Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 75, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1907 — Labor world [ARTICLE]

Labor world

Unions in Sweden have more thas 105,000 members. A new union of woodworkers has besa formed in Milford, N. H. The Sterling (Ill.) Labor Council has started a fund for a city hospital. International Association of Machinists has SIOO,OOO in the treasury. < A new union of inside metal workers has been organized in Cleveland, Ohio. Hotel employes have been active recently, nine unions having been formed. St. Louis policemen are framing a bill for a three-shift system and eight-hour day. .. jr— San Francisco unionists demand that the building trades recognize the steam fitters. • • • An official labor paper, to be published .weekly, -is contemplated by the Union Labor Council of Minneapolis. Three new butchers’ unions are to be 1 established in California, one each in Sacramento, Stockton and Vallejo. The labor unionists of Tennessee favor legislation which will require the labeling of all penitentiary made goods. Labor organizations of America hare 1,504 new unions this year, embracing a membership of 300,000 individuals. The Cincinnati City Council is considering an ordinance making $2 a day ! the minimum wage for city laborers. The Massachusetts street car men’s State convention, held in Boston, decided , to make the request for a nine-hour law. International Union of Carriage and ( Wagon Workers of North America headquarters will be located in Washington. Minneapolis Bartenders’ Union is out after the 1908 convention, and a committee is already in the field and at work. Minneapolis labor unions wiil make an attempt to obtain old city hall for a labor temple. The estimated cost is SBO,000.

A movement for the formation of a State Federation of Teamsters’ Unions is quietly progressing throughout California. A national union of wire workers is suggested by the Boston local of. that craft, and it has elected a committee to work to that end. The California State Federation of La- ■ bor reports that there are 227 unions j affiliated with the federation, represent- . ing 40,000 union wage workers. Active work for the $3 a day wage : rate in the Greater Boston district has been ordered by the Painters’ District Council of eastern Massachusetts. An eight-hour day has been established for the repair men in the Boston fire alarm service. Previously they worked eight-hour day shifts and took turns on a fifteen-hour night shift. It is stated that every retail clerk in Anaconda, Cal., is a trades unionist. | There is perfect harmony and an entire- ' ly satisfactory understanding between the merchants and the employes. Painters’ District Council of eastern Massachusetts has directed every affiliated local to begin at once the conferences with the employers regarding the establishment of the $3 minimum wage rate on May 1. a Chicago retail clerks, in a big meeting recently, voted to demand a nine-hour day, with double pay for overtime. Clerks in the smaller stores say they are working now from seventy to seventy-five hours weekly. \ .Unions affiliated with the Iron Trades' Council of San Francisco have been laying their plans with the object of securing an eight-hour day instead of the nine-hour shift which exists under present conditions. \ ’ Boston sheet metal workers have voted to establish a $3 a week sick benefit, and passed a law forbidding any member of the union working with non-union men or for other than union wages and full union conditions. A crusade is to be made against those concerts which do a Sunday business in Minneapolis, Minn. It will be conducted by labor unions, and they hope to close all concerns where labor is employed seven days a week. The 'Longshoremen's District Council of Boston takes the position that all lighter captains and engineers, who are not compelled to have United States licenses. do ’longshore work, and are 'longshoremen and not mariners.

Women clerks in Spokane have been invited to join the Clerks' Union, and an active canvass will be made to take every woman into membership. It is stated that many of them have expressed a willingness to join the union. Arrangements are being made to hold a meeting of representatives of blast furnace and coke workers employed in tbe mills of the Mahoning and Shenango valleys at Cleveland, Ohio, when demands will be made for an eight-hour day. The officers of the better managed and most successful cotton mills of Japan pay f. good deal of attention to the improvement of conditions among the help and to increasing the facilities for education,’ especially educati/n along textile lines. . —■? — 1

A statute prohibiting the employment of a child under sixteen years of age longer than ten hours in any one day has been declared by the Oregon Supreme Court' to be nn entirely Talid and proper exercise of the police powers of the State. Stationary firemen, in the office buildings in Chicago, controlled by the Building Managers’ Association, obtained an increase of 1 cent an boar in wages by the decision of an arbitration board. There is a rapture in the working agreement between the Locomotive and Firemen's Union of Great Britain, representing some 14,000 men, and the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants. San Francisco Riggers and Stevedores’ Union claims the distinction of being the oldest labor organisation in the United States. It was estsblished’in 1852 and never in its existence has it bad a strika.