The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-03-17
BIC STRIKE is ON.
Union photographers All Over
Country 60 Out.
Hall Company in Topeka Is
Affected.
TO ARBITRATE OR NOT.
That Appears to Be the Princi-
pal Contention.
Formal Statement Is Issued By
TO ARBITRATE OR NOT.
Formal Statement Is Issued by
Employers Association.

At the close of working hours We'd
nesday night the great lithogra piers
lockout. which has been brewing for
the past six months. was put into
effect by the National Employers as
ISOLATION, composed Of the sproprietors
of over 100 photographic concerns
throughout the United States.
Today thousands OF Ithographers
throughout the country are out of
work. The point at issue is arbitra-
ton. The employers association insists
that the men agree to arbitrate differ
ences; the men insist upon reserving
the right to strike.
The Hall LithOgra phing company of
this city is affected by the lockout, in
common with nearly every other sim
alar house in the country. Willard N.
Hall. president Of the company, is one
of the three members of the western
joint executive committee which pre-
pared an address to the men setting
forth the position OF the employers
association Mr. Hall has been in at
tendance at the conferences which
have been held at New York between
the employers association and the
employees union. He said today in
Speaking of the situation:
While our plant IS affected by the
lockout, the best of feeling prevails.
Our men realize that it is fight for
principle. 1t is simply one union
against another. All the employers
ask is that the men consent to try
the arbitration plan for one year. We
can not afford to take the risk of be
ing tied up by a strike at the busy
seasons of the year"
There were about twenty litho-
graphers employed at the Hall plant.
The lithographeTs' union seems to be
rather a complex Organiza ton. COM
posed of hand press feeders, steam
press feeders. transferrers. and allied
engravers are not so much affected by
the present difficulty.
The employers association gives out
the following statement of the causes
which led up to the present crisis:
On March 16. 1904 more than one
hundred photographic firms throughout
the United States. members of an en-
ployerS association, known as the
Lithographers' association least, west
and PACIFIC, requested their WOrkmen
individually to make trade agreements
with them, for a period of one year. by
which all differences between employer
and workman We're to be settled by a
joint commission with an appeal to ar
hitration, during which strikes and
iockOuts were to be prohibited. And
those WOrkmen who signed the agree
f1ents continued at work without any
change in the conditions of their en-
ployment. scale of wages or hours of
labor While those Workmen who de-
clired to sign were requested to resign
their positions. In consequence there
are now a large number of photographic
Workmen cut Of employment.
The action taken by the employers
association was the result of a refusal
OH the part of the allied photographic
trades organiza CiOns to make contracts
with the employers association. A bout
the first CT February the employers as
ISOLATION in conference with represent
tatiyes Of the trades organiza tons re-
quested trade agreements for the pur-
pose ct assuring stability in the trade
and Uniform conditions of employment
At this conference it developed that
the labor e representatives. were opposed
to arbitration agreements which de-
prived them of the power to strike,
and further. that at d meeting pre-
ViOusly held in Buffalo by the national
presidents Of the kindred HthograDhic
trades organizations that a tentative
alliance was agreed upon, the condi-
tons OF which were that one organiza-
ton would not make agreements with
the other. and that no agreements
would be made which denied the
CnioEs the right to strike
On this statement from the labor
representatives. the employers asso-
ciaUcn thereuDOn served an ultimatum
on each trade organizat ton TO the effect
that unless il made an agreement with
the EMPLOYERS for the period of one
year By which all differences were to
De settled by arbitration. during which
strikes or lockouts were TO be prohib-