Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1888-05-03
The Strike Epidemic.

The strike fever, which is subsiding among
the railway engineers, is spreading into the
building trades. The painters are down with
1t, and unmstakabe symptoms appear among
the carpenters. The painters want 3119 cents
an hour, and they want TO work only eight
hours day, and they claim that until the EN-
ployers agree that they may work eight hours
day for 37l8 cents an hour they will work no
hours aud earn nothing. 1t is SO per day OF
eight hours or nothing and no hours. But,
according TO one OF their number, there is
string to that. He saws that If q man has a
house lie wants painted the men will paint 1t
but they will not work for the "bosses" unless
their terms are accepted. He further says
that the man who wants house PAINTED can
get better work for half the money by dealing
directly with the men, because the bosses
realize profit equal to the wages they pay,
In addition to the profit they make on inferior
material This is one of those statements
which are classed as "important IL true.n 10
is also surprising, If true, that men pay 500
for Il job that they could have done, and bet
ter done, for $50 If they were TO deal directly
with the men. People are not supposed To do
business that way very long If they know 1t.
The carpenters also want the eigbt-hour
day, but they demand only 30 cents an hour.
They have not yet struck. but they have sent
in their demand to the Master Carpenters
association, and IT Is understood that they
propose to strike unless they get what they
demand without striking
Here, as in the case of the Burlington engi-
neers VIC have a case Of striking for dead
level There are carpenters and carpenters,
from the man who never served a days ap-
premiership, whose "kit' consists of a saw,
II hammer, and Ratchet, and who can't even
make respectable hen-coop, to the carpenter
who Is thorough workman, and who can lay
out and build stairs for house in the latest
style of dude architecture. A large proper
ton of the carpenters Of to-day are not masters
OF the trade at all-they are the merest smat-
! terers and nOvlces. 1t is not so very different
with painters. Where is the sense of striking
| to place all tbCs", good, bad, and indifferent,
on the same level as 10 wages! Good me
cbancs who 20 into this sort of thing do not
| do themselves justice. In Tact, they do them
selves and their families injustice Under
| freedom Of contract these things will be adj
| lusted far more justly and adyantageously,
even to fairly good wOr<men, than they can
be by the arbitrary methods OF the strike So
cleties.
1t is not forgotten that the strike disease
| broke out among trades in Chicago year ago.
! It's outbreak again now suggests the disgree
| able question whether the malady has be-
come regularly Intermittent, and whether we
are to look Tor its recurrence every spring.
| Vast injury was inflicted upon the interests
| OF the city last year; is IL to be so this year
and every year hcreafterl This Is an import
| ant question Tor the men who OBEY the orders
of the strike commanders, as well as for The
community at large If they are going TO per
NIT themselves to be ordered into ideness for
weeks and even months during the best part
OF the year they will be much the worse off for
| IL in the long run, and it will be but n poor
| consolation to them to. know that they have
made other people worse of.
| This continual conflict between EMPLOYERS
and employees is most deplorable. 1t inficts
losses and keeps up needless irritation which
| is bad in the extreme for all concerned. Per-
| haps the worst feature of il is so fatal to self
| reliance, enterprise, ami individuality and in
| dependence of character. The grievances Of
| workngmen are certainly not such as to de-
mand the desperate and dreadful remedies
resorted to. Looking at the ordinary rewards
OF independent effort, il is impossible 10 con.
| clude that strikes generally can be justified on
| the ground that wages are too low or the
hours of labor too long. What the strikers
| get beyond fair share comes out of those
who must needs work not eight but twelve
and even sixteen hours Il day.-ChicdgO
| Times