Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center

Steel Workers !
Now is the time to join with steel worken everywhen
to win higher wages, a square deal. and security. The
law says you have a right to organize into a genuina
union under your own control.
The powerful backing of the Committee for Industrial
Organization will help you build a strong union in
accordance with the law. The C. I. 0. will assist
your efforts to get a wage agreement with the steel
companies.
A union can end favoritism, protect you against the
speed-up, and end unfair lay-offs.
Stand up for your rights! Safeguard your children's
future! America is a land of great wealth. Sw that
you have your just sham.
Get in touch with the Steel Workers Organizing Committee.
3600 Grant Building. Pittaburgh. Pennsylvania;
1900 Engineering Building, 205 West Wacker Drive.
Chicago; 1418 Comer Building, Birmingham, Alabama.
Publication Bo. 5. July. 1936
Price, 5c each; 12 for 3Oc; 180 for $2.00
Committee for
Industrial Organization
45 Rust Building
1001 15th St. N. W. Washington, D. C.
gathered in 1936 in a memorial to the pioneering 1892
Homestead Strike against U.S. Steel. The memorial rally
was protected by State Police, and Lt. Gov. Kennedy was
one of the speakers. He told the workers that the State
Police would help them if they went on strike against U.S.
Steel. (24)
With all that, it is understandable that U.S. Steel
decided to reach a settlement with the CIO. Two weeks
after the Flint Sit-Down defeated GM, U.S. Steel suddenly
proposed a contract to the CIO. On March 2, 1937, the
Steelworkers Union became the officially accepted
bargaining agent at U.S. Steel plants. The Corporation not
only bowed to the inevitable, but by installing the CIO it
staved off even more militant possibilities. The CIO
bureaucracy was unpopular in the mills. Only 7% of the
U.S. Steel employees had signed union membership cards.
In fact, Lee Pressman, the Communist Party lawyer for
the Steelworkers Union, said afterwards that they just
didn't have the support of the majority:
'There is no question that we could not have filed a
petition through the National Labor Relations Board or
any other kind of machinery asking for an election. We
could not have won an election ..." (25)
At the U.S. Steel stockholders meeting the following
year, Chairman Myron Taylor explained to his investors
why the New Deal's pro-CIO approach worked:
"The union has scrupulously followed the terms
of its agreement and, in so far as I know, has made no unfair
effort to bring other employees into its ranks, while
I
I
I
the corporation subsidiaries, during a very difficult period,
have been entirely free of labor disturbance of any kind."
(26)
By holding back the, iron fist of repression, by encouraging
the CIO, the New Deal reform government cut
down "labor disturbance" among the Euro-Amerikan
proletariat.
It should be kept in mind that the New Deal was
ready to use the most direct repression when it was felt
necessary. All during the 1930s, for example, they directed
an ever-increasing offensive against the Nationalist Party
of Puerto Rico. Unlike the settler workers, the liberation
struggle of Puerto Rico was not seeking the reform of the
U.S. Empire but its ouster from their nation. The speed
with which the nationalist fervor was spreading through
the Puerto Rican masses alarmed U.S. Imperialism.
So the most liberal, most reform-minded U.S.
Government in history repressed the Nationalists in the
most naked and brutal way. By 1936 the tide of pro-
Independence sentiment was running high, and Don
Albizu Campos, President of the Nationalist Party, was
without doubt the most respected political figure among
both the intellectuals and the masses. School children were
starting to tear the U.S. flag down from the school
flagpoles and substitute the Puerto Rican flag. In the city
of Ponce the school principal defied a police order to take
the Puerto Rican banner down. The New Deal response
was to directly move to violently break up the Nationalist
center.
In July, 1936 eight Nationalist leaders were successfully
tried for conspiracy by the U.S. Government.
Since their first trial had ended in a dead-locked jury, the
government decided to totally rig the next judge and jury
(most of the jurors were Euro-Amerikans, for example).
That done, the Nationalist leaders were sentenced to four
to ten years in federal prison. Meanwhile, general repression
came down. U.S. Governor Winship followed a policy
of denying all rights of free speech or assembly to the pro-
Independence forces. Machine guns were placed in the
streets of San Juan.
On Palm Sunday, 1937 - one month after President
Roosevelt refused to use force against the Flint Sit-
Down Strike - the Ponce Massacre took place. A Nationalist
parade, with a proper city permit, was met with
U.S. police gunfire. The parade of 92 youth from the
Cadets and Daughters of the Republic (Nationalist youth
groups) was watched by 150 U.S. police with rifles and
machine guns. As soon as the unarmed teen-agers started
marching the police began firing and kept firing. Nineteen
Puerto Rican citizens were killed and over 100 wounded.
Afterwards, President Roosevelt rejected all protests and
said that Governor Winship had his approval. The goal of
paralyzing the pro-Independence forces through terrorism
was obvious. (27)
Similar pressures, although different in form, were
used by the New Deal against Mexicano workers in the
West and Midwest. There, mass round-ups in the Mexicano
communities and the forced deportation of 500,000
Mexicanos (many of whom had U.S. residency or citizen-
83 ship) were used to save relief funds for settlers and, most