The Houston daily post. [volume] (Houston, Tex.) 1886-1903, 1895-12-17
rAILoKs LOCKED OUT.
Ten Thousand Men in Dispute with Their
Employers.

Ten Thousand Men in Dispute With Their
Employers
New York, December 16.--Tonight about
10000 tailors in this city. Brooklyn and
Jersey City are locked out. There are
lJ5 shops in the Employers association.
and of this number eighty-three have
posted the new card and the rest are ex-
pected to follow within few days. Twenty
thousand workmen may be involved, Tor
mat is the number controlled by the
brotherhood in the three cities named The
varying stories of the two opposing fac
tons relate to both the cause and the
stand taken by the contractors.
Benjamin SchWitzer, VINO is at present
In charge of the strike; Harry Jackson,
a member of the executive committee of
the brotherhood, and a number OF others.
united In insisting that the move of the
contractors meant a move to return to
the old task system. This they claim.
means that the contractor becomes virtu-
ally The Judge as to what constitutes a
days work. He gave. for example, ten
garments to do per day and the worker
has TO do It in order to get credit for a
days work. regardless of the time 1t
may take him. Tho contract which the
employers signed last summer provided
that the hands should work ten hours a
day that they should have their own
chairman-who really acted chiefly as a
tmekccpcr-tn each shop. and that n dele
gate Of the union should have the privl-
lege of examining into the condition Of
each shop once q month he reing allowed
fifteen minutes for the work.
For the faithful compliance with these
conditions the contractors gave bonds in
tile sum of $500 for each machine. A shop
has anywhere from enc to TWENTY-FIVE
machines. Tho sudden acton of the bosses
in locking out their employees IS said by
the latter to be entirely unwarranted, and
in fact great surprise to them.
They have kept to the agreement strict
ly, they say, and only desire now to be
given an opportunity to continue to dc
So Now that it is forced upon them they
assert that they will fight 1t out to the
end. The contractors admit the signing
OF the agreement, but say 1t was a one
sided agreement and they will have none
of II. Others try TO make the point that
the men themselves have first broken the
agreement, because It provides that in
that. each shop gets all the extra helU
hood has not done.
Benjamin Wilkowsky, the secretary OF
tho employers association insists, how
ever, that an agreement has nothing tc
do with the case.
1T simply means" he said, that we
are going TO run our own shops Under
the present system we can not discharge
an INCOMPETENT man without having tho
union down on us, and we have resolved
to put an end TO that sort OF thing"
Mr.. Wikowsky denied that there WINS
ten, or that there was any hack-out.
even.
I'VE simply put our rules up in our
SHOPS Those who want to work under
Eoth the employees and employers held
meetings this afternoon. The l0cked-out
men met at Walhalla Hall and there were
addressed ny Herman Robinson, BENJAMIN
SweltZer and others
| AZ the Headquarters OF the contractors
a lively discussion Of the situation en-
would not mako known what TRANSFERRED
! at the meeting.