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V. Africa and the West Indies.

The conditions imposed upon the Negro seamen and dockers in Africa and the West Indies are yet worse than in America. They are being robbed and exploited by the shipping companies and the European imperialist exploiters in the most brutal fashion. For instance, the companies of Elder-Dempster, John Holt, United Africa, Woermann as well as the American, Dutch and French companies in West Africa are not only paying to the native sailors and dockers in Dakar, Bathurst, Freetown, Monrovia, Gold Coast, Nigeria, Cape Town, Durban etc. the miserable pay of 9d to 1/- sh. per day, but the officers and the headmen are forcing them to work like slaves, any time they like—15 to 20 hours a day. The men are even forced to remain on board and to work after their shift is finished. When the workers protest and try to organize they are ill treated by the officers, the foremen and the headmen who beat them up and stop their pay.

The same situation also prevails in Kingston, Jamaica; in Port of Spain, Trinidad; in Georgetown, British Guiana; Bridgetown, Barbados; as well in Haiti, Panama and the other ports of the West Indies and South America.

At the very moment when the workers are confronted with all these brutal acts of oppression, the leaders of the reformist unions have turned their backs to the Negro workers and are openly helping the imperialists to press their yoke tighter and tighter around the neck of the colonial Negroes.

For instance, the reformist leaders of the Sailors' Union of France declare about the colonial workers: "We refuse to regard the natives from the colonies as French citizens who have the right to work on French ships."

And in the same way the English Naional [[National]] Seamen's Union, which is under the leadership of the worst fakers, is carrying on a most shameless propaganda of lies and slanders in its journal, "The Seaman" against the coloured seamen on board of British vessels and in the ports of London, Liverpool, Cardiff, South Wales, Bristol. The leaders of this Negro-bacting Union are just out to create trouble in the English ports by inciting the white sailors against the Negro sailors, and in general, to chase all coloured seamen off British ships.

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[[caption]] Officers and crew on a Soviet Russian ship in Hamburg. [[/caption]]

Instead of propagating the solidarity of the white and coloured workers, these reformist bootlickers of the shipowners are helping the capitalists to split up the

ranks of the seamen and dockers. They are the very ones calling upon the governments to drive the coloured workers out of Europe—back to the colonies.

VI. Negro Workers! Join the Revolutionary Trade Union Movement!

Negro seamen and dockers! Only the revolutionary I.S.H. and its affiliated sections like the Marine Workers Industrial Union in America, the Seamen's Minority Movement in England, the C.G.T.U. in France, the African Federation of Trade Unions in South Africa, and the International Seamen's Clubs, which are supporting the program of the INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNION COMMITTEE OF NEGRO WORKERS admit the coloured water transport workers and dockers into their ranks on the basis of complete economic, social and political equality. It is for that reason that we are urging upon all Negro and coloured seamen and harbour workers to join the revolutionary trade union movement as well as the ship- and dock-committees which are under the leadership of the I.S.H. and to fight shoulder to shoulder with their class conscious white brothers for better working conditions.

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[[caption]] Negro stevedores in a West Indian port. Their wages are 40 cents per day of 10 hours. [[/caption]]

Comrades, we have had an excellent example before us. The sailors of the British Navy at Invergordon who are after all better paid than the coloured seamen, organized and won a fight against wage cuts. It is only by organizing ourselves and fighting that we can march towards victory over capitalism which is the common enemy of all workers. It is only within the ranks of the revolutionary trade union movement that the masses of Negro slaves will be able to throw off the yoke imposed on them by the American, English, French, and Belgian Imperialists and other imperialist robbers and to gain their national freedom and social emancipation side by side with the oppressed Chinese and Indian workers.

VII. Comrades and oppressed and exploited black brothers!

Before concluding, some words of warning! In the degree in which the world economic crisis is sharpening, the imperialist powers, especially America, England, France, Belgium, understand that the only way out of their difficulties for them