The record-union., 1898-01-18
LABOR IN NEW ENGLAND STATES.
REDUCED WAGE SCALE GOES
INTO EFFECT.
May Result in the Greatest Indus
trial Battle in tho History
90 Gotten Manufacturing.

BOSTON. Jan. 1.-THE fight be-
tween employers and employees in the
New England cotton mills is on, and
what it will lead up to cannot be fore
told The great corporations in New
Bedford are silent, and thousands Of
operatives are idle, while here and
there discomfort has cropped out all
day, the most serious being at Bidde-
ford, Me-, where 5000 persons refused
to work, thus closing two mills, and at
Lewiston, Me-, where one mill was
crippled by 400 weavers staying out.
The general wage reduction is. esti-
mated to affect 127 900 persons in about
$50 mills.
Tonight finds the textile operatives
everywhere intently interested in the
New Bedford struggle, for there the real
strength and the endurance will come
and upon the outcome viii depend the
question of an industrial battle the en-
tire length and breadth of the New
England States. The chief point in
this battle will be discipline.
From the point of view of the mill
owner, the New Bedford situd dtion y
now a lockout. Intervention by the
State Board of Arbitration this week
is hardly likely to be allowed, and no
overt act on the part of the strikers
and no attempt to open a mill is ex-
pected for a number of days.
The New Bedford strikers will receive
strike money from operatives elsewhere,
hut The sum total will be reserved until
a protracted battle brings on want and
hardship, which the unions will then
try 10 relieve.
All the New Bedford mills opened at
the usual time. and when no help came
in, lights went out, speed stopped
overseers and second hands prepared
TO make everything snug. and mill
gates We're closed indefinitely.
The labor unions did little work to-
day except to carry out plans of cam
paign, which win be developed only
as faint-hearted weavers seek to re-
turn to work
As to other strikes, little had been
developed in them to forecast the fu-
ture.
Taking the days events throughout
New England. it may conservatively
be said that things came to pass just
as expected. 1t is the immediate fu-
ture which awakens apprehension.
Following is an estimate of the num-
| Der Of operatives affected by the cut
down, but the actual result viii scarce
ly be seen until the new schedule of
wages is tried. Knight Goddard &
Chase mills, in Massachusetts. Rhode
Island and Connecticut, 10000: Lowen
mills. $4,000; Lewiston, 5000: Fall Riv-
er, 1900: Biddeford and Saeo. 1000:
other Maine mills, 1000; Nashua.
1900; New Hampshire, other than
! Manchester and Nashau. 5000. Wor-
cester County. 5.000; Holyoke, 10000.
Vermont, 10000: miscellaneous. 6.Ooo.
NEW BEDFORD (Mass.). Jan. It.
A shut down. the most complete in the
history Of the cotton mills of New Bel
ford, hegan this morning. Not a SPIN
die was turning nor a loom in motion in
the factories of the cloth corporations
an hour after the usual time of begin
ming work. Between forty and fifty
operatives went into Bristol mill and
twenty five or thirty into the Whitman.
but aside from these no mill made any
show Of running. and these two soon
shut down. Nine corporations, operat-
| ing eighteen mills, in which upward
of 1000 hands are employed are in
| volved in the strike. The cut is uni
| form all over the city, 10 per cent. The
| total pay roll Of those corporations is
] estimated at $4,000 weekly.