Omaha daily bee., 1885-01-31
LABOR AID
Matters o f1nterest TO employers and
Employed,

- - VI AAA'NAN6A W AAA AANsN u III
Employed.
The national convention of stove man
ufacturers will be held at Chicago on
Wednesday, The meeting will be Of I'm.
usual interest, because of the questions
which ore to come up for consideration.
Among them are: () To what extent
are manufacturers controlled by trades
union rules, s.d the best way to obtain
relief from trades.unions; (2) tho appren-
tice system, aud what notifications are
needed in 1t; (3) the gathering of stats
teal information; (4) credit and cash
questions; (5) questions of cost of manu-
featuring. Stove-making is one of tho
industries which, like the "Star of En-.
pire," is moving further west. There are
now over 5000, 600 stoves in use, costing
$50, 000, 600. A stove lasts five years.
Some foundries make 500 different kinds.
The chief stoye-mSking centres are In
Albany, Troy, Buffalo, Philadelphls,
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Louisville and St.
Louis. Stoves are exported to sixty
eight foreign countries, and when a for.
eign manufacturer does attempt to make
a stove he copies after American patterns
as much as possible.
! The s'ovemakers' union have engaged
during the past year or so in several pro-
longed and bitter contests with employ
ers. They were organized in 1850 and
substantially the same organization exists
to-day. A good many of the strikes
have failed, and the organization has lost
n large percentage of its membership
through alleged arbitrary co tIo', by
| which unwise contracts were org nized
and maintained.
Bricklayers, stonecutters, plast rer5 and
hodcartiers are all pretty well riga lized
but other branches of the build z trade
are in a bad condition. About OF s-f )urth
of the total number of carpenters are in
Organization, divided up among the
brotherhood of carpenters, the Amalga-
mated carpenters, and the carpenters as
sembly. The plumbers are increasing
their membership rapidly. The
painters have about one-half
OF the craft in their union. The lath-
ers, bellhangers and paperhaugers, tin.
%roofers and sla~te-roofers have no organ
ization at all. At the same time the
spirit of organization is there, and, as in
the case of the increases, who were with.
out organization at first, it sometimes
takes very little to start the fame. This is
the time for contractors and employers to
consider their chances and figure accord
ingly. 1t is also the time for members of
building trades-unions to call for a confer.
ence with employers and to agree upon
prices of labor, SO that builders will know
on what to figure. 1t is scarcely fair that
they should be permitted to contract for
buildings on a large scale andto find when
the season opens that labor has advanced
10 to 20 per cent.
Foreign pauper labor is breaking out in
spots in various parts of the west. These
Cloths and Vandals are permeating our in
dustrial society through the efforts of
avaricious agents, and some days they may
be the occasion of an agitation. The fact
may as well be accepted one time as an
other, however, that the avenues and
channels are being created between
the overpopulated eastern hemisphere
and the sparcely populated west
ern hemisphere by which a
more or less rapid equalization will be eff
fected. 1t may sound very fine for po-
etry to talk about America for Ameri-
cans, but cheap railroad fares and cheap
steamship travel are laying the founda-
ton FOR the rushing In of the foreign 60
called pauper labor, which no legislation
can force out. Just what is pauper labor
is hard to say. Sooner or later the
western hemisphere will receive the sur
plus of European population. Africa
| will take its share. The congested condi-
ton of the population of Europe will be
corrected by the cheap means of exit.
Such a result as this would at once De re-
garded from the narrow trades-union
standpoint as a thing to be dreaded; but,
whether it is to be dreaded or not, 1t will
come. The social conditions in Europe
demand changes, wider room, greater
opportunities. That which we call
pauper labor to-day will become aristo.
cratic labor tomorrow. Rspressed en-.
ergies, tastes and aspirations will, when
opportunity offers, lead labor to a higher
platform, where it will become as
exacting as the Chinaman, who
insists on 10 cents for do
Ing up a shirt. Signs of a healthy
revival are exhibited in scores of town
and cities in the west, but even now
throngs of idle laborers, who were driven
from eastern sections In the hope OF find
ing work there, stand in the way of any
improvement in wages.
The cities throughout Central New
York, for some reanon or other, are rum
ming across a streak of activity. Roch-
ester, E.mira and Buffalo all send In en-
coursging reports to labor sources. From
some parts of Massachusetts, like reports
are received. The boot and shoe inter.
ests arc running to their full capacity
there. A good many f~ounderies are
working full time. Mechanical labor Is
In request; but this must not be taken as
an assurance that outside labor would
find employment by going there, as aver
with all the activity there is q surplus.
In some parts of the country gangs OF
Italians are working for 80 cents per day,
and agents at Now York and elsewhere
are offering to furnish all the foreign un,
skilled labor needed at that figure. This
certainly ought to be made impossible by
law, yet 1t is one of these questions which
would never trouble lawmakers or labor,
ers If the country were enjoying normal
activity, and if the condition of the coun
try and of exchange were in their natural
relationship to each other.
The miners of the Hooking yalley ars