Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1901-07-18
NO AGREEMENT.
Two Meetings of the Labor Confer
ence Were Held Yesterday Without
Result.

Pittsburg, Pa, July 12.-The great
labor conference at the Hotel Lincoln
yesterday failed to come to any
agreement. Another conference
will be held this morning.
The object of the conference was
the settlement of the strike ordered
by the Amalgamated Association of
Iron, Steel and Tin Workers in the
mills of the American Sheet Steel Co.
and in those of the American Steel
Hoop Co. The conference also had
another purpose in view, the preven-
ton of a general strike in all the
mills controlled by the United States
Steel Corporation, the two companies
in whose mills the strike had been
ordered being constituent companies
of the great steel combine.
Two sessions were held yesterday.
The first convened shortly after 10
o'clock in the morning
At the afternoon session President
Shaffer, in behalf of the Amalgamat-
ed association, formally presented
the case for the organized workmen
and the strikers. lie laid stress upon
the fact that until this year the union
had made no effort directly to force
a union in all the plants of the com
bine for the reason it was thought
best to have that movement originate
and be carried on among the work
men in the mills. Since last year,
however, new condition confronted
the union men, The officials of the
various companies had plainly lndl-
Gated, he said, that they are working
on a policy for operating their non
union plants in preference to the
union mills, and only working the lat
ter when it was absolutely necessary.
This plan. he declared, is forcing the
union men to desert the organization
in order to get work. The idle mills,
being union and the union men being
rendered poverty-stricken as the
price for being members of the or
ganization means either that the
ANA lgamated association is going to
be disbanded soon or else the non
union mills will have to be made
union, so that equal justice will be
given to all.
1t was a matter of life and death
for the lgamated association
that the non-union mills be done
away with, as Mr.. Shaffer put the
situation. The alleged method adopt
ed by the American Shoe Steel Co. in
practically starving the employees of
the Old Meadow Mills in Scotland
into a non-union agreement was elab-
Grated on and the demand made by
that company that the mill be left
out Of the scale entirely in the future
was taken as an indication of what
the general plan of the company is in
dealing with the Amalgamated asso-
ciation. 1t means, he said, slow
starvation or else complete surren-
der to the company and the giving up
of all rights to organized union in
their plants.
In replyNto the statements of Presi-
dent Shaffer, the officers of the vari-
Gus companies give an outline of
their position. They denied any in
tention of working an injustice to-
ward union workmen in their mills.
The feeling for the Amalgamated
men had always been friendly, they
said, and they had no desire to lorce
any trouble among them.
The plea on both sides was listened
to with the closest attention by an
of the members of the conference.
The tone on each side was amicable
and it was apparent that the manu-
facturers' representatives were pre-
pared to go a long way to gain a
peaceful solution of the existing diff
culties.
The members of the two conference
committees began presenting argu-
ments in favor of their different po-
sitions in the trouble, and this con-
tinued until o'clock in the afternoon
when by agreement, the meeting was
adjourned until 10 o'clock in the
morning. >.-4--.