Waterbury Democrat., 1902-01-31
GIRLS ON STRIKE.
Two Dozen of Them Left The
 ScovIl Shop To-Day.
80 CENTS A DAY THE CAUSE.

The Girls Say They Could No Longer
 Work for Such Starvation Wages
 The Pay of These Work Girls Has
 Been Reduced Nearly One-half in |
 Few rs-Superintendent Tomp-
 kins Says Trouble Will be All
 Strengthened out by Tomorrow.
 Relations between the employers Ind the enp1oy es Ill lne nianuIac. ul AiiS coti> cernS LnIS cIty nave Deen narlno~ nous or late, or ac lsasr nave appeared So, ana sIrIAes have been lew aAu Tar between. Inese friendly relalloIlS were somewhat diSturueu ln1S morning at 10 o CLOCK When 24 young ladlss, empioyes or the cutting oepaI .lnenI or the Scoyiu Alanu1acturlng concern, quit work, packed up tner toois ana lerI the Snop ill a body.
 This was not due to any hasty ac- ton upon the part of the young ladies Matters in the above department have not been sailing along very smoothly for about the past year. The young ladies have had their grievances and
 
 but inasmuch as they received only promises of relief which have not been fulfilled and as they saw that there was no hope of a satisfactory settle ment at the present time, all the young ladies thought that the best plan was to strike.
 The causes of the strike may be gleaned from the following story told to a Democrat reporter by one of the young lady strikers: The only trouble we had was in regard to the stamp work. For the past year, on and off, we have asked our foreman to raise the price on that work from p to s'5 cents a hundred. At the price now, we can make only starvation wages, S0 cents day. Each time we have told our foreman, William Stanley, of our grievances,s he has promised to look into the affair and 10 remedy it if possible. A few days ago one of the young ladies spoke to Frank B. Tomp- kins, the superintendent of the button department, in regard to our griev- anceS. Later we received word from him that he had received information from the main office that the compaay could not afford to pay a higher price on the work for doing which we de- handed higher price. This morning we again called upon Foreman Stanley and asked him what he was going to do in regard to the affair His reply was that if we waited a month lie would try to give 1t to us. We mad been persuaded by such promises be- fore but We did not intend to be caught again. Accordingly all the girls in .the room quit work and left for their 1 homes. We cannot afford to work for so cents a day. Four or five years ago we could make S1. 70 q tlay since then q cut was made in tlla scale of wages, We have no hard feelings against our foreman. but on the contrary we have the highest respect for him. but we believe that such hard work as we do is deserving of decent wages
 A Democrat reporter called at the office of the Scovill Manufacturino concern this afternoon and saw Super, 1ntendent Tompkins in regard to the strike. Superintendent Tompkins was rather reticent on the subject. He per- sisted in saying that there was no trou- ble. that the company intended to treat with the young ladies. that the trouble would be adjusted by this afternoon and that the young ladies would have, returned to their work by tomorrow. Further than this, he would not speak on the subject. It was only q small matter and it would be properly ad- justed between the company and the young ladies.