Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 84, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 June 1903 — LABOR NOTES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

LABOR NOTES

The organization of a Federal labor union has been effected at Kenton, Ohio. The Order of Railway Conductors of America will meet at Portland, Ore., in 1905.

Iron molders at Denver, Colo., have won their fight for a nine-hour day with ten hours’ pay. Chicago, 111., makers of suspenders were the first to organize a suspender workers’ union. The children of labor engaged in the gainful occupations of the United States number 1,730,000. Portland, Me., bakers were granted a 10 per cent increase of wages at a conference with the employers. It is said that the children of labor engaged in the various occupations of the United States number 1,750,000. Within five years wages for all classes of mechanical occupations have increased from 20 to 25 per cant in Hamilton, Canada. Bricklayers of San Jor-e, Oakland, Stockton, Sacramento and San Francisco, Cal., have affiliated with the international unk>n. Boilermakers along the lines of the Norfolk and Western Railway are asking the company for a 10 per cent increase in wages. The Trades and Labor Congress of Canada has been organized thirty years. It now has become a powerful national labor body. Trunk makers at Chicago, who are striking, threaten to organize a co-opera-tive factory unless their demands are acceded to. At Leadville, Colo., the cooks and waiters’ union threatens to tie up the eating industry unless their organization is recognized. The new scale of press feeders at Indianapolis, Ind., which, is nil increase over the scale of a year ago, goes into effect in July. Wages of plasterers in Montreal, Canada, have been increased from 28 cents to 33 1-3 cents an hour for a day of nine hours, instead of ton. Skilled labor iu Indiana controlled by corporations average $2,43 a day, and unskilled labor $1 .33, boys 71 cents, girls and women 1)3 cents. The Common Council of Ithaca, N. Y.> hns adopted the resolution to increase the wages of the city street sweeping brigade from $1 to $1,25 a day. A rise iu the pensions of the French miners, one of the denmndn of last year’s colliers’ strike in France, has been resolved upon by the French Senate. Seven thousand boilermakers and iron shipbuilders will strike in the ship yards of New York and vicinity if they do not get the increase in wages they demand. Last year the Order of Railroad Telegraphers secured twenty-six new and revised schedules that brought more than $1,500,000 increase, in wages to the men benefited. The American Federation of Labor has just begun a rigorous campaign against child labor, and will press legislation in the different Btates favoring its abolition'' While no definite action has yet been taken, there is a strong probability that a national carpenters’ home will shortly he established, probably at Colorado Springs, Colo. Gen. W. J. Palmer of Colorado Springs has offered to the International Brotherhood of Bookbinders a three-acre tract of land adjoining tbe site of the Union Home at Colorado Springs as a site for a home for that organisation.