The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-05-15
THE TRANSFERS STRIKE.
BOTH SIDES TO THE CONTRO-
 VERSY REMAIN FIRM.

The Bosses Say the Sticking Point is the
 Demand That Nobody Shall yOr"' Ex-
 cept Union Men-The Teamsters' State
 ment in Reply to the Bosses Statement
 -Yaie Men Not Driving Trucks Cos
 sip About Town.
 The teamsters' strike continues sub ject of public interest. The leading
 firms of employers remain determinedly
 opposed to the recognition of the unions
 demand that it shall dictate that the bosses shall hire none but union team
 sters and say that they will not yield an
 iota on this point. The Smedleys and
 Peck & Bishop both stated yesterday as
 above, saying that this was the sticking
 point, the wage question being minor
 affair in the case. As to the statement
 in an afternoon paper that they were 1 hiring Yale students to drive trucks,
 they said there was nothing in it. They
 had not hired any Yale students and 1 there was no basis for the statement
 other than that several Yale students
 had applied at the offices for places as 1 teamsters, stating their qualifications and willingness to drive, but the matter
 was regarded as a whim or a joke rath- CT than anything else. No Yale men are | at work as teamsters. Members of the I firm said they were not tied up, but l each had a number of trucks at work. Orrin J. Stockford, state organizer from Hartford, when seen last evening made the following statement: 'As far as the situation is concerned l there is very little change. You might say that the men are very confident of winning as their demands on their en- ployers are modest and not at all un- | reasonable Some of the boss truck men have been paying starvation wages in the past and we want to elevate the standard of the employees so that they can live like human beings and receive the respect of all fairly disposed citizens. We intend to keep our men fighting until the employers are at least willing to pay a fair remuneration for a fair days work. Commodities have risen so fast in the past few years that the average man was stinted and pinched so hard that he, in spite of himself, was compelled to enter a labor organization and collectively bargain for better con- ditions. Wages have not kept pace with the increased price of commodities, and for that reason we are asking a mere pittance so that we may share in at least part of the boasted prosperity which we are led to believe has been showered so abundantly upon us.'' The striking teansters yesterday af- ternoon issued the following statement:
 In order that the right of our cause may be known, we, the members of the Teamsters' union of New Haven, make this statement, replying to the state ment published "wednesday afternoon by the Team Owners association.
 The plain fact is that the teamsters have been working under the conditions that were common in New England fifty years ago. They have been arising at dawn, and working an average of four teen hours day at work usually labo- rious, for an average wage of $9 a week, in addition to which they have been working half day on Sunday in the barns of their employers, cleaning horses, washing carriages and harness and doing other barn work
 These are the conditions that are maintained by the largest concerns, such as Smedley & Go. and Peck & Bishop.
 Just why teamsters should be required to work eighty-eight hours week or almost three ten hour days more in each week than the average citizen works, and for stipend barely sufficient to maintain married man, Is question that Is about to be solved in New Ha- ven.
 The statement Of the Team Owners association lacks, as it seems to us, the candor that such document should have.
 It says that the team owners are will ing to pay their men what is fair and right that they are willing to pay good wages for good work but that l each employer is willing to pay his men what in his opinion they are worth.
 Now stipend of $9 for SS hours
 work, distributed over seven days of
 the same week may be an employers opinion of the value of the services of fellow man, but the most prejudiced will not call it flair and right" Nor very evidently do the team own CTS intend to put the poorest help on a par with the best of labor" but on a par with the poorest of horses, which, in the stable of Peck & Bishop, or Smedley & Co. work fewer hours and
 is better cared for than the man who drives it.
 Privately the members. of the Team Owners association admit that our de- 1 mands are just, except the demand in
 Article 3. This article, the team own
 CTS claim, forbids them to discharge a man they do not wish to employ. Yet again and again, before the strike was | called, our committees have offered to exclude this article from the agree men:.
 The hard fact is that the team own CTS do not wish to pay $10.50 a week for ten hours of the hardest kind of service, six days in the week. They do not wish to pay the driver of a double team $12 for SO hours work, nor l the driver of a four horse team $135O for 60 hours work
 This strike has been precipitated by the greed of the team owners, and their cold deliberate determination to still further exploit their teamsters,