Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1892 — “Big Labor War Imminent.” [ARTICLE]

“Big Labor War Imminent.”

Last week we heard of a big combine composed of Carnegie, Phipps & Co., the Homestead Works, and several other big steel mills. It needed no prophet to foretell the reduction of wages now promised. Give a set of organized manufacturers, especially tariff-pro-tected ones, a monopoly of any product and of the labor of the producers as well, and they may bo counted upon to depress price of labor and enhance the prioe of goods to the full extent of their power. The extent and explanation of these reductions is given in the New York Times of June 10, 1892, as follows: A WHOLESALE CUT IN WAGES. While the high-tariff statesmen are talking glibly at Minneapolis about wages and the protected Workingman, the Republican and high-tariff manufacturers of iron and steel are conspiring to make a great deal of trouble for them and to enliven the approaching campaign with a great contest for a sharp reduction of the wages of their employes. The story was told in the high-tariff Philadelphia Press on Monday last, under the headlines, “Big Labor War Imminent—lron Manufacturers Will Make a Wholesale Cut in Wages—Reductions to Vary from 15 to 50 Per Cent.—Workers in a Crippled Condition for a Fight.” The Press explained that the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers was very soon to be confronted by “a very startling proposition," involving “the largest reduction ever asked for by the manufacturers.” It continued as follows:

“The proposition comes to the association through the Mahoning and Shenango Valley Iron Manufacturers’ Association, which comprises the great establishments of Brown,Bonnell & Co., the Mahoning Valley Iron Company, Cartwright, McCurdy & Co., Youngstown Rolling Mill Company, Buhl Iron Company, Trumbull Iron Company, and all the otner mills in Cleveland and St. Louis. ”

It then set forth the reductions demanded, saying that “the very first item is an indication of the wholesale slaughter in wages asked for by the manufacturers.” This is a reduction from $5.50 to $4.50 per ton for puddling, with additional reductions to-be caused by an increase of the quantity of work required. Said the Press: “The great slaughter comes on the guide, ten-inch, hoop, and cotton-tie mills. Where the rollers, heaters, roughers, and catchers now' make $5.88 per ton, they are asked to accept $4.20, and on grades where they now make $5.13 they arc asked to be satisfied with $4.”

This does not appear to have been foreseen by McKinley and his associates when they largely increased the duty on cotton ties. The price for roiling pipe iron in sheet and jobbing mills is fixed at $2.50 per ton, instead of $3.40. The Press closed its review of the proposed reductions with the following remarks; “The workers will be brought face to face with a stern determination on the part of the manufacturers to force an acceptance of their scale this year, which, if they succeed, practicallymeans the permanent crippling of the Amalgamated Association. The manufacturers are said to be a unit in their determination to accept nothing less than they propose, and, as a consequence, one of the bitterest struggles that have taken place in iron circles in years is just beginning to dawn.” The Iron Age of the9th inst. confirms these assertions and publishes the full scale of reductions proposed. Says this authority: “Large reductions have been made in nearly every department. We are advised that manufacturers' at the above places (the Mahoning and Shenango Valleys and Cleveland district) have a thorough understanding among themselves, and that this scale is in the nature of an ultimatum from them from which they will not recede.” The Pittsburg manufactures have not yet formulated the reductions which they wili demand, but the Iron Age reports that trouble has arisen “at the Homestead Steel Works of Carnegie, Phipps <fc Co.” “It is understood that the reason for this is that the firm have made large redactions in the scale, which the men are not willing to accept. ” The changes proposed by Mr. Carnegie and his associates "mean a clear reduction of about 17 per cent, to every man who works by tonnage. In addition to this, other large reductions are made, in some cases over 25 per cent. ” The workmen have been told that they

must sign the new scale *on or before June 24." i .There are several gentlemen in Minneapolis who should not overlook this news. One of them is Mr. H. W. Oliver, . chairman of the convention’s sub-com-mittee on the tariff, who Reported to the iron and steel manufacturers after tho passage of the McKinley bill that tho rates in the new iron and steel schedule “were those proposed by the manufacturers themselves.” Another is ex- : Speaker Reed, who declared that thq manufacturers had “obtained just what they wanted, ” and who said at Buffalo on Oct. 16, 1890: “They ask me whether I consider the McKinley bill just to the poor. Well, I should say so. A bill which has for its object the aiding of the poor by raising their wages, it seems to me, is a just one.” Mr. McKinley himself should meditate . upon the great reductions now demanded by the iron manufacturers of his own State. Perhaps the convention can be induced to say something in its platform about the impending conflict between the manufacturers and their workmen.