Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1987. január-június (41. évfolyam, 1-25. szám)

1987-06-11 / 23. szám

Thursday, June 11. 1987.

AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZÓ

9.

John T. Gojack:

JÓCSÁK AND SON

XV.

When the workers protested these killings next day at Haymarket Square, they were again attacked by police. A bomb was thrown, killing some police and workers; and though it was never discovered who threw the bomb, four American labor leaders were hanged, for a crime they did not commit, and of which they were later proven innocent."

Three years later, an international labor conference in Paris to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the fall of the Bastille heard an American worker report on the struggle for the eight-hour day and the disgraceful Haymarket incident of 1886. Because the American Federation of Labor had already decided to celebrate May Day in Chicago on May 1, 1890, the International Congress of Labor adopted the same program. Not Russia. Not China. Not Lower Slobovia. America gave birth to the world's greatest labor holiday.

To let the classes know that the conditions which led to May Day were not so far in our past, I described how I changed from anti-labor to union rebel with help from General Motors. I'd step to a clear space to act out my job on the shock absorber assembly line. I pointed out to the class that my movements would not be nearly as fast as they had to be on the assembly line.

"Picture the fast-moving assembly line on my left," I'd say, "and special machine in front of me, spitting oil all over the workplace and me. I bend over to my left to pick a shock off the conveyor belt, place it in the machine in front of my face. The shock has been filled with oil and the end caps are loose and spilling it. With the shock in place, I hit two large buttons that activate a motor which tightens the caps. Releasing the shock by another lever, I take it out of the machine and place it on the assembly line." I would go through this exercise three or four times without a halt, to illustrate how fast the shocks were coming down the line. Sometimes they piled up and spilled over on the shop floor. The students always laughed at the demonstration as my movements were wild, ludicrous and funny. As funny as Chaplin in Modern Times, my movements had to be a lot faster and thus more ridiculous. This was always the high point of my talks on History of American Labor. It showed vividly why mass production workers by the millions joined the CIO in the thirties and forties.

I explained to the classes my fringe benefits, such as "large boils on my arms from the oil used in the shocks, which saturated my skin despite wearing a heavy oilcloth apron." And "unfortunately, the medics in the plant's first aid room never found an,.1 effevtive remedy for the oil boils and blisters, which stayed with me for months after being off that job."

One squeamish professor asked if it was necessary to mention one shitty matter to show how horrible conditions were before the union. He retreated when I asked: "Aren't students supposed to hear the truth?"

I cited this dehumanizing experience.

"This GM plant allowed seventeen minutes for lunch break. It took speed to gulp down a sandwich or two and make it to the toilet and back to your work station in seventeen minutes. Going to the toilet during lunch

break was an important must." The assistant-foreman mentioned an older man's two trips to the gents' room, saying: "One more and he's on the sidewalk looking for a job."" I asked other workers about toilet trips. All said they knew of men who were fired for having to go to the toilet too often.

There were a number of reasons, the speedup and conditions, why I developed a deep hatred for General Motors. I became interested in the efforts of a union to organize that factory of 6,000 workers. Each night, walking to my job and again in the morning walking home, I would look up at that six-story factory building and wonder how I could get back at the company. In my mind, it was a torture chamber. The work pace was inhumane and most of the bosses treated workers with contempt. The most inhumane aspect of the job was knowing that you risked losing it, at a time when jobs were scarce, if you went to the toilet more than once or twice during a shift. I had a family to care for, including a baby, and needed every cent of my paltry pay of thirty-two cents an hour. So, when taken with cramps and already to the toilet twice that shift, fearful of my job, I did not call for relief. I crapped my pants.

"Join a union to end such conditions?" I asked one class. "I would have welcomed Josef Stalin as my union representative if he would help improve my toilet privileges."

These comments prompted another professor to ask: "Aren't you a bit of a rabble- rouser, John?"

"Of course, and thank you for the compliment. I haven't been called a rabble-rouser for years and it's good to hear I haven't changed."

After producing enough shocks for GM's needs in a few months, there were mass layoffs. I survived by applying for work relief and getting on a WPA project. This was the pattern until early 1940. Once it took some months to get on WPA (Works Progress Administration) and I ran up a credit of three hundred dollars at the local grocery. When called back to work at General Motors, I stayed on the WPA project. This was daytime work digging ditches, then sleeping for a few hours in the evening, then on to the midnight shift battling the never-ending shock absorber assembly line. It took a few months to pay my grocery bill, though I thought the two jobs would kill me before reaching that goal.

During the late, thirties there were rumblings of CIO union organizational efforts, so far underground I never knew of it. Finally, every Tuesday there were boys in front of the factory entrances distributing leaflets for the union. A few men in business: suits watched this operation. They were the professional organizers from other cities. The boys were Western Union boys, hired to pass out leaflets.

This went on for months before I learned no GM employee had ever passed out union leaflets. Those clandestinely active in the union were asked to show their support openly to the mass of workers by distributing leaflets. All declined, feeling certain that they would be fired on the spot for revealing union support.

I began to ask about the union, carefully

of course. _

to be continued

(folytatás az első oldalról)

SZORGOSKODIK MR. KIRKLAND

vezés alatt van és ez bizony nehézségeket okoz. Többek között jó nehány üzemet le kellett zárni es az ott dolgozókat áthelyezni más üzemekbe, vagy átképezni új munkára. Ezen átszervezés alatt azonban egyetlen munkás sem veszíti el munkalehetőségét es az átképzettek is kapnak ellenszolgáltatást.

Mr. Kirkland üdvözli Rácz Sándort.

l

Az Egyesült Államokban is folyamatban van az ipari üzemek átszervezése. Itt is vannak üzemlezárások. De az elbocsátott munkások munkanélkülivé válnak. Több százezer autó, acél, szövő, vegyipari, húsfeldolgozó munkás, hónapok, sokszor éveken át munkanélküli, vagy a legjobb esetben új munkát vállaL 50 százalékos, vagy meg nagyobb bérlevágással.

Amig tehát Magyarországon a szakszervezetek védik a munkások érdekeit, az Egyesült Államokban Mr. Kirkland és társai képtelenek voltak eddig ezt elemi.

Az alapiparban dolgozók nem kapták meg a munkateljesítmény (productivity) emelkedésével nekik járó béremelést. Vagyis, amikor a termelékenység emelkedett, a bér nem tartott azzal lépést. Ezen felül a nagy vállalatoknak sikerült a kollektiv munkaszerződésekből kihagyni az inflációt ellensúlyozó béremelést.

Más szóval az amerikai szakszervezetek képtelenek voltak megvédeni a munkások reálbérét, amikor feladták az infláció okozta áremelkedések ellensúlyozását, magasabb bérek formájában.

Tény az, hogy az amerikai szervezett munkások kisebb béremelést kaptak az utolsó pár évben, mint a szervezetlen munkások.

Tény az, hogy a szervezett ipari munkások a Német Szövetségi Köztársaságban es Svájcban magasabb bért kapnak, mint azonos iparban dolgozók az USA-ban.

Tény az, hogy számos szakszervezet beleegyezett a munkaadók követelésébe, hogy az újonnan felvett munkások 3-5 dollárral alacsonyabb órabért kapjanak, és ez aláássa a bérrendszert.

Tény az, hogy az USA dolgozóinak kisebb százaléka tartozik szakszervezetbe, mint bármely más ipari országban.

A fentiek bizonyítják, hogy volna mit tenni Mr. Kirklandnak a szervezetlenek megszervezese; terén, a szervezett munkások munkájának védelmére, a munkások bérének emelésére, a hajléktalan munkások tízezreinek lakással való ellátására. Jo volna, ha Mr. Kirkland az évi 130,000 dolláros fizetéssel járó tisztségében e problémák megoldásával foglalkozna (és nem pazarolná idejét a Rácz Sándorok es hozzá-- juk hasonlók vendéglátására.