The San Francisco call., 1897-02-25
PresSmen in the California
Printing Office Go on
Strike.
Employees in Other Departments
Are Thrown Into Enforced
Idleness.
Arrangements Reached by Which
the Legislative Proc dings Can
Be Published.

SACRAMENTO. CAL, Feb. 24.-At 2
o'clock this afternoon Foreman Rogers of
the State Printing Office notified the
bookbinders, typesetlers and other en-
ployes that as the pressmen had walked
out and refused TO work any longer be-
cause they had been kept six weeks with
out pay, the Office would be shut uown.
1t was apparent to all the employes that
there was no need of setting up type
merely to tie it up with string and let il
lie on the stones, and there was no mur-
muring because OF the action of the fore
man.
None of the employees had received a
dollar OF pay during the past six weeks
and they were about tired of working for
nothing Rent and butchers bills were
accumulating and it was not very pleasant
for employees of the State to be forced to
have their warrants shaved by money
brokers while there was plenty of money
lying idle in the State treasury. Printers,
bookbinders, ETC., are not allowed by the
rules of their unions to work for an en-
ployer who has contracted the incon-
venient habit of skipping pay days, and
they do not see why the State, which is
well able to pay them, should be made an
exception 10 the rule.
Foreman Rogers, bat in hand, made a
speech to the fifty and odd girls in the
bindery. He explained that the press
men had refused to work longer without
pay; that their action had blocked the
wheels in all the departments, and that
therefore all hands would have to be
laid off.
"Repu ublicans and Democrats in the
Slate Capitol have been doing politics at
our expense" said Mr. Rogers, "aud we
have been Kept out of our money You
must not understand this to be strike.
The pressmen have refused to work, and
that, naturally, stops all work in the in
siitution. They have refused to 60 to
work until they shall be paid what is due
them by the State"
The pressmen went to work This morn
ing with the rest of the 800 employees, and
at s o'clock, after the journals OF the
Senate and Assembly and the days files
had been run through the presses they
put on their coats and walked out. At
half past II O'Clock they held a meeting in
Federated Trades Hall and appointed the
following committee, ]. J. c. Fitzgerald,
A. J. Galligan and Ed E.-Hart, TO wait
upon the State Board of Examiners and
lay their case before that august body.
Another committee consisting of John R.
Welch, w. NJ. Thomas and John L. Hav-
erlan, was detailed to notify sister unions
Of the pressmen's strike.
The first-named committee ascertained
that Governor Budd and Attorney Gen.
eral Fitzgerald were in San Francisco, and
would not return until tonight. 1t in
terviewed Secretary of State Brown,
who assured them that he would cheer
fully sign any claim that they might axe
for the wages due them.
H. H. Watts of San Francisco, district
organizer of the International Typograp phi
ical Union, arrived on the 1:20 train to-
day, but he found that his services were
not needed. The pressmen's union does
not work under charter from the typo
graphical union, and he had no authority
TO advise the strikers. The printers were