Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 May 1886 — THE INDUSTRIAL OUTLOOK. [ARTICLE]

THE INDUSTRIAL OUTLOOK.

The machine-men in eighteen planing mills at St. Louis struck for an advance in wages and the adoption of the eight-hour system. Business failures in the United States and Canada for the week numbered 167, against 176 the previous week, and 192 the week before that. The strike of the tailors at New York has compelled the closing of 100 shops and enforced the idleness of 1,500 men. The 350 men employed in the shops of the Edison Electric Company at New York are on a strike. The company conceded them an advance in wages and a reduction of hours, and now they demand that only union men be employed. New York telegram; “One week ago

Bradstreet's announced that the total number of reported short-hour strikers at most of the more prominent industrial centers on strike within two or three weeks was about 200,000. In addition to these there were within that period at most about 50,000 strikers whose demands were not for shorter hours of labor daily, indicating that the grand total of industrial strikers for all reasons between April 24 and May 14 was about 250,000. By reference to memoranda covering the labor troubles specified, it is found that at no one time were there more than 125,000 employes on strike, that number being in the field, as it were, against employers during the week ending May 12. The decline from that date to Monday last was marked, the aggregate May 12 not exceeding 80,000 strikers for all causes. The reports of strikes from cities and districts named May 21 showed another heavy decline, owing, in part, to defeats of remaining agitators for eight hours at Chicago, and to the practical failure of the bituminous coal strikes. The total of employes on strikes, wired up to May 22, was 47,625. The loss of wages through strikes since May 1 has aggregated $3,030,000; of receipts by employers $2,590,000, and of future contracts due to probability of labor troubles $24,890,000, of which $20,400,000 aloue refers to deferred or canceled building contracts. ” The furniture manufacturers of St. Louis attempted to return to the ten-hour system, and the result was their two thousand employes went on a strike. The second largest steel-works in the United States are to be erected on a fifty-acre tract on the Monongahela River nearly opposite Port Perry by the Duquesne Company with a capital of $1,090,000.