The Gibson Upright | Page 4

them; if they do piecework overtime they don't get no more for it.
GIBSON: I'll deal with them separately.
FRANKEL: My goodness, Mr. Gibson, you got to deal with us, too! Not a one of us understood what our last agreement with you was. It's just agreements and agreements and agreements--you might think we was living just on agreements! By rights we ought to have double time instead of time and a half!
GIBSON: Time and a half eleven days ago; now you strike for double time! Where does this thing stop? You want double time for overtime; your working day has been reduced; it won't be long till you want that cut down again.
FRANKEL: Sure! We want it cut down right now!
CARTER: Yes, Mr. Gibson; that was another point they told us to bring up before we walk out.
GIBSON [with growing exasperation]: I suppose you want a six-hour day so you'll have more overtime to double on me! Then you'll want a four-hour day, won't you?
MIFFLIN [beaming and nodding]: Well, why not, Mr. Gibson?
GIBSON: What?
NORA: Why shouldn't they?
GIBSON: Why shouldn't they? But what's their limit?
NORA [oratorically]: When the workman shall own his tools!
MIFFLIN: Of course that means all the tools, Mr. Gibson. You may not know our phrase: "The workman shall own his tools." It means not only the carpenter's bench, the plane and the saw, the adze and the auger, but the shop itself. It means that the workmen shall own the factory. It means the elimination of everything and everyone who stands between him and the purchaser, to take toll and unearned profit from the worker, who is really the sole producer of wealth.
NORA: It means the elimination of capital and the capitalist!
MIFFLIN: It means that not only should the worker own tools and factory but should sit here in the persons of his chosen and elected fellow workers, as arbiter of his own destiny.
GIBSON: That is to say, it means the elimination of me.
MIFFLIN [jovially]: Precisely! Precisely!
GIBSON [as another workingman strides into the room]: What do you want, Shomberg?
SHOMBERG: Them new windows in the assembling room--they're no good.
GIBSON: We've just spent twelve hundred dollars fixing them as you said you wanted them. What's the matter with them?
SHOMBERG: They don't give no light.
MIFFLIN: None at all?
SHOMBERG: It's right next to none at all! The men are goin' to lay off if they got to work in that room. They're goin' out anyway at twelve o'clock.
FRANKEL: Now look here, Mr. Gibson, if I was running this factory--
GIBSON: You're not, Frankel!
SHOMBERG: Well, why can't you listen to him? Don't we even get no hearing? I guess if I was running this factory once, the first thing I'd do I'd anyhow try to listen what the troubles is and make my men contented.
GIBSON: What would you do if you were running the factory, Carter? You haven't said.
CARTER: I ain't had the chance to say. Now what I'd do, first I'd settle all the grievances so there wouldn't be no more complaints.
GIBSON: Well, here's one coming I might leave to you on that basis.
[Enter SIMPSON, an elderly worker in overalls and jumper; and SALVATORE, a New Yorkized Italian type, a formerly lighted cigarette dangling from his lips.]
SALVATORE: Our department's goin' to walk out at twelve, noon, Mr. Gibson. We ain't satisfied.
GIBSON: Why not?
SALVATORE: Well, we ain't satisfied, Mr. Gibson; we ain't satisfied at all.
GIBSON: You got every demand answered yesterday, Salvatore.
SALVATORE: Oh, I ain't talkin' about no demands. If all them other departments walks out we're going to stand by 'em! We got plenty to do with our time. Workin' all the time ain't so enjoyable.
GIBSON: So you people are going out again, are you?
SIMPSON: I guess it's a general strike, Mr. Gibson. I'm afraid if you don't give the boys satisfactory answers the place will close down at noon.
GIBSON: Have satisfactory answers ever satisfied you?
SALVATORE: Ain't we got no right to stand up for our rights?
FRANKEL: Don't you get all you can from us? Well, you bet your life we're goin' to keep on gettin' all we can from you!
GIBSON: Then life isn't worth anything to either of us--if it's all fight! Is that to go on forever?
NORA: No, Mr. Gibson; it's to go on until the abolition of the wage system!
MIFFLIN: Good!
NORA: The struggle with capitalism will continue till the workers take possession of the machinery of production. It is theirs by right; the wealth they produce is morally their own. The parasites who now consume that wealth must be destroyed.
[Great approval from workmen; almost a cheer. MIFFLIN chuckles and noiselessly claps his hands.]
GIBSON: I'm the parasite!
SHOMBERG: Well, do we get any answer?
GIBSON: Does any one of you men here think he could answer all of these demands satisfactorily?
SALVATORE: Sure! [All acquiesce: "Sure, sure!"]
FRANKEL: You can't put us off any longer with