Muncie, IND.; News of Local 23, All three tanks are working, No. 2, & 5 have 42 hand shops, No. 1 has two semi-automatics and a binder

MUNCIE, IND.

By Harvey Hickman.

The old saying is that they can't keep a good man down, and I suppose that is what Local 23 thinks of me, as they have put me back on the job again as press secretary, so here I am.

Brother Walter Claspell. who has been our press secretary for the last few months, has resigned on account of not working at the trade. He is an inspector at the Warner Gear Machine Co. at present time.

The Hemingray plant has been in a sort of a chaotic condition for the past few weeks, but everything looks a little better at the present time. Mostly on account of three shifts, bad glass and very poor small help, several of the men have quit their jobs and gone elsewhere to work. Assistant Secretary Cook was in this city when we held our last meeting and was in attendance so we went over the situation at the Hemingray plant and it was decided that the factory committee with Brother Cook would meet with the representatives of the firm and try to better the conditions at the Hemingray plant.

One of' the main issues of the meeting was to stop outsiders and men and boys while not working, congregating around the shops and stopping production by holding a confab with the girls. Several other things were taken up by the committee and agreed to. One, especially, is that there is to be two glass workers operate and gatherer on the semi-automatic machines with both to receive presser's rate of pay. So now we have everything working in harmony for the time being with one another and under better conditions. All three of the tanks are working. No. 2 and No. 5 tanks having 42 hand shops on three shifts, while No. 1 tank has two semi-automatics and one self binder as we call it. It requires neither gatherer nor presser and one hand shop, which makes most of the big ware, also a couple of hand presses, but as we have no men available to operate them they are not in operation. Usually at this time the firm has a very large stock of insulators on hand, but not so this year. They are packing them up and shipping them as fast as we produce them. There are only a few small stocks at present in the yard.

Several of the old time insulator workers are back on the job again, which makes the old place look natural. Brother Joe Jinkins dropped in quite a while ago from Winchester, Ind., and took a job gathering. A few days ago an aeroplane passed over the city and dropped off Brothers Dad Beasly, Thomas Carrol, who have taken jobs pressing. An old timer on the job is Brother Harry Norman, better known as Dago, who dropped in a few days ago and took a job laboring, but now has gone back to the trade again, making insulators. Brother Norman has been away from the trade for several years, in which time he was employed as a detective on the railroad

Local No. 23 has proven they have just as big a heart and just as patriotic as they were during the war by subscribing $60 to the near east relief fund to help save the life of an Armenian child.

The laboring class of people, especially the organized, who take the leading part in everything, have stepped to the front in politics now in Indiana and have formed a party of their own and are going to make thing's hot on election day for the old capitalist parties. If they vote for their own men the same as they did on the state referendum vote, which decided if we would have a labor party in Indiana or not, nearly every local union in the city voted unanimously for the labor party. Local No. 23's vote was 50 for and none gainst a labor party in Indiana and I had the honor of being one of the delegates from my local to the convention of the labor party at Indianapolis, February 13 and 14. Will say that we have some of the best material in the labor party to free us as wage slaves and remove the shackles from us that ever entered the political field and not one of them belongs to the Esch, Cummins, Graham, Sterling, Anderson, Palmer or Gary gang.

The Muncie Trades Council has sent out a convention call to all organizations in the city, notifying them that a convention will be called on Sunday afternoon. April 25, 1920, for the purpose of forming a local branch of the state labor party in the eighth congressional district. The delegates who will represent Local Union No. 23 are Harvey Hickman, George Brass Ed Jones, Leo Wherly and Ollie Barth.

Brother Ben Smith, who is one of the oldest members of Local Union No. 23, has left the trade and taken a job as night foreman at the Hemingray plant.

On Wednesday afternoon. April 21, the Woman's Union Label League Branch No. 1 of this city, which is the oldest branch of the label league, will hold an open meeting for the purpose of boosting their membership and to open up a campaign on the merchants of this vicinity, who patronize the sweat shops and prisons in place of laying in their supplies of goods that are made by organized labor and under good conditions, so brother, especially you in this vicinity, when you go to buy anything don't forget to give the label league a hand by asking for the union label. I, at this time will also have to boost a member of the broom and whisk makers' union of this city, and wish to urge on our numbers especially at Dunkirk and Alexandria, Ind., if they can't get union make brooms in their city try and get your grocer to lay in a supply of Hancock brooms, made in Muncie, whose address is Watson Hancock, 903 S. Brady street. At no time in the history of the labor movement has there been a greater necessity for the laboring class of people to unite and concert action than at present. If progress is to be made in the labor movement it, depends entirely upon the organized workers, and now. Mr. Trade Unionist, you are really the employer as you consume the goods made by your fellow workers, so in the final analysis, and if the sales of union made goods increase, it depends entirely upon your consistency and loyalty to the cause which you represent in the labor movement. The union label is the guide in making purchases of any kind and by demanding them we are always aiding our fellow workmen in other crafts, so we must not overlook the fact that we are confronted by the hostile manufacturers' associations, which is thoroughly organized, but we have the courts behind them with their injunction as an instrument to hamper any effort in the progress of the labor movement. Then comes the legislators, both national and state, which seem to be vieing [sic] vying with each other in enacting vicious and reactionary legislation to their desire to retard the growth and development of the trade unionist, but not despite the hostile employers' courts and legislation they can't retard the growth of the labor movement of you will spend your union earned money, which was made under union conditions, only for goods made and distributed under union conditions.