Red Lodge picket. [volume] (Red Lodge, Mont.) 1889-1907, 1892-10-15
HE IMPORTED "scABs."
Collins Antagonizes the Carpenters
Union

Union.
Great Falls Leader, October g.: ttDiC
you notice. said member of the Car
penters' union, "that Sundays Tribune
says that Z. z. Collins is only an honor
ary director in the Great Falls & Canada
road and therefore not in any way re
sponsible for the wholesale employment
of alien labor in violation of the law Oh
! that road, of which he is vice presiden,
! and 4 merican representatives That is /;
pretty slim way to dodge the responsi
hility attaching to him. Perhaps he viii
say that he is honorary president Of the
First National bank and therefore not re-
sponsible for the attempt made about
j eight months ago to GefrAul union work
men by introducing "scab'' carpenters
| from Minneapolis to take the place of
union labor III the finishing work on the
First National bank building. Tim may
or may not be an honorary vice presi-
dent of the Lethbridge road There is
little doubt in the minds of the mem bers
OF the Carpenters union about his being
an 'onery' president of bank, so far as
his treatment of organized labor goes
Let me give you the history of thai,
affair and you will see that the union
men have no cause to love him"
"The First National bank was built by
the Townsite company, and the First
National bank of which T. E Collins,
the democratic candidate for governor
and the proprietor of the Tribune, is
president, being home enterprise built
by parties equally interested in the pros
per ,ty of the town, it was expected and
promised that it wouId be constructed
of home material ss far as possible, and
by home Labor, and this policy was in
fact carried out for while But when
the finishing work came to be done in
the early part of this year new de-
parture was taken, and while up to this
date only home labor had been employed
at living Montana wages, this contract
Was let to q Minneapolis man by the
name of Alexander, who imported lot
of non-union 'tscabs'' from Minneapolis
to do the work, thus depriving Great
Falls workmen of the Job
"The Carpenters union here took the
matter up and at a meeting of the union
q committee to wait on MIR.
Collins and the owners of the building
and request that only union men should
be employed and union wages only
should be paid on the building. They
were met with the statement from Mir. |
Collins that the matter was beyond his
control, as the contract was let. How !
ever, the union had a very effective
method of bringing the bank president
to time, and after a few Of the leading
wit i: ec,,o 'rne'ae ersyn1 n thi7ors .he 4
bank he concluded that it would not pay
to monkey with the labor buzz saw, and
found way to arrange matters SO that
union labor was thereafter employed. |
The boycott which had been declared |
against the bank was then withdrawn.
1t is fair to say that during these rego
tatious Mr.. Collins proved himself the
enemy of organized |
labor, while some of the other officers of
the bank did what they could to secure
Il satisfactory solution Of the trouble.
cit is also true that before Mr.. Collins
concluded that is WAS possible to employ
labor on the finishing work at
the First National bank building he
went personally and tried to induce some,
at least, of the other banks in the city to
com 5lne with him in a crusade against
the union and defeat its purpose by re-
fl?sing to take deposits withdrawn from
the First National on account of the boy
colt and failed in his efforts.
"When the whole story of T. f. Col |
Inns record in connection with the labor
unions is known it will makea very inter
esting contri bu ton to the political in
fanny literature which is now running in
the Tribune -