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Susan Green

Municipal Merry-Go-Round

(8 September 1941)


From Labor Action, Vol. 5 No. 36, 8 September 1941, p. 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).



The Board of Transportation and Mayor LaGuardia have unequivocally refused to make retroactive to July 1 the very inadequate wage increases finally decided upon for the transit workers. Thus the workers have been deprived of some hundreds of thousands of dollars in wages. A plea from Philip Murray has been of no avail. LaGuardia replied, in summary fashion, that the matter was settled.

All over the country new wage schedules become retroactive as of the expiration of old agreements. But the bosses of the 32,000 transit workers think they have special privileges.

The reason for the arrogance of the city bosses can be found in the conduct of the Transport Workers Union, presided over by Michael Quill. After working up the workers to fighting pitch, he allowed the union’s demand for collective bargaining to be dropped. Instead he consented to the hearings held before the union-hating Board of Transportation, with final decision on wages to rest with the hidebound board.

THERE IS NOTHING THAT MAKES BOSSES MORE COCKY THAN THE KNOWLEDGE THAT THE WORKERS ARE “JUST FOOLING.”


William Hodson, boss of the city Department of Welfare, turned down the demand of the State, County and Municipal Workers, CIO, for sole collective bargaining rights for the 9,200 employees of the Welfare Department, after elections indicated that the CIO union represents the majority.

He doesn’t know, he said, of any occasion for complaint or dissatisfaction with the department’s existing labor policies. These policies, he declared, are well in advance of those in effect in other departments. And so on.

These phrases have a very familiar ring. The politician-bosses in the LaGuardia administration are today speaking the same language that the private bosses were using before they understood that organized labor means business.

THERE WAS NEVER A UNION-HATING BOSS WHO DID NOT CLAIM THAT HIS WORKERS WERE BEING TREATED LIKE PRINCES – AND, OF COURSE, DIDN’T NEED ANY UNION!


Some time ago Ewart T. Guinier, junior examiner in the Municipal Civil Service Commission, was suspended from his job. He was charged with being “an immoral influence” upon his fellow employees. Specifically, Mr. Guinier was accused of “living in sin.”

Commissioner of Investigation William B. Herlands went to work on Mr. Guinier. Many witnesses were called. Some of them declared that the only immoral influence they were aware of was the shameful prying into the private affairs of a city employee.

This column has an overwhelming suspicion that Mr. Guinier’s being vice president of the State, County and Municipal Workers of America, CIO, has something to do with this disgraceful suspension and “investigation.” The policy of the LaGuardia administration toward city employees is so rabidly anti-union.

DID THE CITY POLITICOS THINK THEY COULD DISCREDIT MR. GUINIER BY AROUSING RACE PREJUDICE?

Mr. Guinier is a Negro. His sweetheart is a white woman.


William F. O’Dwyer, Democratic choice for Mayor, seems to have been very popular on the designating petitions.

What has undoubtedly contributed to his popularity has been his success as Kings County District Attorney. The latest triumph of his office has been to bring Louis (Lepke) Buchalter into the Kings County Court on a murder indictment. Lepke, with the late Dutch Schultz and Lucky Luciano, were the big three of organized crime.

While the worker approves of crime and criminals no more than does Mr. O’Dwyer, still his intelligence must lead him to inquire of the Democratic aspirant for the mayoralty, what his position is toward the cause of crime.

IS MR. O’DWYER AGAINST THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM OF INJUSTICE WAR AND CRIME?

But remember when you ask this question that Mr. O’Dwyer is the district attorney of Kings County, and may – who knows – clap you into jail for the crime of “SUBVERSION.”


As if no water at all has flowed under the bridge for the past two score years, Professor George W. Hartmann, choice for Mayor of the Socialist Party – which periodically turns over in its grave at election times – comes out with a good old-fashioned public ownership program.

He wants public ownership of gas, electricity, water companies and the bus lines. Why he stops there is a puzzle. There are innumerable other services and commodities essential to the general public.

However, this is not the main criticism.

There is public ownership in Germany and Italy – AND THE WORKERS HAVE NO FREEDOM. There is public ownership of the subways in New York City – AND LAGUARDIA WOULD LIKE TO REDUCE THE UNIONIZED WORKERS TO AUTOMATONS.

PUBLIC OWNERSHIP IN ITSELF IS NOT THE THING!

The government which “publicly owns” must be a WORKERS GOVERNMENT.

The utilities and industries “publicly owned” MUST BE ACTUALLY CONTROLLED BY THE ORGANIZED WORKERS ON THE JOB THERE.

This is the kind of public ownership that MAX SHACHTMAN, choice for Mayor of the WORKERS PARTY stands for.


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