4
ELECTRICAL UNION NEWS:
. October 10, 1947
Delegates Condemn
Carey-Block Faction
The 12th UE convention at Boston last
week condemned the Carey-Block fac-
tion, which calls itself “UE Members for
“Democratic Action”, for seeking to dis-
rupt the union and giving “aid and com-
fort” to the enemies of labor.
By a vote of 3817 to 596, the conven-
tion passed the following resolution:
“The factionalist clique calling itself
‘UE Members for’Democratic Action’
was_ originated, is directed, and receives
financial support from outside the union.
“This faction secks and accepts the
help of employer's for the furtherance of
its factional advantage, and offers itself
as a willing tool to employers seeking to
meddle in union-affai poe
Aid to Employers
“This faction, by its unprincipled and
self-seeking attacks against our union
and its leadership, has given aid to em-
ployers, company unions,“ and AFL
racketeers in contests with the UE.
“Leaders of this faction have revealed
how shallow is their loyalty to UE by
concealing the plots of their secessionist
supporters.
“Their venomous attacks against their
union, carried on outside the union in
the public press, national magazines and
periodicals and over the radio, gave aid
and comfort to, the Big Business ‘and
politician enemies of labor, and helped
them to enact'the Taft-Hartley Act.
“Bankrupt and incompetent, this fac-
tion has no program other than red-
baiting and disruption, and no purpose
save to capture for outsiders the con-
trol of the union.
Faction’s Bad ,Record
“In instance after instance, where
through the intervention of outside in-
fluences these factionalist forces have
captured or perpetuated themselves in
control of local unions, they have agreed
to speed-up. They have. helped institute
phony profit-sharing plans. They have
permitted employers to make a mockery
of seniority. They have given up wage
increases for theix members, and brag-
ged of it in the public press,
“For these and other crimes the 12th
UE Convention supports the action
taken by; the GHB. calling for the dis-
solution of the ‘UEMDA’, The 12th
Convention denounces and condemns the
faction called the ‘UEMDA’ and calls
upon it to dissolve,
“The Convention calls upon all UE
members, for the protection of their own
PAC. Collections
Continue in Shops
Reports made to Executive Board’
* mharibers on PAC collections in the shops
‘show that-in general, when shop stew-
ards really push the PAC campaign,
members are prompt in donating their
dollars.
The Board set the period from Oct. 3
through tomorrow for an intensive drive
Gerald
Di Sorbo Peter Monzo
for registration of voters and for collect-
ing the voluntary $1 PAC contributions.
The first shop stewards to turn in com-
pleted PAC books were: Gerald DiSorbo,
Bldg. 68; Lucy Zeppitelli, Bldg. 58; Wil-
lard Kuschel, Bldg. 46; John Rez, Bldg.
42; Peter Monzo, Bldg. 285, and Ralph
Pigeon, Bldg. 60.
Company Will Check
On Apron Situation:
Louis Male, general . superintendent,
“agreed ina grievance meeting with Bus-
iness Agent Leo Jandreau last week that
the company would survey the works to
. See if there were any undesirable jobs
on’ which aprons shoul
“the workers, and where aprons are not
being supplied now.
He refused, however, to have the
aprons supplied to all who want to use
them, as proposed by: the Executive
‘Board. Male took the position that
where the nature of the work made ap-
rons necessary, they would be supplied,
but that where aprons were a matter of
choice with the worker, it was up to the
worker to supply his own. --
personal economic interests, to prevent
this faction from using the funds of
local treasuries, to refuse all financial
or other support to them, to repudiate
them and drive them out of leadership,
and, if they persist in their disruption,
to drive them out of the union.”
REGISTER TODAY
Oct, 21,
Turbine Offer Put
To Vote in Shops
A management offer intended to settle
the short shift dispute in the Turbine.
Division was submitted to the division
membership in a poll through the union
shop stewards this week (after this
paper went to press).
After eight weeks of refusal by the
men to worl: overtime. until the dispute
- was settled, the company backed down
on its insistence on a 714 hour day for
the three shifts. James Burnison last
Friday offered to put the first and sec-
ond shifts back on 8 hours. The third
shift would be on six nights of 6% hours
each, the sixth at time-and-a-half, with
the right to put in another four. hours
THE VOICE OF LOCAL 301 - - - UER&MW. A.
Vol. 5 — No. 39
SCHENECTADY, NEW YORK
What Proposal’ Means
The 8-hour proposal for the first’ and
second shifts represents what they asked
for. The proposal for the third shift was
at. time-and-a-half,
of _course.unsatisfactory,.although--a
slight improvement over the schedule be-
fore the 7%-hour shift was established.
The third shift numbers 249 out of
2500 in the division. ;
The issue was put to a shop vote be-
cause of the practical difficulty of get-
ting a clear vote in shift meetings. The
company -proposal was opposed by: a
third shift meeting Tuesday morning,
and by a second shift meeting Wednes-
day. It was approved by an almost un-
animous vote of the first shift at a big
meeting Tuesday. The vote in the shop
will be taken as one group.
Pledge Continued Fight
In voting to accept, the first shift
members declared -they would continue
the fight to get a full 8-hours’ pay per
day for all three shifts, and that when
‘ the_next_contract- negotiations: came-up;~--~---
they would call upon all shifts to fight
for an,8-hour guarantee for all shifts as
a major contract issue.
The vote on the compromise proposal
was scheduled to be completed today.
Burnison made the offer to a union
committee including Business Agent Leo
Jandreau, and Ray Fredericks, Roy Lash
and Ernest Fainelli, named by the Tur-
bine Division committee on the dispute.
Convention Report Okayed
The Stewards’ Council Tuesday ap-
_ proved the report of Leo Jandreau on the
12th national UE convention: at Boston.
The convention report will also be made
to the regular 301 membership meeting
c
Make the PAC $1 drive 100%
ac
301 FOOD CENTER at- |
tracts a steady stream
of union members: anxi-
ous to buy eggs, vege-
tables and fruit at. cost.
Albert Davis, left, and
Stanley Bishop, right,
are behind the counter
in this picture. They are
both members of the
Food Price Committee
which opened the store
at 106 South Church §
Y Is Mr. X?
Here's the Answer
Haves you been wondering about Mr.
Requests for Voting Time
Presented to GE Foremen
ds have | been handed to fore-
a, the mystery tian who has been look-
ing at machines in Bldg. 17 and watch-
ing to see how fast people work? At
least one worker was reprimanded by
his foreman because Mr. X thought he
was too slow,
The union checked with the company
and learned that Mr. X is a man from
the: general office inspecting equipment
and facilities to see if improvements are
needed. He has nothing to do with per-
sonnel, according to management. He
has no authority over any of the work-
ers in the shop, or their way of work-
vting. Mr, X is expected to visit other
building soon.
301 Broadcast
The weekly radio broadcast of Local
801 is now at 7:30 p.m. every Monday -
over WSNY.
men stating that union members have
registered and want two hours off with
pay Election Day, Nov. 4, to vote. The
cards are provided by the union, to as-
sist members in petting the voting time
which the law allows them.
The Schenectady GE management has_
announced it will close the first shift at
noon Election Day. ‘The company admits
that the worker's are still entitled to
two hours off with pay, in addition to
the time the shops are closed without
pay.
One foreman in Bldg. 10 refused to
take these notice cards. When the union
complained to management, the fore-
man was ordered to accept the cards.
MAKE YOUR shor.
100% UNION
Mel
Ste pct sees ee nan snare tn nr
301 Continues
Sale of Produce
Local 301’s first experiment at selling
food at cost to its members last Friday
ard“ Saturiiy was so popular that the
Food Price Committee has increased
both the amount and the variety of food
for this week’s sale, today and tomor-
row.
Tnstead of having t6 go to the union
hall first to pay for their purchases and
get vouchers, union members can go di-
rect to the 301 food store at 106 South
Church St. A cashier from the union
office will be on duty there. The store
will be open trom 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. to-
day and from 9:30 am. to 6 p.m, to-
morrow. You have to show your union
card in order to buy the food.
A report on the union's food project
will be made at the Local 801 member.
(Continued on Page 2)
Membership Meeting
To Be in Two Parts
The regular monthly 301 mem-
bership meeting next week will be _
~ in“two parts. First and third shift
workers will meet at 7:30 p. m.
Tuesday at the union hall and sec.
ond shift workers will meet at 1
p. m. Wednesday at the hall. This
arrangement was made to give the
second shift workers the same op-
portunity as other members to
take part in the union’s business,
Votes tuken at the two parts of
the meeting will be totaled.
Business scheduled includes elec-
tion of delegates to the UE Dis-
trict 3 Council, election of dele-
gates to the Capital District CIO
Council, the report of the Trial
- Committee and the report of dele-
gates to the national UN conven-
tion, The 801 Food Price Com-
mittee will report on the sale of
-food to members at cost.
2
ELECTRICAL UNION NEWS
More Food Bargains
Are Offered Today
: (Continued from Page .1)
ship meeting next week. Members will
decide then on future plans.
James Cognetta, chairman of the com-
mittee, has asked for volunteers to -as-
sist the committee at the store. William
Johnson, second shift worker in Bldg.
49, worked there both days last week.
About 750 individuals bought food last
week, As many of them brought friends
or relatives along with them, over 1,000
people visited the store. The money tak-
-en in amounted to over $1700.
What You Can Buy
Food on sale today and tomorrow will
include eggs, apples, potatoes, oranges
r, erapefruitand:..spinach:—-p~
"There may be some surprise items too,
if the committee can complete arrange-
ments in time. ‘ = °
Last week the apples, potatoes and
oranges were cleaned out quickly. 48
bunches of celery, obtained in timé for
Saturday's sale, “went like hotcakes.”
~There were 884 dozen eggs left from.
the 1500- dozen supply, Cognetta report-
ed. :
“That’s because at first we limited pur-
chases to two dozen eggs a member,” he
said, “Lots of people wanted more than
two dozen, ‘This week there won't be any
limit on the amount of food any member
can buy.”
2100 Dozen Eggs
Thecommittee has ordered 2100 dozen
eves, strictly’ fresh, for sale at 65 cents
a dozen, and also expeéts. to sell those
left from last week.
Other food items going on sale today
are: 200 bushels of handpicked, McIn-
tosh and Cortland apples at $1.85 a
bushel. ._ . .
Large Maine potatoes at $1.85 a bush-
el, in contrast to $2.25 and $2.50 in Sche-
nectady stores. It is hoped that 100
bushels will be available. In addition,
the committee will again get smaller po-
tatoes, if possible,
Vive erates of seedless Plorida grape- .
fruit at ‘LO. cents a grapefruit. There
ELECTRICAL UNION NEWS
Unirep Exeorricar, Ravio. & MacHINnE
Workers or America, CIO
Scnenecrapy GE Logan 301
Published by the Editorial Committee
William Templeton, Chairman
Mary McCartin, Secretary
Willard Kuschel Victor Pasche
: Leland Sisto
Editorial Office - Electrical Union News
801 Liberty St. + Schenectady, N. Y.
Telephone 3-1386--
UE NEWS SERVICE
, 374 EE
We naver can tell around here when the boss 1g doing
‘fo make one oF his Surprise. inspections...
BCHENECTADY PRINTING GO.,, ING,
ne
o
also are a few grapefruit left over from
a shipment received unexpectedly last
week. ;
Spinach in cellophane bags, at 20 cents
a bag. The current price in Schenec-
tady stores is 29 cents.
Cider in half gallon jars. The price
was not announced when this paper went
to press. gE
A crate of Pascal celery: from Cali-
fornia, selling at 20 cents a bunch.” The
same celery sells at 29 and 31 cents else-
where in Schenectady. There also will
be other celery, two bunches for 15
cents, ; .
20 crates of California oranges at 25
cents a dozen.
The committee is trying to buy cakes
of soap and soap flakes. The members
are still investigating the possibilities of
getting canned goods at a substantial
saving. ; ;
One of the last-minute shipments re-
ceived last week consisted of 382 bushels
of pears. All but four bushels were sold.
If you haven’t your check-off card,
drop in at the union office, 301 Liberty,
to get it before you vo to the store. Be-
‘ause “addresses were lacking, many of
the cards could not be mailed.
Community Support Needed
In Fight Against T-H Law
In a resolution calling for repeal of
the Taft-Hartley law, the UE conven-
tion said:
“We must rally our communities to our
support in our fight to maintain and im-
prove our working conditions and against
the efforts of employers to use the Taft-
Hartley Law as a club against our mem-
bership. We. must bring to the entire
community a realization that the wel-
fare of the workers in the community is
inseparable from the interests of all the
people in the community.
“We must intensify our political activ-
ity to ensure the repeal of the Tatt-
Hartley Law and to elect a Congress
that will represent the interest of the
“people,”
The convention supported the General
Executive Board’s statement of policy
that the UE shall not submit on its own
initiative any issue “to the employer
agency known as the Taft-Hartley
Board.”
Make the PAC collection 100%
October 17, 1947
ELECTRICAL UNION NEWS
Mastriani and Ferris
Leaders in PAC Drive
William Mastriani, Bldg. 73A, and
Charles Ferris, Bidg. 68, are leading the
801 shop stewards in collecting dollar
donations for PAC in their shops. Mas-
triani has turned in $42 and Ferris, $35.
Others who completed PAC. collection
books this week are Eugene F. Szeze-
panik, Bldg. 69; Morton L. Milkins, Bldg.
Charles Ferris Wn. Mastriani
42; Roy Lash, Bldg. 60; Robert Weston,
Bldg. 17, and William Hodges, Bldg. 72.
Each book has receipt stubs for $25.
The PAC drive for voluntary contribu-
tions is continuing throughout the shops.
Board members have urged the stewards
in their sections to make a thorough
eanvas of the members they represent.
Some stewards have been slow in start-
ing. In general when they start out with
their collection books, however, they find
a good response from rank-and-file
members. The drive picked up speed this
week,
Board Urges Support
For Community Chest
The Executive Board of 801 has gone
on record urging generous support of
the Community Chest drive which starts
Oct. 24. _
In a letter to Community’ Chest oftic-
ials, the Board expressed approval that
the chest “is giving consideration to-the
needs of the hard-pressed child care
‘centers which have been in our opinion,
unfairly deprived of supporting funds
from the state and the city. Few needs
are greater than those of the children of
working mothers.”
The Board pointed out that the year
ahead “with the lowered standards
brought about by the high prices and the
dangerous housing shortage, will be a
eritical one for many Schenectady fam-
ilies.”
Vice-president William Hodges, repre-
senting 301 on the campaign committee,
addressed a meeting. of all GE Works
Community Chest solicitors recently.
Convention Resolution on Foreign Policy .
Here are quotations from the foreign policy resolution passed overwhelmingly
by the UE convention at Boston recently.
“Since the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the government of the
United States has fallen under the control of Big Business. - - -
“Wall Street’s domination has laid a grievous burden upon the American people.
The food is robbed from our tables by extortionate profiteering; we do not know
how long we may keep the roofs over our heads. - - ~
“Big Business directs our. country’s
relations with other lands. It is not
strange that the common people of other '
nations look at our country with growing
distrust and fear, It is not strange that
peace is insecure.
“Do the men of Big Business who have
set out to squeeze the American people
dry have any other purpose toward the
people of other lands? Do men who
would suppress the liberties of America
work for freedom abroad? - - -
Wall Street in Control
“As Americans_.our responsibility is
for the actions of our own government,
now in the grip of Wall Street. - - - We
must drive Wall Street out of Washing-
ton as an essential first step in re-direct-
ing the foreign policy of our country
toward building ‘a peace which is stable
and secure because it rests upon the
common interests of common people in
every nation.’ :
“At the same time we owe it to ouv-
selves as citizens and workers to declare
to the common people of other lands that
the policy of the American trusts is not
the policy of the American people.
“We urge that the full economic
strength of our country be mobilized so
that we can send food and other non-
military equipment to needy lands,not
as an instfuiment of political and econ-
omic domination, but because men, wo-
men and children are hungry and war
devastated nations need rebuilding. It
was Herbert Hoover, not the American
people, who invented the use of starva-
.tion as a politieal club against the
hungry.
“Tt is not the people’s policy, but the
policy ‘of ‘the trusts, to re-establish a
reactionary Germany as economic dicta-
lor over Europe. ;
People Want Peace
“Finally, we declare to the people of
the. world that we will not make war
upon them, nor burn them alive with
atom bombs to enforce the re-establish-
ment of international monopolies.
“We know that the common people of
“the world wish to live in-peace. We know
that there is no conflict in the interests
of the common. people, wherever they
may live. We Know that when the policy
of the United States, under the New
Deal, was to raise the people’s standard
of living at home and abroad, there was
friendship among the _ liberty-loving
peoples, .
“The history of Germany provides us
with a terrible example of the fate that
awaits the people whose greedy masters
drive them into war to rule the world.
“We demand that our relations with
the rest of the world be taken out of the
hands of the trusts. We demand this in
the interests of the people of America,
for our own people--not the people of
other lands—stand in the gravest: dan-
ger from the Wall Street drive to sup-
press and exploit the people of the would.
“We call upon our countrymen to join
us in the fight to take our government
out of the hands of Wall Street and re-
direct it to the interests of the people.
That is the road to peace.”
Delegates Press
For Labor Unity
Delegates to the ‘UE convention adopt-
ed a resolution favoring establishment of
organic unity of the American labor
movement at the earliest ‘possible date,
‘To achieve its purpose of uniting the
people against reaction,” the resolution
said, “organie unity must preserve the
integrity, the industrial structure and
the self-government of the CIO indus-
trial unions in the mass production in-
dustries,” ‘
The UE pledged itself to joint legis-
lative action with AFL and Railroad
Brotherhoods. In addition, the resolu-
tion declared “UE will willingly enter
into a mutual agreement with any legiti-
mate trade union to respect each other’s
organizational status.”
Jandreau at Convention
Leo Jandreau, 301 business agent, is
attending the national CIO convention
at Boston this week as a national UE
delegate. He is a national UE vice-
president.
GIVEN YOUR PAC DOLLAR?
