Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 59, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 October 1916 — WAGE INCREASE MEANS MILLIONS TO WORKERS [ARTICLE]

WAGE INCREASE MEANS MILLIONS TO WORKERS

Wholesale Clothiers Give EightHour Day, No Decrease in Pay, Unasked. PACKERS ALSO RAISE PAY Eighty Thousand Men Get Five Million More and Time and a Half Is Given for Overtime In This “Fool’s Paradise.”

The Nation is Out of War The State is Out of Debt The Democrats Did It!

BY WILLIS S. THOMPSON. Indianapolis, Oct. 9.—The eighthour day, with reduction in pay, has just been awarded voluntarily to 20,000 workmen in Chicago. Their employers are not philanthropists. Neither are they giving away the sl,000,000 a year which they are adding to the pay envelopes by allowing time and a half for all over eight hours work in each twenty-four hours. Verily “the eight-hour day with no reduction in pay” is appealing as an economic move and of as great benefit to employer as employe. The packers all over the United States, affecting 60,000 Employes, have added 2H cents an hour to all their men without the asking. This adds $4,000,000 a year to payrolls. This is more “fool’s paradise” and more “imaginary prosperity” for Mr. Hughes to explain, while he howls for war with Germany and Mexico and longs for a railroad strike. Here is the associated press dispatch in full. It contains much foo4 for serious thought on the part of any man who for a single foolish moment ever thought of voting against continuing conditions as they are: Chicago, Oct. 3.—The Wholesale Clothiers’ Association of Chicago, employing 20,000 workmen, announced today that it would reduce working time in its factories from fifty to forty-eight hours a week, but that pay would remain the same, and that time and a half would be paid for overtime. Jacob Abt, president of the association, said it would place more than $1,000,000 additional pay in the pockets of the employes this year because of the great amount of work contemplated. It was the third reduction in working hours in the last three years. A voluntary wage increase of 2 cents an hour for employes of . the operating departments all over the United States also was announced by the big packing firms of Wilson & Co., Armour & Co., Swift & Co., Libby, McNeil & Co., and Morris & Co. The increases granted by the packers will affect 60,000 men employed in the big packing centers. To the packers, the increase will mean an additional pay roll of $4,000,000 a year, it was said.” You are not at war. You are at work.