this .°USh steel industry profits
sone are piling up at a more
Tore, Smical rate than ever be-
© steel barons rejected the
S and Murray, with great
Siw) announced that the un-
Sider tbe forced to strike.
this ohne Truman intervened at
Ue eet and obtained a 60-day
unti ich postpones strike ac-
Ul the middle of Septem-

n
When
trieg a
Mands
fo

Drege
late

. Pogsinsy:
by congity of a strike, however,
§ settle derea extremely dim since
Pareg ent is already being pre-
the t at top levels. As part of
Truman appointed 2
board to conduct
On the dispute and re-
& settlement.

By MARY DOBBS

abor’s. main wage drive has been late in getting started this year

tim of a left-wing attack.

Privately many political observ-
ers express the opinion that Shim-
oyama was murdered as a result
of illicit dealings with a certain
gang of the Tokyo underworld,
but publicly most prefer to blame
the Communists.

The Shimoyama case was still
the subject of sensational stories
in the press when on July 15 a
runaway €lectric train crashed
through the station compound at
Mitaka, near Tokyo, killing six
| persons. Although the train, built
|during the war, was one

NEW YORK

and as a result of increasing right-

Although the national CIO and
the steelworkers have been reluc-
tant to face the fact of growing
economic crisis in the U.S., they
were compelled to admit in their
arguments that this nation will
be catapulted into depression un-
less the workers receive more pur-
chasing power in-the form of
higher wages. The fact-finding
board is reportedly ready to re-
commend a settlement of from
5e to 10c an hour, provided this
is not used to establish a pattern
for other unions.

The steelworkers'’ leaders paved
the way for such a deal by de-
claring that not all of industry
could afford wage increases. This
undermines the position of unions
in other industries, particularly
those where the depression has
already set in, though the need
for wage increases is just as great

tive equipment, the police -im-
mediately claimed sabotage and
arrested two officials of the Mit-
aka branch of the Railway Work-
ers Union.

Even after the arrested men es-

among those workers.

The precedent of no wage in-
creases this year has already been
set in a number of industries, in-
cluding textile, clothing, lumber
and shipyard. Still marking time
in their negotiations are the auto
workers, currently in the midst of

where at the time of the incident,
they were not released. The police

a strike vote, the coal miners,|@lleged they were “implicated be-
electrical workers, rubber work-| ind the scenes. :

ers, meat packing workers and| Five days later a 20-man in-
others. vestigation group appointed by

the newly formed League for De-

It is likely that some of these;fense of Democracy exposed the

unions will have to ‘strike to win,attempt to frame the two men
wage increases, With the Taft-|}and declared that “there is evi-
Hartley law still on their side,}dence that the authorities are

the employers are taking an ex-

utilizing their control of informa-;

of a}
type called “hell trains” by the|
workers because of their defec-,

tablished that they had been else-|

MacArthur okay

spurs attack on
Japanese unions

TOKYO

The campaign against the Japanese left has entered a new phase
since General Douglas MacArthur gave it his blessing a few weeks ago.
U.S. and Japanese authorities, without regard to the- facts, are
exploiting two recent incidents in an effort to create an anti-Communist

guilty of conspiracy to use the in-
cident for their own ends.”

The government quickly seized
upon the Mitaka incident to press
its drive against the union, which
under left-wing leadership has
been militantly opposing the fir-
ing of 95,000 members. By dismiss-
ing 17 members of ,the union’s
central committee, the government
was able to turn over control of
the union to a handful of right-
wingers. At the same time the
purge of militant rail workers was
stepped up.

By the intense anti-Communist
barrage following the Shimoyama
and Mitaka incidents, the RWU
and the labor movement generally
have been temporarily put on the
defensive.

During recent weeks scores of
militant workers have been ar-
Yested and charged with “acts pre-
judicial to the security of the oc-
cupation”’—which may be anything
from putting up a poster to par-
ticipating in a sitdown strike.

Jews score
press yarns

WARSAW

The Central Committee of Polish
| Jews has assailed as false stories
|appearing in the U.S. press con-
‘cerning alleged pogroms in Poland.

Citing the Jewish Morning Jour-
nal specifically for printing stories
in
the committee asserted
‘there is no vestige of truth to these
articles.

“Such news forms a link in the
;chain of provocation in the ser-
vice of the aggressors and war
mongers and has as its aim the
| spreading of hatred for the people
lof Poland in Jewish society,” the
committee declared in a public.
Statement. =

The stories are designed “to draw
;away the attention of the Jewish
masses in America from the policy
Of racial discrimination and anti-
,Semitism which prevails there,” it
iwas charged.

tremely strong stand against pay
raises and, in some _ industries,
have already come forward with
wage-cutting proposals. Increas-
ingly, they are using the argu-
ment that business is poor.

China’s liberated areas
open workers schools

As the people in the liberated areas of China turn to the tasks of
peace, education occupies a major point on their agenda.
direction of the unions and the people’s government, thousands of
workers are studying in specially organized classes and schools. Study

groups and night schools are de-
signed to meet the needs of fac-
tory workers. Regular schools and
colleges are geared to handle those
who desire to become trained spe-
cialists.

In Mukden three arts and litera-
ture academies and a journalism
school have been set up. In Tang-
shan several technical schools
have been founded, In Tientsin,
Kaifeng, Nanking and Chengchow

political training institutes are
now functioning. 4
Supplementing elassroom af

taught
study groups, workers are
to take advantage of the many

PEIPING

Under the

libraries, reading rooms and wall
and blackboard newspapers which
are cropping up everywhere.

As the workers advance in their
studies they advance in their jobs.
In Harbin recently 100 rail work- a
ers were promoted to adminis-
trative posts after completing a
special training course.

How will he explain this?

In rural areas expansion of edu-
cation has similarly been stressed.
In the farm sections of Shangtung,
for example, educational expendi-
tures amount to half the annual
budget. The major objective is to
wipe out illiteracy.

hugs and kisses. Involved in the

age hourly wage is 15 cents.

A friendly Paris gendarme finds himself in a very enviable
position as a group of fashion house employees gather round with

walkout, which preceded the fall

showings, were 12,000 dressmakers who turn out expemsive Paris
models. They are asking an increase of four cents an hour. Aver-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUGUST 12, 19%9—PAGE 3