New-York tribune., 1903-07-18
ACCEPTED BY 10000 MEN.
TO RESUME WORK MONDAY
BrickIayers and Carpenters Agree to
Employers arbitration Plan.

AS the result of an agreement reached last
night twenty thousand bricklayers and carpen-
ters accepted the employers plan of arbitration.
and will return to work building operations
on Monday. This is the greatest victory the en-
ployers have gained since the inception of the
building trades strikes and lockouts. and they
now consider the backbone of the opposition to
the arbitration plan broken beyond mending.
They expect the action of the bricklayers and
carpenters viii be followed by the few
trades still hostile. and that building operations
will assume their normal aspect in a very short
time.
About six thousand brcklayers will return to
work throughout Manhattan and The Bronx on
Monday as the result of meeting last night
in the Townsend Building between the joint
arbitration board of the Mason Builders Asso-
citation and the brickayers' unions. The board
had been dissolved over the failure of the brick
layers and the mason builders TO to an
agreement some weeks ago over demands of the
brlcklayers for an advance in wages from 65
cents an hour and rule compelling the fore
men to join the union. The board, which con-
sistS of member from each of the nine unions
of bricklayers and nine members of the Mason
Builders Association, was afterward reorgan-
lied and had a previous conference with the
mason builders and the board of governors of
the Building Trades Employers Association. An
agreement was reached to ltinue the wages at
90 cents an hour for year, drop the demand
for union foremen. and sign the arbitrators'
agreement of the Employers Association.
The unions met on Wednesday and Friday
nights and voted in favor of all of these PROPOSE
tions. The representatives of the brcklayers.
therefore. went to the conference last night with
authority to act and agreements were signed.
There are in all about nine thousand brick
layers in the various unions. The refusal of the
bitration will delay work some of the big
office structures. but on many other buildings
work can g on. Frank Weeks of Weeks &
Co. presided at last nights meeting.
This action of the bricklayers unions it was
stated last night, will hasten the end of the
shutdown in the building trades. The board of
governors Of the Building Trades Employers
Association will meet on Monday and take &C
tiOn regarding the unions which have not up to
that time signed the arbitration agreement.
The board has power to order that EMPLOYERS
on a date to be fixed by the board make in
dividual agreements with their employees be-
longing to unions which have not signed the
arbitration agreement, that building may be
generally resumed.
L. K. Prince. chairman of the press commit
tee of the employers association, would not
say last evening what particular action the
board would take on Monday. He said that it's
action was FASTENED by the fact that letters
were being constantly received from individual
members of unions asking when the shutdown
was to end.
MANY of these letters" he said come from
members of the Housesmiths and Bridgemen's
Union. The writers say they are very anxious
to return to work"
Secretary Fertig. OF the Employers Associa-
ton, later announced that the representatives of
the Brotherhood of Carpenters also had agreed
to the employers plan of arbitration and had
signed the agreement The bricklayers and the
carpenters, he said, have a joint membership of
about twenty thousand. These men, Mr. Fertig
said. probably would all be back at work
Monday.