Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-04-27
CARPENTERS ARE STILL OUT
Men Want The Reference Card
 Abolisheds
Rents Are Said to Be Going Up As Result of Strike-Code of Reference Card Set Many People to Figuring and Wondering. f,9

Ss
 There is nothing new in the strike of the carpenters and joiners to-day and it is not expected that there will be for few days. The men have decided to remain out until the reference card as now made up is withdrawn and have received assurances from the national body that they will be sustained. Most of the builders regret the intro ductfon of the card and many of them claim that there is something back of it which they do not understand and want to see .-4e men continue to kick until its real purpose is made public. There is a lot of talk about town to-day regarding a Philadelphia syndicate showing its hands among the master builders of Waterbury but nobody ap- pears to know very much about it, though one of the principal builders in Waterbury said this afternoon that notwithstanding all the builders we have in Waterbury at the present time there is room for more. He thought there was bad blood between workmen and some of the contractors and that the trouble we are having will never be settled until either party to the con- fiict is squelched. He thought this card matter small thing to cause so much confusion and was exceedingly sorry that it came up seeing that every thing was moving along smoothly. The men whose operations arc confined principally to Waterbury are dead sore on the card and see no sense in it while those who have big contracts in other places are carried away with the scheme. But it seems to be generally l believed that the snarl will be straight l ened out during the present week. there is no trouble over wages or treat ment and so long as there is not it looks as if the wise heads on both sides ought to be able to get together on the question and have the men go to work A prominent real estate dealer said to-day that rents are going up at rate of from ten to twenty per cent and that there is no telling what owners of buildings will be asking for them if l building operations should be knocked in the head this year. A contractor who was talking about the same sub- ject said that houses he put up few years ago for $3- 800 on lower Baldwin street and other sections of the city cannot be duplicated to-day for $5,5OO and he thought that the outlook for anything cheaper for the same class of work was not bright. The code of reference card printed in the Democrat Saturday was the talk of the town Saturday night and all day Sunday and while nobody could make much out of it, still some folks thought that they knew what all the marks meant and claimed that boss who had it down fine could tell by looking over it the whole history of the bearer of a reference card from the time he became a member of the craft.
 It is understood that in case the council of the Interstate Builders as- sociation insists upon the use of the reference card, all members of the diff fereht unions in Waterbury employed upon buildings will be out during the present week. The bosses in Bridge port have got sick of the card and al ready all but one of them have thrown it into the waste basket and in this way put an end to the dispute between themselves and the men.