Organize... or Starve! _{History of the South African Congress of Trade Unions}

İkinci El - İngilizce

This chapter focuses on efforts to unionize industrial workers in Birmingham. Communist-led trade unions remained virtually nonexistent in Birmingham's mines and mills despite three years of sustained activity. Unlike the urban jobless and rural poor who comprised the Party's rank and file, employed industrial workers could not openly associate with Communists for fear of losing their jobs. But as Birmingham moved deeper into recession, conditions deteriorated to such a degree that made it increasingly difficult for workers to survive. Birmingham's industrialists cut wages and working hours. Workers living in company-owned settlements also became virtual hostages, subject to the whims of employers and forced to work upon request or risk eviction. Alabama's languishing labor movement received a boost in 1933 when Congress passed the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) which stipulated that employees could not be prevented from joining a labor union. Employers were also required to pay minimum wage rates and observe regulations setting maximum working hours.