North Iowa times. [volume] (McGregor, Iowa) 1867-current, 1870-02-09
Strikes and Cooperation.

A statistican of the New York Times
staff figures that there were during the
last year thirty strikes" by members
OF wOrkingmen's associations through
out the country, and asserts that of
these only a few were successful.
Among the most important, is men,
toned the strike of the New York
printers, who had an average of 1900
men idle for more than three months,
upon whom more than $4,000 were
expended by their bretheren in the
craft. The strike succeeded in estab-
fishing a scale of prices under which a
few fortunate type-setters secured an
advance of a couple ofdollars per week.
while great many more lost propor-
tionally by employers accepting the
schedule prescribed for payment by
the week. The iron moufders of Will
iamsburg were on strike about three
months during the past summer, but
only partially succeeded. The plaster
ers and painters also engaged in alb
ortive strikes, which lasted but a few
days. The potters, of Trenton, N. j.,
reaiited reduction of their wages by a
strike that lasted about five months,
and which resulted in great loss to en-
ployers and employees. They aeceived
much material aid from the trades
unions of New York, but notwith-
standing this, many of them were
obliged to abandon the pottery bust
ness forever.
Later the telegraph operators strike
ends with the loss of three weeks wa
ges, steady employmentfor more than
one thousand operators, great distress
in families, vast interruptions in bust
~ ND ,fppr~ ,f
between employers and employed
too, numbering about 1000, who struck
last October because the Company was
tardy in it's payments, recently went
out again from the same cause. The
result of this strike is yet to be deter
mined.
The disastrouse results of many of
these movements has opened the eyes
of intelligent workingmen here and
there to the defects of that system Of
combination against capital, the trades
union. 1t has been abundantly illus
trated during the past year that one of
those defects is the facility with which
'strikes" are sometimes gotten up by
designing men for the benefit of few,
but to the detriment of the many who
may be associated together, and there
are indications Of disposition on the
part Of intelligent and earnest work.
ingmen to correct this defect, and 9TH
ers which might easily be enumerated.
The excessive waste which strikes
entail upon the community at large
and upon individuals, the destruction
of good feeling which they produce
wherever they are resorted to, and
their general demoralizing tendency,
have turned the attention of thought
full men; both employers and employ
ed, to other means of regulating the
compensation of labor. Among them
the system of Cooperation" is at
tracing great attention. AS it has al
ready been worked ont in England
and France, it has produced admira-
bic effects, as regulator of prices,
while proving promoter Of industry
instead of recklessness, economy in
stead of waste, elevation instead of de-
moralization. In England and
France, and to some extent in Massa-
chusetts and other Eastern States, it
has been accompanied by all these re-
suits. It is applied to stores for the
supply OF all the necessaries of life, to
manufacturing and to mechanical OPP
erations generally, and is capable of
being applied to all. When better
understood, we feel congdent that it
will supersede all other methods of
regulating trade, even if ut does not
supersede all other methods of doing
business. 1t commends itself to the
thoughtful, the indussriou and the
thrifty, and is onlp distasteful to the
thoughtless and shiftless, who prefer
to live by the labor of others rather
than to work out their own salvation.
1t should be agitated and discussed
wherever such subjects are considered,
and efforts to make it generally prac-
tical Should receive encouragement
from ALL Utica Dem.