The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1893-07-11
SUMO. .rETHODS.
How Americans Are Excluded From tn
Building Trades.

no" americans Are s-NciUGGd From the
building Trades.
An extreme example Of the way in
which this is done was furnished bv
the agreements which the Journeyme n
Plasterers' union OF New York city in
duced the employers to sign in $50 and
1892. By the first agreement. signed in
1890, it was stipulated that no one was
to be taught the plastering trade in the
city for two years. This agreement
| was kept. and at the end OF two wears
another was signed by which il was
stipulated that no one should be ad-
mltted to the plastering trade who had
not served an apprenticeship Of five
| years When these agreements we're
! signed plastering, like most of the
+ building trades was largely in the
| hands Of fOreign-bOrn wOrkmen. The
| effect Of the two agreements, which are
still IN force, has been to exclude native
born Americans from good trade for
seven years. At the same time. FOREIGN
workmen who may not have worked at
the trade over six months before COM
ing here are admitted as iOurnevmcn.
The effect of these agreements is to
keep the trade entirely in the hands of
foreigners.
AS we have said this is an e,:cep-
tional case, but it differs ONLY in de-
gree from many Othei-, In all the
trades Americans are Disseminated |
against as much as possible. and !
similar results to those ACCOMPLISHED |
IN the plastering trade are reached by |
more mildly worded but no less effec-
tive rules: Thus, when an EMPLOYER is
allowed two apprentices, and the ap--
prentice is required to serve four wears,
the employer can graduate only one
Journeyman every other wear. The
number Of employers in any one trade
IS not large, and such restrictions
amount virtually to an exclusion of
American young men from the trades.
AT the sixth annual convention of the
Pennsylvania Association of Master
House-Painters and Decorators. held
at Scranton in January last, one of the
oelegateS read a paper on the APP 6
prentice system as observed in his
trade, IN which he said that after
personal investigation among at least
SIX hundred master painters and deco
ratOrs OF Philadelphia and vicinity he
had discovered that not an AVERAGE T
Of one in fifteen had single appren-
tlce IN his business. and that 1.-The
larger the workshop or establishment.
the greater seemed the adherence with n
reference to the employment of boys to '
earn the trade, many of the masters
gong so far as to say, and with an evil
lent spirit Of pride, that in all their ex-
oerlence as masters, extending from r
fifteen to thirty-fiVe years. and employ
ng from fifteen to fifty, and as high as 2
lghty, WOrllmen, they had never both ,
red their brains Touching a bov the o
'usiness.'' a
Evidence on this branch of tie sub S
ect could be multiplied indefinitely, Il
Id space permit. We have quoted sui t
clently to show that the old appren Ii
lceship system has passed away, and 81
hat no system Of trade instruction has II
cen permitted to take its place inside IL
ne trades themselves. We have also Je
hOWn that one Of thc reasons for this 1t
hough not the chief one, is the hos III
lllty Of the fOreign-born wOrlmen. who lie
Ontrol the trades to worlmen of tc
merican birth.-The Century. OF