The Alamogordo news. (Alamogordo, N.M.) 1899-1912, 1900-06-07
FL PASO PRINTERS STRIKE.
A Few Facts Relative to Printers
Unions and Their Value
to the Employer,
What A LABOR FEDERATION GAN Do.
No Excuse For Grinding Down the Print
ers-The Business Management
of the Papers Are at
Fault.

The printers of FL Paso are on a
strike, the Herald, News and Industrial
Record refusing to recognize union en-
ployes.
THE News is of the opinion that the
Pass City newspapers should lose no
time in arranging basis of price
for advertising and job work that will
admit the employment of union labor.
The advanced employer realizes that
union labor means skilled labor and
that skilled labor demands good wages.
In the past, the El Paso newspapers
have paid cOmpositors from 81 to $40
per week A man who has devoted the
best portion of his life to trade and
cannot secure from SIS to $50 per week
on a city newspaper, is certainly living
in city of slave drivers and not busi-
ness men.
he NEWS 10 HOb III hPublI1 WibA
the FL Paso newspapers affected by the
strike. The pernicious, cut-throat pol
icy of the management of the news
papers is to blame for a condition that
will not admit the payment of decent
salaries, not the laboring men. In Ell
Paso newspapers spring up like mush-
oooms, because very little patronage
is sufficient to keep them in operation.
Let us see how such a system affects the
town, as well as the laboring people:
We will say one newspaper is estab-
lished which fixes its advertising rates
at a profit and succeeds. Another
newspaper man notes the success. and
establishes rival paper. He offers ad-
vertislng at a cheaper rate and points
With pride to the fact that he can afford
to do it cheaper because he pays less for
labor than the first paper established.
In consequence, the advertising patron
age is divided, and in order to meet the
competition the first paper reduces its
advertising rates and its labor bills.
Soon another cut-throat newspaper is
established, then another, and another
some of them by men who could not
earn living salary on good news
paper, and who are forced into some lit
tie worthless plant where they can do
their own work and exc out a miserable
existence by preying on the legitimate
newspapers. The stores are overrun
with advertising solicitors and the mer-
chant becomes disgusted with advertis-
ing because he is wheedled out of advor-
tising money by so many, and so little
of it gives evidence of a retdrn. The
laborer is ground down so that he can
not afford to spend the amount of money
necessary to obtain a good livlihood,
wear good clothing or indulge in the
luxuries OF life.
Unionism raises the standard of labor,
gives the empoye sufficient salary so
that he can afford to patronize the men
who patronize the newspaper, makes
better newspapers and gives the busi-
ness man neat, artistic work.
El Paso today secures but few good
printers, because the wages paid in the
north and east does not warrant skilled
men in making change. few, in
poor health, go there because it is case
of life or death and they desire employ
ment to defray their expenses. A few
go there because they desire to see the
country, etc, and they remain because
they can't make enough money to ride
out of town, and it is long distance to
walk to the next city. A few are paid
good wages, because every office must
have one or two good men to break in
the incompetents.
In the east a GOOD printer secures
from $lS to $35 per week salary on the
city papers. II he so desires he can live
on SIS per week very comfortably and
can save up enough to acquire home
in a few years. In the Southwest the
same printer would receive from $40 tC
$l2 per week; his living expenses woulC
cost from 81 to So per week, his cloth
ing, laundry, and incidental necessitie,
from 10 to 80 per cent. more than in tn,
east, and If he came out of 1t after tive
years work with whole pair of shoe,
aud paper collar he would be iortun
ate indeed.
In El Paso daily advertising rates ar,
so cheap that reputable eastern week
ly would not change places with nam
Of the papers. 1t is the policy of tht
newspapers and job offices to cut In any
where, at ahy old price, to do up com
potitor, showing sordid, grasping, con
temptlble basis of operation that is no
only indecent, but inhuman. The poo
devil OF laborlng man who Is unfortun
ate enough TO work under management
that figures It's profits from the swea
and blood and lives OF Its employees an,
fights It's competitors behind the shiel,
Of cheap labor, Is cheap concern tina