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Democratic National Campaign Committee Roosevelt or reaction? Wage earners - your vote is your answer

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC09532.08 Author/Creator: Democratic National Campaign Committee Place Written: s.l. Type: Broadside Date: 1936 Pagination: 1 p. : 33 x 19 cm. Order a Copy

[Draft Created by Crowdsourcing]
ROOSEVELT or REACTION?

Wage Earners- Your Vote Is Your Answer

"We cannot afford to make any change in the leadership of our present forward-looking social movement. We have been inspired and thrilled by the leadership that density has given us and we want to continue it without change."
- WILLIAM GREEN, President,
American Federation of Labor
Address before National Women's Trade Union League (May 5, 1936)

DEEDS - NOT WORDS
President Roosevelt has not given lip service to Labor. He did not promise a chicken in every pot and 2 cars in every garage. But he is doing all in his power to make life easier, safer, and happier for the average man and woman.
The "standpatters" and the greedy interests are "ganging up" against the President. They want a return to Republican prosperity- for the few at the top. President Roosevelt stands for lasting prosperity- in which all share, for higher wages for workers, more income for farmers, more goods produced, more and better food eaten, fewer unemployed, and lower taxes. (Franklin D. Roosevelt, April, 1936.)

LABOR STEPS FORWARD
I. UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF - The unemployed still look for jobs. But Democrats have not followed the Republican example of leaving men out of work to beg and starve. Instead of a $15 monthly dole, Democrats have given millions of men self-respecting work, in their trades where possible, averaging $50 a month on W.P.A relief projects and paying prevailing rates under P.W.A.

II. THE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT- No federal law has brought greater protection to wage earners. Under it: (1) A worker, at 65 years, will get $10 to $85 a month, depending on service, in federal old age insurance to which both he and his employers have contributed; (2) a worker, who is out of a job, will get unemployment insurance, through a federal tax on payrolls, if his state passes an insurance law approved by the Federal Government; (3) states will get federal grants, matching their own grants, for old age pensions needyaged (relief) and blind, for mothers' pensions, child and mothers' health care, child welfare and public health.

III. THE RAILWAY PENSION ACT and THE RAILWAY AGREEMENT - The former is a law setting up a special old age insurance system for railroad workers. The latter in a 5-year pact protecting men laid off by railroad mergers.

IV. THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS ACT - The right of workers to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing is at last established by federal law. A National Labor Relations Board hears and adjusts cases (in industries in interstate commerce) where this legal right is denied. Up to April, the Board settled 317 out of 614 cases.

Gains Made and Lost

N.R.A codes, covering 90 per cent of industrial workers, put 3 million men back in jobs by cutting the work week one-fifth, added 3 billion dollars to payrolls, banned sweat shops and child labor. Although wages have lagged, hours lengthened and child labor increased 58 per cent since the Act was declared unconstitutional, N.R.A pulled the wage earner out of the lowest depression and aroused the nation to inhuman working conditions
Since the Guffey Coal Act was outlawed by the Supreme Court, Democrats seek a legal way of preventing cut-throat competition and chaos in the soft coal industry.

Industry has reemployed more than 5 million workers
Average weekly earnings (per worker) have gone 23.7 per cent (March 1933-36)

REELECT ROOSEVELT - FRIEND OF LABOR

DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE

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