The C.P. and the S.P. compete for leadership of 12,000 Massachusetts woodworkers as they begin to organize.

‘The Forgotten Men of the Furniture Industry in the Berkshires Revolt’ by Jack McCarthy from The Daily Worker. Vol. 11 No. 102. April 28, 1934.

(Organizer, Furniture Workers Industrial Union, Boston)

In Gardner, Mass., and the surrounding towns (Winchendon, Athol, So. Royalston, Leominster) some 12,000 workers are employed at the furniture industry and allied trades. For years these workers have remained unorganized and were left to the mercy of the bosses’ program of wage cuts, speed-up, long hours, etc.

During the summer and fall of 1933, after the blanket code had been announced by the President with its specified minimum of wages for the various industries, the wages of the furniture workers in these Berkshire towns were so low that they had to strike to enforce even the minimum set by the blanket code.

As a result of this struggle on the part of the workers, an independent union of furniture and allied trades workers was organized. When Washington got wind of this strike, Anna Weinstock, federal conciliator and notorious strike-breaker, came down to send workers back to work with arbitration agreements. In this strike-breaking activity Miss Weinstock had the co-operation of the officials of the independent union, the majority of whom were active members of the Socialist Party.

Miss Weinstock made beautiful speeches to the forgotten man of the Berkshires, about the glories of the New Deal and the N.R.A. and how terribly unpatriotic it would be for them to interfere with the President’s program for recovery. Norman Thomas, on his part, had told the members of the Socialist Party and other workers through the columns of the New York Times and the New Leader that the N.R.A. was a step towards Socialism. The result was that some of these splendid proletarian fighters in the ranks of the S.P. fell victims to Norman Thomas’ and the official S.P. endorsement of the N.R.A.

Immediately on the heels of this betrayal, a vicious blacklist was carried out by the companies and a smashing of unions in all towns with the exception of Gardner.

In the O.W. Seibert shop, where itself through the fall and winter with an approximate membership of 1,000. The bosses in Gardner found plenty of loopholes in the furniture code to continue their wage-cut and speed-up program.

In the O.W. Seibert shop where some 150 workers are employed, baby carriages are the main product. This company, to avoid paying 34 cents an hour specified for furniture workers in the North under the furniture code, classified baby carriages as toys because the toy code’s minimum is 30 cents an hour. While the workers were promised the $12 for a 40-hour week under this code, they worked on a piece-work basis. The rate for piece work was so low that it was impossible for them to make the $12. This the company used to speed-up the workers and to fire those who did not come up to the standard. Workers especially in the spray department were exposed to unsanitary conditions due to the lack of a blower system. For months the Gardner union met regularly and discussed generally the conditions of the workers in Gardner, its membership remaining about the same over a period of months. The leadership never seriously undertook calling meetings on a shop basis with the workers on the concrete problems in the shops. It was only after the militant elements in the union and on the Executive Committee proposed that shop meetings be held that the conditions in the O.W. Seibert shop vas discovered and discussed. It was this policy, coupled with the bad conditions in the shop, that led to the strike in the O.W. Seibert plant on Feb. 13. The strike call resulted in a 100 per cent walkout. The demands were for a 30 per cent increase in wages, recognition of the union, and improved sanitary conditions.

For the first four weeks of the strike every attempt by the company to employ scabs was effectively prevented by a militant mass picket-line. On the fourth week in the strike the company applied for and got an injunction.

Immediately, on the suggestion of the militant workers in the union, an open membership meeting was called to which some 1,500 responded. At this meeting a motion was made and carried that a two-day general sympathetic strike be declared against the injunctions of the O.W. Seibert plant. Next morning this resulted in approximately 2,000 workers streaming out of the factories and on to the picket-line. Many of the timid leaders of the union became frightened and overwhelmed by this mass response, they actually attempted to prevent the walkout in some factories. One young worker who was arrested for distributing leaflets was released immediately without bail when some 500 or 600 workers marched to the police station in protest. This action was repeated when the case came to court, resulting in the judge’s placing the case on file.

Not a scab entered the shop. The bosses in Gardner were so much frightened by this mass upsurge of the furniture workers that in one shop, Randsalls, so as to prevent a walkout, they gave the workers a wage increase of from 5 to 15 per cent. The Florence Stove, a shop employing between 500 and 600, took a vote of the workers on a company union proposition, promising a wage increase. This resulted in the company announcing a 2/3 vote in favor of the company union.

The general sympathetic strike lasted from Thursday, March 8, until the following Monday morning. Here the union officials made a serious mistake in not immediately raising with the workers the demands for a general wage increase, for improved conditions and recognition of the union. On the return of the workers on Monday morning the companies immediately started a black-list campaign.

At the time of the mass walkout of the workers on the picket-line, Axel Bachman, president of the union, tendered his resignation as a protest against the violation of the injunction, at which time he attacked the militant elements that were responsible for this splendid demonstration of solidarity. The workers, not recognizing the significance of this act, foolishly refused to accept his resignation in spite of the fact that they rejected his anti-mass picketing policy. Then Mr. Charles G. Wood, federal conciliator, was sent for and rushed to Gardner to break this strike and to prevent it from spreading to other shops in Gardner and the surrounding towns. He immediately arranged a conference where, after a 10-hour session, 9 out of 11 strike and union representatives signed an arbitration agreement as a basis for settling the strike. One of the union officials, Ted Akin, and one of the strikers refused to sign this document; while Leslie Richards, the union organizer, signed it. Under the pressure of the workers, between midnight and the next day’s strike meeting, Richards changed his mind.

At this strike meeting, Friday, March 16, Bachman came out openly for settling the strike on the basis of this instrument drawn up by Wood. It provided for the taking back of 90 per cent of the workers immediately and the other 10 per cent when the employer had work for them, which obviously meant the blacklisting of the most militant strike leaders. It further provided that arbitration should proceed on a departmental basis, which meant that the employer I could give a few cents wage increase to key individuals in the shops, thus preparing the way to divide the workers and destroy the union. At this meeting a motion was carried to postpone the vote on the settlement till the next day because of the small attendance. That afternoon Bachman was seen by the workers in conference with representatives of the company; and labor company representatives were sent to the homes of the workers to take a vote on the strike-breaking agreement. Sunday morning George Roewer, Socialist Party lawyer from Boston, went to Gardner. He, with Bachman, held conferences with the Seibert Company which resulted in their coming back with an agreement that promised a 5 per cent increase in wages, recognition of the union and arbitration of the balance of the 30 per cent.

At the meeting on Sunday, afternoon Gorge Roewer urged the workers to accept this as a basis for settlement and promised them that he, as arbitrator for the union with Charles G. Wood as “neutral” arbitrator, would bet any of the strikers the price of an automobile that he would get 30 per cent as a result of any such arbitration.

The militant strikers fought bitterly against this sell-out. Finally Roewer succeeded in putting it through. At the end of the meeting three members of the Socialist Party stood in front of Roewer and tore up their Socialist Party books as a protest against his treachery, and lack of confidence in the policy of the officials of the S.P.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

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