The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-09-16
THE PRINTERS SIDE.
Explain the Controversy That Caused
Topeka Strike.

The following statement concerning +
the Job printers strike in Topeka has
been issued by the Topeka Typograpn-
ica1 union:
Recognizing the general rule that
there are two sides to every question, /
and now that the employing printers
have issued statement the Typo /
graphical union desires to say Few
words about the strike now on mere
and all over the country.
Agitation for an eight-hour work
day in the printing trade is not new
idea suddenly sprung on the en-
ployers 1t has been talked about for
several years. Nearly every trade IN
the United States and Canada except
the book and job trade is now on an
eight-hour basis, and has been for sew
eraI years. Daily newspaper offices all
work only eight hours and in the
ularly morning papers, work only
seven and a half hours. Wages OF
newspaper printers are also from SO
to SIS per week higher than book and
job printers.
EMPLOYING printers outside the daily
newspaper field are associated in ma
tional organization known as the Ma
tional Typothetae, with local branches
in various towns The Journeymen
printers in all branches of the print
ing trade are associated together in
an international organization known
as the International Typographical
union, with local unions in various
towns. In late years both organiza-
lions have come to officially recognize
each other as fixtures in the trade, and
local branches have been writing joint
contracts governing hours, wages and
other conditions locally.
During the employers national con-
vention in ST. Louis in June, 1904,
International Typographical union
officers requested the employers to ex-
press their exact attitude on the eight
1n
when eight hours might be inaugu-
rated with the least friction and dis
arrangement of existing trade condi-
lions. They replied that they would
resist any and every attempt to in
augurate an eight-hour day in our
trade. The union convened in annual
convention in ST. Louis in August.
1904, and met the def by declaring
that they would inaugurate the eight
hour day January 1, 1906, but the
printers convention directed its Off
GERS to exhaust all honorable means
to bring about the result peacably.
Every move of the printers was met
by refusals to talk, and SO the question
drifted along for a year.
The Typographical union met again
in International convention at Toronto,
Canada, in August this year, and its
officers invited the national officers of
the Typothetae to visit Toronto for
conference. They were there and an
interview resulted in their demand
ing that the union recede from its
position taken August, 1904. After
listening to that demand from the
employers the printers convention in
vited the president of the National
Typothetae to address the convention
the next day. He did so, and the bur-
den of his speech was fight, fight, and
not one word for peace, Cancellation
or arbitration. The Toronto conven-
ton naturally decided unanimously to
stand pat on it's 1904 decision.
Not
in annual convention last week at
Niagara Falls, and again the Inter
national Typograp hical union officers
approached them in receptive mood
ployers declined to even return the
courtesies that the printers had ac-
corded them at Toronto. They de-
clined to allow the international union
president to address their convention
at all. Still pursuing the white
winged dove of peace the union Off
GERS solicited a suggestion for date
when the eight-hour work day might,
in their judgment, be peaceably in
augurated throughout the country, and
they declined to consider even that.
In the meantime Typothetae en-
pIoyers had begun locking out union
printers in San Francisco, Detroit,
Chicago, and few other places. (San
Francisco employers gave up the fight
three weeks ago. All overtures for
peace having failed, the international
union officers last Saturday issued a
general strike order covering the
United States and Canada, calling out
its men where no contracts existed.
Topeka was in that list, and so this
strike came about.
| A contract that had existed for two
years between the union and the en-
ployers here in Topeka expired in
August, 1904. That contract was for
| $16 a week, nine hours a day. The
union expressed a willingness to re-
new that contract but declined to ex-
tend the time for its termination be-
yond January 1, 1906, without an
eight-hour clause effective that date.
| The employers demanded a two-year
contract ignoring the eight-hour
| clause. Employers and the union,
having failed to agree, consented to
continue working under the old agree
ment without contract. That left
both sides free to change either hours
or wages or BOTH any time they saw
fit to do so, but we all worked on
peacably over a smoldering industrial
volcano, both sides hoping that the
two national organizations would
finally find common meeting point
for a settlement of the eight-hour
problem.
The strike order that reached To-
peka simply demanded an agreement
for an eight-hour work day after
a word, either directly or by inference,
about wages. Sunday afternoon the
union officers met four employers,
members of the local Typothetae.
Owing to the absence of w. N. Hall
from town the union consented to
suspend final action until Tuesday
evening. On Monday the employers
sent word that they would return an
answer that evening, rather than
Tuesday. Their communication offered
S14.40 week for eight hours a day.
That was an increase of exactly 81
of one cent per hour, or the handsome
raise of IS cents per week in wages.
The union declined to consider the
communication and returned it.
Wednesday the local Typothetae was
convened and a conference was held
with the union officers. The en-