The San Francisco call., 1896-03-19

a time. But / have kept my men going
and have paid $3 and upward all the time.
1.-THE trouble, SO far as this strike is con-
cerned, seems to me to be caused by the
fact that the amount of work to be done
has decreased while the number of painters
has increased. San Francisco, in this re-
spect. resembles trap. Painters come
here from the cold north to winter. While
they have little money to stay on they re-
main, hoping to get work, and when their
money is gone they caunot get out of
town. This explains the over supply of
labor, and hard times is a sufficient ex-
planation for the decrease of business.
'In regard to regular men, you must
know that during the last few years the
local shops have followed the Eastern
custom of keeping regular gang of men
who do all the work that comes into the
shop. When necessary, however, extra
men are called in. and these are usually
paid 81 so day. The extra men are usu-
ally those who are not good enough work
men to hold down a regular job, though
occasionally first-class workman is found
among them, but they are so plentiful as
to greatly outnumber the regular men, and
so control the union.
''That this is so is evident from the fact
that we boss painters employ only about
300 men regularly out of an estimated 1000
journeymen in the City.
''Now, the effect of calling out the men
who are working, and who, without any
card system or formal understanding, are
receiving the wages stipulated, cannot but
hurt the union. For if we yielded to all
they ask the men who have been working
regularly would still be working and the
extra men would still be catching an odd
day or two of work and making just as
little money as now. Granting the unions
demands would not furnish employment
for single man more.
Again, this action of the union in order
ing strike at this time has knocked the
bottom out of the spring business, upon
which chiefly we depend. Landlords
whose tenants want painting done present
this as an excuse, and about 80 per cent OF
our business comes from this source. So
if the men went back to work to-day there
would not he so much work for them as
before the strike was ordered. I, myself,
have lost thereby two promised jobs
which would have kept ten men at work
LOT 1Our weeks.
"Why not grant the unions demands if
we are paying the same wages now? Well,
this is the reason. There is in every shop
one or two men who are kept for the pur-
pose OF doing rough work and for cleaning
up, etc. We pay them 50 25 or 50 so day.
If we granted the unions demands we
should have to pay them So day. It's
only half dollar, but it means raise in
wages all along the line. If I can do a
third more work than another am worth
more money TO my employer, and 1 am
not going to be satisfied to see that other
getting the same pay as I do. So it is with
the journeymen, and if that schedule is
granted it only means more trouble.
"But the great stumbling block in the
way of speedy settlement of the strike is
this proposed working-card system. This
time when the men struck there were to be
found two or three union men in each
shop. They went out, but the others
stayed and we were not seriously crippled.
But, if the card system were in operation,
they could take every man out and make
US grant anything and everything. And
from our past experience we do not care to
trust ourselves completely in their power.
Why, the demand is ridiculous. We would
not own our own business.
There is ore circumstance connected
with the strike in which thenjourneymen