Representatives of the Fur Workers Industrial Union today filed a formal protest with Representative Samuel Dickstein, vice-chairman of the House committee to investigate un-American activities, against recent testimony given the committee to the effect that the union was extorting three per cent of the New York fur trade payrolls.
Irving Potash of New York City headed the delegation of twenty persons, and filed the protest with Representative Dickstein’s secretary. The Congressman was reported out of the city. Failing to see him, the delegates decided to picket his home in New York City to force a public hearing on charges made against the union.
3,000 ATTEND CONGRESS
The delegation was one of several groups representing various types of organizations, including Communists and Socialists, meeting here as the National Congress for Unemployment and Social Insurance. The 3,000 delegates attending the congress swarmed legislative and executive offices of the government today with resolutions adopted at the close of the sessions this morning.
Hundreds of delegates paraded through the halls of the Capitol to interview representatives and senators. The protest by the fur union pointed out that the Needle. Trades Industrial Union, through a strike and through collective bargaining with the employers in the fur industry, has established an unemployment fund to which employers are contributing from one and one-half to three per cent of their payroll.
SECRET PROBE
Since establishment of this fund, it was stated, the employers have contributed about $150,000, of which about $75,000 already has been distributed to unemployed workers in the fur industry.
The House committee investigating un-American activities recently conducted a secret investigation of this fund. Employers in the New York fur industry testified that this fund was built up through extortion. Resenting this charge, the union delegates registered their protest, requesting that a public hearing be called to air the charges.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
