The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1891-02-04
THE SAN FRANCISCO PRINTERS
STRIKE.


The apprentice question, which has not
In modern times been a settled one, has
come into new prominence by strike i'll
the job office of II. S. Croker d Co. in San
Francisco. That question, at least, is one
of the foremost, and with no others in
volved have we now any concern.
There is no such thing practiced in this
State as indenturing an apprentice; there
is no binding obligation upon master
printer to teach lad the trade thor
oughly, and equip him with the knowl-
edge which the journeyman should pos
sess. So, too, there is no obligation upon
the part of the boy to remain with the
master, and the latter cannot recover him
if he leaves, or compel him to resume
labor. The result is that here, and it is
pretty much the same all over the United
States, so-called apprentices, acquiring
smattering of the art of the trade, are
used to supplant thorough journeymen.
On the other hand, lads enter trades, and
long before they have reached the level
of the journeymen they quit the employ
ment and set up as workmen.
AS the craftsmen put it, this results in
crowding the trades with incompetents
in the first place, in the second in the
turning out of understandable jobs, and
in the third place it gives masters the OPP
portunity to carry on work with incom-
petents and low-priced men, by putting
into their midst one or two skilled work
men to supply the deficiencies Of the in
competents.
To correct this evil skilled workmen,
In protection of their trade, organize and
form unions, which establish rules by
which the grades of apprenticeship and
journeymanship shall be determined. AS
far back as the middle ages skilled work
organize for the protection of their crafts,
and established rules determining the
period of service necessary to the ac-
quirement of skill essential to the Jour-
neyman. These assumptions were based
on two claims: the conservation of high
skill, and the fact that the journeymen,
and not the master, taught the apprentice.
That system so far obtains to this day
in the Old World that it supplies us with
skilled workmen, and never with in
competent or unfinished journeymen.
TT l.; 1,
ualism so presses its claims to the front
that social organization seems, at times,
on the verge of being forced to second
place, the trades are full of incompetents,
because there has not been sufficiently
compact and unified organization of labor
to prevent the evil, as evil it undoubt-
edly is.
Latterly, however, all the drift has
been towards compact organization,
until now we find labor in all branches
organizing or organized. and not infre-
quently in ill considered contention with
employers, pressing upon the latter
claims that cannot in justice be MAIN
tanned, and that are menace to the same
exercise ofright by the employer that the
workman claims for himself.
Here, too, new element has been in
erouuced into the apprenticeship ques-
non; that is, the fear on the part of the
trades of overcrowding by reason of con-
gested competition. We find labor or
carnations therefore, in this country, de-
handing the recognition of their rules
limiting the number of apprentices that
may be entered in an office or shop to be
taught-the trade. So far as that is con-
cerned, it is the undoubted right of labor,
and it is the part of wisdom, SO long as
its exercise is not abused.
Now, in the case of the San Francisco
strike, the local union has established a
ratio in which, it claims, the master
printers concurred as equitable and con-
sentative of mutual interests. On the
one hand, it is contended that this agree
ment has been disregarded; on the other,
that it has been faithfully kept.
We suspect that, when the matter is
F., thoroughly probed, it viii be found that
the journeymen are right, and that boys,
entered as extras or helpers about presses,
ETC.. have been advanced to the level of
apprentices. However that may be,
the International Typographical Union
has had this subject before it ever since
its organization in 1862. 1t has settled