Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 March 1903 — FEAR FARM HAND UNIONS. [ARTICLE]

FEAR FARM HAND UNIONS.

Land Cultivators Are Joining Em- ■ ployers’ Associations. Farmers in the Central States are confronted with a new terror. The hired man, the “hand,” aud the “hobo,” who toils when stress of circumstances compels, are forming labor unions. Frederick W. Job, who has been organizing employers’ associations in Illinois, says the farmers are flocking to the new associations by the hundred in the hope of finding protection against the demands of the wage workers. “The regular hired men have been going into unions rapidly," says Mr. Job. “Furthermore, all the chance ‘hobos' who will toil occasionally, and to whom the farmers in all the central and western States look for help in the ru>h seasons, have given in their names. The ‘stubble chasers,’ who roam from one section to another, following the harvest, are organizing. ■ These men do most of tl® work of gathering the grain in Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas. Then there is another class which appears, like birds of passage, with the first warm weather that marks the opening of spring. Without them the farmers would not get their spring plowing done in time. The broom corn cutters, on whom the grower*, in central? Illinois are absolutely dependent in gathering their crop, are party to the new pnions.- The men needed to pick the fruit are going in. I can't say what are (he demand* of the farm ‘hands’ ’ organizations,” Mr. Job said. “But they will probably be’ for shorter hours and uniform wages. “All over the country.” Mr. Job says, “the employers are making haste to perfect their organizations. Grocers, dry 'goods merchants and dealers in every sort of goods are subscribing. Manufacturcßs, laundrymen, those with teaming • interests —in fact, all who hire work, done ami* pay ‘wages, are signing the rosters of the organizations.”