Show R V viva Z F m y 0 ps A M I 1 a IVA r 13 gc 70 R U 1 li I 1 1 l N 5 0 w a 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 lo 10 white installment NT TWELVE the head of the soviet labor movement was a very smart man of jorty forty three called kuznetsov ile he was really keen hed lived in america graduated from carnegie institute of technology with a masters degree in metallurgy and if you tried to point out that his labor movement here was lt really tree free hed come right back at you with some american example trying to prove that ours was even less free he outlined their setup set up uke like this all ali soviet unions representing workers send delegates to th the e al ail 1 union trades congress this m meets acts every year or so but t si since nee the war this corresponds to our A FL and CIO national conventions rolled into one its strictly la labor b or no soldiers or farmers are in n it this big congress elects fifty five members to something they call the plenum these fifty five elect eighteen to something called the presidium and these eighteen elected him its secretary wh which ch makes him head bead of the workers he said at least 80 90 or 95 per cent of all workers be belonged longed to trade unions union X stalin stayed in moscow when germany advanced on city so we asked him who belong well he said some apprentices are too young and then in the re ace occupied U pled regions it takes a little time to convince all workers they sh should 0 uld belong he said the dues were I 1 per cent of a workers salary there Is no initiation fee but they sell you a book costing only one rouble now Is this a perfectly free union movement we asked him or is it directed by your government it was perfectly tree free he assured us of 0 course he said anyone they elected to their congress must be approved by the government he said in 1919 a strike in one steel mill lasted two days and in 1923 there was another little strike in western russia we were changing over from the old czarist mone money y t to soviet roubles coubles rou bles and it took time e to get it all printed and out to the workers As soon as the situation was explained to them they went back to work there have been no strikes since and in the future there wont be any because our workers understand they are all working tor for each other if a worker is discontented and g gets ets discharged for any reason would it be difficult for him to get a job some place else very very difficult said kuznetsov do you have any absenteeism we simply dont have it without 1 1 reson reason but arent workers sometimes a little late occasionally he said the fi first rat time he is warned the second tim time he may be fined if it happens again he be is discharged if a worker tails falls to operate cooperate co damages too much material or does anything else which we consider serious he may be arrested and tried before a judge and if he is unable to prove his innocence no cence sentenced to a number of years penal labor the rules 1 in 11 1 the fac factories are very strict and rigidly y enforced and the union officials 13 encourage the workers to testify against a man guilty of these offenses maybe they themselves bring charges against him Jol joining ning the trade union in any P plant ant is completely voluntary kuznetsov said how do you account then for the ra act ct that practically everyone who is eligible joins it Is to their advantage in any country and particularly in the soviet union where the trade union movement offers many benefits here a union member received greater sick benefits than a nonunion member there is a housing shortage here and most factories own apartment houses which they rent to the workers union members receive first consideration aall all workers are entitled to vacation with pay but nonunion non union members member cannot spend their vacations in the rest centers maintained for workers if a worker Is tick sick the fh physician may recommend an ex tra weeks vacation and he can go to a special type ot of rest center equipped to care for invalids but nonunion non union anlon members are not eligible usually about 0 per cent of an employees salary goes for or rent to in these factory owned apartments he said young apprentices live in rent tree free dormitories older workers may live in them too but they pay skilled workers or those who exceed their norms are entitled to better quarters because their pay Is more their renti rent Is proportionately tiona tely higher what relations do you have with american labor we asked none at au all with the he said were very much disappointed also th air representative mr watt criticized our russian hussian trade movement at the last meeting of the international labor organization in philadelphia he claimed we were not a tree free movement you can see that we are I 1 dont understand why your government would permit this criticism of 0 our trade unions russia is your ally he said 1 I cant understand why your govern ment would permit it and we simply dont understand the it probably the workers but only the leaders who have these distorted notions here we are sure that your workers really want to coop co op erate with ours only the leaders wont permit it we do have some relations with the cip letters from mr murray and several others it is more sympathetic and desires to operate cooperate co and more nearly understands the true position of workers in america and workers here we hope some day we can operate cooperate co with the american labor movement after all we are working for the same cause until we reach the urals brals which divide hussla rus sia in europe from rus bus s sla la ln i nasi asia the country we fly over is exactly as it was up from teleran teheran the same thatched villages d dominated 0 mi by white churches with red painted onion domes we crossed the urals brals which are in this area not mountains but low rolling hills wooded with birch oak elm maple but no pine at this airport as at all the others we are to touch we are met by the local dignitaries and important communists all grave cap wear ing russians well dressed by communist standards keeses take us across the city to the house of the plant director where we will spend the night we drive through teeming unpainted slums which are worse than those of pittsburgh although we keep in mind that mag nito gorsk is crowded because many industries have been evacuated here we leave the slums and go up a hill which overlooking the slums and the blast furnaces are the spa clous homes of the executives even as it Is in pittsburgh we c come into a paved residential street with gutters sidewalks and big yards except tor for architectural differ differences e n cea we might be in forest hills new york or rochester Minnes minnesotan Min titas pill hill was started in 1816 1916 there are now workers in his plant of whom are construction workers for it Is expanding twenty open hearth furnaces and six blast furnaces are operating two of which were opened during the war the mountain they mine contains an estimated tons of ore which Is 60 per cent iron and another tons which will run from 50 to 45 per cent quite a stock illel erie eric tells me that we have only about tons le left it at hibbing and are using these up at a wartime rate of tons tona a year after lunch we drive to the big 8 teel steel plant I 1 am riding with a correspondent suddenly our car turns to one a side ide as we overtake a long column marching four our abreast on its way to work at the plant marching a head ahead of it behind it and on both sides are military guards carrying rifles with fixed bayonets the second thing is that the column itself consists of ragged women in makeshift r sandals who glance furtively at our cars the correspondent nudges me nick the man la Is riding in the front seat I 1 dont know how those women got there or where they were going so I 1 leave them as material for some mightier talent with greater imaginative powers entering the blast furnace section the director bellows two noteworthy statistics at us the first that on a rouble business this year he hopes to clear a rouble profit secondly that in this inferno they have per month only eight injuries per employees the armament factory takes the prize for the most sloppily organized shop we have seen in the soviet union girls with crude sandals lathing shells for the red army stand on heaps of curled metal scrap from their machines occasionally they are protected from its sharp edges by crude duck boards some attempt is being made to remove the scrap we see two girls carrying out a load ot of it on a russian wheelbarrow which Is a kind of homemade litter with one pair of wooden handles in front and one behind it carries a modest wheel barrow load but requires two people they stumble iong along with it through th ru h the rubbish we watch them milling miffing E shells hell for the red army there Is no assembly belt but at one point they have devised a substitute when one operation Is finished a shell Is placed on a long inclined rack down which it rolls into the next room for or the next operation only the rack is badly made and now and then a shell falls off instead of adjusting the rack a girl giell Is stationed by it to pick up the shells hells and put them back on straight now we go through a brick plant we watch the women laboriously moving bricks by hand after each processing opera operation As we are leaving the plant we see another column of women marching under guard A few hours on the plane brings us to sk before the revolution called Ekaterin burg because it was founded by catherine the great it was here in a cellar that the hardheaded bolsheviks shot weak willed well meaning czar nicholas II 11 his hii wife and family later changing the name name of the town sk is another soviet pittsburgh bustling with a million people sk Is the soviet center tor for the manufacture of heavy machine tools in one big shop we see a gigantic drop forge made in duls burg germany I 1 can well b believe belleve e that there are only four me like it in the world it can apply pressure pies pressure sure of tons the plant itself Is the same old soviet story we have so tar far seen no no light dirty bad floors and in this one the root leaks outside there Is a summer shower and we watch the water pour down from the high belling onto ono the hot steel and get soaked ourselves as we walk through but they have mended the roof over the most important machines across the street from our five year plan hotel is the marble opera house it is a little too ornate but russians like it that way it seems to be the most substantial and carefully built structure in town it Is the provincial opera house built in 1903 under the czar at amsk the delegation of dignitaries shakes hands with us and tens tells us that our bags will be left at the airport where we will spend the night the building Is excellent modern modem simple and in good repair 7 q martial law was declared in moscow and ack acks brought to city in great nam numbers bers it seems substantially constructed amsk before the war had a population of and now has evacuated workers of course we inspect the mayor of amsk Kl Ki kuzma this Is hla his second year in office before that he was director of automobile highways a confusing title since the soviet union has few passenger cars and almost no highways we ask him how he got elected and he be answers promptly that the people did it and goes into detail there were in all five candidates each representing one of the various trade unions Every everybody bod y 11 in i amsk could vote he says and of course the ballot was secret in the empty airport waiting room sprawled on the benches were two khaki clad figures one asked me something in russian the other one said hell tex hes no rus plan ilan I 1 said im an american you guys Amer americans leans too 1 I should hope to kiss a horse we are said tex I 1 TU BE 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