Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 65, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1907 — LABOR NOTES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

LABOR NOTES

Of a grand total of 4,902,314 union workers in Europe only 82,000 are women. Stonecutters’ International Union, the oldest in the country, has affiliated with the A. F. of L. The Labor Temple Association of Kansas City, Mo., has decided to commence work on its building. New Bedford (Mass.) Weavers' Union has voted not to apply for a charter to the United Textile Workers. Tlie next meeting of the Massachusetts State Council of Electrical Workers’ Unions has been called for April 14, in Boston. Boston (Mass.) Cigarmakefs’ Union has assessed its 2,000 members 25 cents each to assist the striking cigarmakers of Antwerp, Belgium. Carpenters of Stockton, Cal., have notified the contractors that they want $4.50 a day. The date fixed for the raise to take effect is June 1. Twelve national organizers of the United Garment Workers’ Union are to visit Boston. Mass., to assist in the vigorous organizing campaign to be undertaken in that trade. Exclusive of seamen, the number of Rritish work people reported as killed in the course of their, employment during December, 1906, was 260, an increase of four as compared with the previous month, and of thirteen as compared with -December, 1905. There is no child-labor law in Japan, and some very young children are worked. The mills do not want to work any under twelve, ns it does not really pay, but in order to get help they often have to take the whole family, and so a good many younger children are employed. The Union Carpenters' Ilall Association of Oakland, Cal., has purchased a lot for $17,000. Six of the stanchest unions in Oukland are represented in the association. It is the intention of the corporation to proceed at once with the erection of a three-story frame building containing halls and banquet rooms. The cost of the structure will be $25,000. Conditions in the cignrinaking industry in Winnipeg, Man., have been unsettle# for some time, owing to differences between the employers and the union. The local in that city has been unable to come to any satisfactory understanding with the bosses, so the international union was appealed to to send a representative to Winnipeg to make ail effort to effect a settlement. The Prussian authorities have so improved the appliances needed in coal mining nnd have adopted so many precautionary measures to protect the lives of miners, that while, on the average, 571 miners out of every million annually lost their lives during the decade 1881-1800, this record has been steadily reduced until, in 1905. only twenty-nine perished from explosion by fire damp. Boston (Mass.) Brass Workers’ Union recently withdrew from the metal polishers, buffers, platers nnd brass and silver workers’ International, nnd formed nn independent local of Its own. Samuel Gompcrs, president of the American Federation of Labor, is now engaged in the prevention of the manuscript for a work on the origin, rise and progress of organized labor in this country. giving a 'complete review of union labor and what it has accomplished for the laboring man. In all probability the work will tnke np two or Ibiee large volumes.