Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1908 — Labor world [ARTICLE]

Labor world

Hudson (Wis.) unionists have organized ~a new machinists’ union. • The Glass Workers’ Union has £,OOO members and SIOO,OOO in the treasury. A branch of the Canadian labor party has been formed in London, England. The advance in wages of the miners has been general throughout Great Britain. Bartenders of Denver, Colo., are taking steps to organize a union to procure the eight-hour day. Barbers of Hamilton, Ont., want more wages and threaten to strike if their demand is not met. The forty-first annual trade union congress of Great Britain will convene at Nottingham on Sept, 7, 1908. Labor organizations of Baltimore, Md., are assisting the policemen of that city in an effort to have one day off each week. __ A convention of independent shoe workers’ organizations, to form a national organization, is to be held at Lynn, Mass., this month. W. E. McEwen, secretary-treasurer of the Minnesota State Federation of Labor, is being urged by many of his friends to run for Mayor of Duluth at the spring election. At a conference of representatives of national lithographic organizations recently held in Washington, D. C., it was decided soon to amalgamate the allied lithographic trades. It is said that the longest strike on record in England was that of the quarrymen at Bethesda, which commenced in 1900 and did not terminate until the close of 1903. It cost the district $1,820,000. The State Federation of Labor of Oklahoma, at a recent session, adopted a resolution in favor of woman suffrage. The federation proposes to mate this a test question in the support of candidates for office.

Preliminary steps have been taken in Minneapolis, Minn., to induce all unions in the building trades to cast aside petty jealousies and join the building trades council of that city. This is with a view to strengthening the central body. Max Morris, one of the vice presidents of the American Federation of Labor, has formally extended an invitation to the Western Federation of Miners to return to the A. F. of L. The invitation was signed by President Samuel Gornpers. The Rhode Island Label League declares its intention publicly to tight the trusts by the use of the union label. Tbe league will conduct its operations in that Slate, and it is ho]>ed to get every union throughout the State affiliated with the organization.Since the national convention of textile workers of the United States iu IiKXI the international body has issued sixty charters to new unions. In Austrin 547 Jw*r 1.000 work ten hours or less each day, and 4.TS from ten to eleven hours. Comparatively few work more than eleven hours. There is a strong movement In the. Stnte of Washington nlong the line of establishing co-operative stores. One Ims teen opened in Seattle and since It has lieon in operation it has done so well that it has pvwrhnscd a coal mine, with a »i«w to sell the products to union pgppla