One of the features of the 1920s Daily Worker was the weekly ‘Workers Correspondence’ page which encouraged readers to write in of their local activity with three chosen for first, second and third places, and printed in the Sunday paper. Here, a New York member of the Retail Grocery and Dairy Clerks’ Union wins this week’s first prize for a look at the lot of the grocery clerk and the gains made under the union.

‘Union Betters Conditions of Retail Clerks’ by a Worker Correspondent from The Daily Worker. Vol. 3 No. 34. February 20, 1926.

Bosses Fear Militant Organization Drives

NEW YORK, Feb. 18 The purpose of this article is to expose the miserable conditions of the grocery clerks of years ago and the changes brought about by the Retail Grocery and Dairy Clerks’ Union of Greater New York and the miserable conditions in the non-union stores of today.

To become a grocer’s apprentice 10 years ago was very easy.

Joe gets up 4 o’clock in the morning; pulls on his clothes; wets his hair; slides down the three flights of stairs and grabs a morning newspaper. He walks over to the nearest lamp-post, and turns to the “want ads” page and reads: “Grocery boy wanted. No experience necessary, 555 Hoe Ave., Bronx, N.Y.”

Joe gets on the train at the nearest elevated station and arrives at his destination at about 5 a.m.

He walks into the food store of Mr. “H.” A wheelbarrow figure on two short legs, bent over a box of rolls: “Young man, you are just the guy I want,” grunts Mr. “H.” I had no luck with my boys lately. They don’t seem to stick, but a fellow, whose ambition brings him here 5 o’clock in the morning is the right dough for me. Deliver these seventy orders. You will then go up to my house for breakfast. You will go up for dinner when you have a chance and for supper towards evening. There is a cot for you in the kitchen to sleep on. My baby’s crying I wont wake you after a day’s work. You start every morning at 4:30 a.m. I am no mean person. I don’t keep a boy tied to the store, if there is no work to perform. You will be thru with your day’s work quite often at 11 p.m. Of course, you know that on Saturdays you have to work until 1-2 a.m., but for that you will get off on Sundays between 12 and 4 p.m. This batch of orders goes first.”

Joe well realizes that Mr. “H” seems to be a liberal boss for on his last job he had to do even more. And being that Mr. “H” is liberal, Joe is sure that at the end of the month, he will get 5 or 6 dollars pocket money.

But time goes on and many changes take place. Today there is a local of the Retail Grocery and Dairy Clerks’ Union of Greater New York, which wrought a great change in these almost unbelievable conditions. The member of the union does not look for the job, but the employer is supplied with help from the office of the union. Since the union has become a factor Joe now walks into Mr. “H’s” store which is non-union, neatly-dressed, his hair neatly combed. Mr. “H” motions to him to walk into the back room of the store. He takes a sheet of paper and asks:

“Your name and address.”

“Are you married?”

“What country do you come from?”

“What was your occupation in the old country?”

“Why did you come to this country?”

“Do you intend to marry?”

“Did you ever work in a union store?”

“Are you a union man?”

“Do you intend to join the union?”

“Will you go down on strike if called upon?”

“Any references?”

“How many and what languages do you speak?”

“Do you read and write English, Jewish and Polish?”

“Can you figure?”

Unions’ Retail Store Clerks.

After eleven years of ceaseless fighting the union clerks have gained a nine-hour work day and a six-day work week for their members. Despite the fact that the labor laws of the state of New York, prohibit a seven-day work week, they have to strike for a six-day week and are quite often confronted with injunctions for trying to enforce the law. The union also obtained for its members a minimum- wage of from $35 to $45 a week as clerks and from $50 to $60 for managers.

The spirit of the membership is forcing the hands of the biggest chain store proprietors and makes them grant better conditions to their employes for fear that the union may gain hold on them.

The union is not of the richest and cannot boast of its treasury but let any boss try to break the agreement with the union and the members cover the cost of the strike even if it mounts into thousands of dollars. Each member contributes to the strike fund. They fight back and today they are stronger than ever and are still growing, despite injunctions, gangsters and scabs.

When one realizes that the union with its comparatively small membership controls hundreds of stores and that the small business man is the bitterest enemy of unionism and fights desperately against it, then one is amazed at the spirit and the almost superhuman efforts invested in the members and leaders of the union to carry on. No wonder this union’s called, “The fighting union, the union that conducts strikes 365 days per year.”

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.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1926/1926-ny/v03-n034-supplement-feb-20-1926-DW-LOC.pdf