Waterbury Democrat., 1902-07-11
STOP THE STRIKE
Merchants and Business Men
 Crying Out Against It.
HURTS BUSINESS ALL AROUND.

And It Puts Back the Completion of the Buildings That the Merchants
 Expected to Occupy in Time for Fall
 Business-Bricklayer and Masons
 Said To Be Sick of the Strike and After the Meeting Monday Night
 More of Them May Leave Town. No settlement has yet been reached between the bod carriers and master builders and as a result Bank street and other places about town where buildings are in course of construc- tion present d rather deserted appear ance. There are fewer people abour the buildings this afternoon than at any time since the strike and tLls has led many to believe that most of the l workmen have left town Everything l indicates a protracted and disastrous strike, but of course something may happen any moment which will bring about an adjustment of the difference and set the wheels of progress in mos tion again. 1t is a great pity to see so much work that needs attention and nothing being done towards push
 ing 1t to completion. It looks as if the situation had reached stage when the contractors should yield to the demands of the men or repudiate
 them and then do something towards l finishing the work they have on hand.
 Unless something is done in this direc- ton in the near future the strike will
 work greater hardship upon Water bury than did the big fire and the smallpox epidemic.
 The merchants feel very much dis couraged over the situation. Here it is," said one of them to-day to a Dem ocrat reporter, "six months after the fire and little or nothing done yet to- wards building. Whats going to be- come of us people? If these buildings
 are not ready to move into by the fall
 some of us will have to suspend busi-
 ness until next April Wen have to
 get out of our present quarters in IOctober and there is no show of se-
 curing other temporary quarters"
 The strikers are the happiest lot of
 fellows in town. They spend all their
 time playing games in the back yards
 off Canal street and appear to be hay-
 ing as jolly time of it as aicrowd out
 for the summer on the mountains.
 They claim that they don't intend to
 return to work until the union is recog-
 nized supposing they had to remain out for the balance of the year. One of
 their spokesmen said yesterday after- noon that the Italians of Waterbury
 were bound to get better treatment
 than they have been receiving. He said
 that until recently Italians were SUD-
 posed to have no names Every man
 was numbered and in many instances
 the men were referred to by the bosses
 in the filthiest kind of language. He
 felt that the Italians had reached a
 point where they thought themselves
 entitled to the same consideration ac- corded other human beings and that
 wherever it was denied them they stood ready to insist upon it. Some of them are very severe in their denuncia-
 ton of the bosses, but others discuss t the question in a common sense way s and taka the ground that there is Q nothing wonderful about the present
 struggle between them and their ems v ployers. The moderate fellows claim 5 that the tilt now on here is simply the r beginning of struggle that has been
 fought out in almost every other town l. in the country. They stood 1t longer l. in Waterbury, he said, than elsewhere |. because the place has more Italian l. laborers than you can find in any other : town Of it's size in New England, The
 contractors brought them here and now v they don't know what to do with thenl- Much interest is centered in the {, meeting of the Rricklayers & MasonH r union which will be held Monday f night. Ii is alleged that the brick
 layers and masons will decide to cut | loose from the hod carriers next week. ' and if they GO then 1t will be up to : the bosses to secure new tcndcrs- ' There is no friction between the bosses ' and the bricklayers and masons- In fact it is said that these men are res ceiving more wages than the union
 schedule calls for so that had 1t not r been for the row kicked up by the bod ? carriers Waterbury would be free from T any thing bordering on labor trouble-
 It is said that the bod carriers arc IS asking more concessions than were l. ever made to the bricklayers and Il masons The latter take care of all Is new corners by inducing them to join e the union, but the bod carriers want II the bosses to spare them this trouble
 
 y by agreeing to employ no non-union s- men, One of the bosses said this af- 1t ternoon that so far as he knew there q was no objection to the union, but thai l. all the contractors wanted to retain if the right to hire man without talking V union business with him. If men are n put to work he said, who do not belong
 to the union the bod carriers ought tc be as capable of taking care of them ! as the bricklayers and masons are. '- The bricklayers and masons art .l getting out of town pretty fast and un
 less they go to work here inside of { .e week there will not be many of then V about the streets. They can't afford z. to remain idle. A few of the Italian' 1- have left, but there is enough of then 1T here to fill the places made vacan n, by the absent ones, so that when th' g strike is settled there will be n ,h scarcity of bod carriers, but it may o 1T difficult to secure all the brickiayer 'h and masans that will be needed re LAUNCH CAPSIZED.
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