The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1905-08-26
NEW YORK BAKERS ARE
FORCED into STRIKE
Boss Bakers Take Advantage
Recent Eight Hour Decision
of Supreme Court.
Postum Grape Nuts Post Butts
Into Fight and Gets Most
Fitting Rebuke.

Fitting Rebuke.
Down in New York the bakers on the
East Side have been striking against
condition of human slavery. Every
since the United States supreme court
decided against the New York state
eight-hour law, the employing bakers
have been forcing unfair conditions
upon their employees.
This condition has very naturally
caused a. strike of immense proportions
which almost forced bread famine in
the big city.
That the bakers were being sup
ported in their fight by the daily press
Is evident from the following editorial
clipped from one OF them:
The strike Of the East Side bakers
against the pitiful pay, the excreably
long hours and the unsanitary. filthy
and fnhuman conditions Of employment
forced upon them by the employing
bakers deserves, and should receive,
the approval Of humane and public
spirited persons. These men are forced
to work in filthy, dark and unventilated
cellars like that Of the hot room Of
a Turkish bath, and in an atmosphere
full of dust and flour. They work
often eighteen hours a day ard their
pay is such as to make 1t impossible
for any one Of them to maintain his
family.
1t Is needless to say that, aside from
the effect of these conditions upon
the worknen and their families, bread
thus made is a positive menace to the
health Of the people who consume it..
AS the only way Of improving that
condition, the bakers formed a union,
made demands upon their employers,
and finally struck. It is perfectly
obvious that the overcrowded condi-
tion of the labor market, particularly
In the East Side, concerted action on
the part Of the bakers alone would win
justice for them For; one man or one
shop to make a demand would mean
merely that the one man or workmen
In the one shop would be turned out
ana their places filled.
In the course of the battle of the
unions there has been a certain amount
Of violence. Men who have been sub
tected to conditions under which. these
men have been working so long are
not likely to have developed a. nice
ethical sense Of personal rights. The
violence Is the result quite as much Of
their treatment by their employers as
Of any inherent rowdiness on their own
part.
But now there rushes to the defence
OF the master bakers an organization
calling itself THE Citizens Industrial
Association: This concern is run, and
to u great extent financed, by Michi-
gan man who, in the course of very
Few years, has accumulated an enor-
nous fortune--and along with it a bit
ter hatred Of the labor unlons-by the
manufacture Of breakfast food and
an imitation coffee at Battle Creek.
This gentleman, Mr.. c. w. Post, has
invented a beautiful new paradox. or
quibble. He is never opposed to labor
unions. though curfously enough, as In
this case, he and his associations are
always to be found fighting the labor
unions. What the association is for is
the much applauded "open shop" AS
it is obvious enough that the "open
shop is the sarcophagus Of the union,
Mr.. Posts position would be a subject
for ridicule If it were not so cynically
false.
In the proclamation which President
Post issues upon the fact, or assertion,
that both sides have been brought to
agree upon the question of wages,
hours of work and proper sanitary
conditions. The master bakers and the
Citizens Industrial Association are
now only opposing the strikers de-
ho1 ~
employed. But If they don't employ
union men only, of what virtue Is this
agreement on which Mr.. Post lays such
stress? It has been made with repre-
sentatives Of, the union. It has not
been made with lot OF unorganized
bakers. And when the employers have
filled their shops with these ncn-unton
men, as they promptly will, they will
be under no obligation to maintain the
agreement.
The position taken by. Mr.. Posts as
sociation is discreditable, humanelY
speaking, and unsound logically. In
order to disintegrate another labor
organization 1t opens the way to the
indefinite continuance OF conditions Of
labor that are shocking to humanity
and a menace to the health Of the
community zsss.s. z,..
.~.~~~e~N~~sose~~>~
in other words, the mothers Of tho
United States had only two-thirds as
many children In 1900 a. they had In
1860. ): 81 Z .z.. ss S. s. =.
An extended argument is made by
General Francis A. Walker that this re-
duction in the birth rate is due to the
large influx Of foreiRners and the Ne.
sultant clash between races. But this
has not been borne out BY Professor
wilcox's figures. for he shows that ''the
proportion Of children born Of native
mothers to one thousand native women
Of child bearing age was 462, while the
proprtion Of children born to foreign
mother TO one thousand foreign-b born
women OF child -.bearinE ase was %.