The San Francisco call., 1906-07-01
SAYS OFFICIALS
NEGLECT DUTY
Furuseth RegistersCom-
plant With Superyis-
+: ing Inspector.

Secretary Andrew Furuseth of the
Sailors Union yesterday addressed a
communication TO George Uhler, the
supervising inspector at Washington,
setting forth the conditions of the pres
ent strike on the water front and COM
planning of the conduct of the local
inspectors in allowing passenger boats
to proceed to sea with crews which he
claims are not competent TO man the
boats. The complaint as sent by Furu-
seth 10 Washington reads as follows;
SAN FRANCISCO. June 25. 1906.
Hon. George Uhler, Supervising In
spectoT General. Washington, y. c.
Dear Sir: Conditions at present exist
ing on this coast make il my duty TO
inform you, first, Of the origin OF the
trouble; secondly OF its existing status,
the part Of the. local inspectors.
The strike and lockout (because it is
bOth9 had their origin during the
month Of January last. We have been
working under agreements with sew
eral or the employers here. The agree
.nent with. the Steamship Association
(Steam schooner nagerS). controll
ing small cargo and passenger steam
ers, expired by limitation January 81.
Having had. no change in our wages
since 1888. and conditions having i'm
proved a good deal as to freights, we
requested an increase of IS per month,
but We were promptly turned down We
amenued our request and kept on nego-
tiating with them until April 5. when
we were told that the .so-called United
Shipping and Transportation Associa
ton would not consent BY this time
our organization had taken two votes,
One negative and one positive. resulting
the same way in both instances, insist
ing that the Increase must be had
DISASTER PREVENTS STRIKE.
on April 16 the organization by Sc
crst. ballot voted upon the question of
enforcing. the last request made to the
owners with the result Of Is to in
favor Then came the calamity TO San
Francisco A. meeting of about one
quarter Of our membership at
Headquarters assumed authority TO
lay the matter of enforcing
generally and transportation in.partie-
ular should have got back to normal
channels Upon my return here l took
up the negotiations and did my utmost
TO come TO some amicahle arrangement.
In this we utterly failed; and the last
request was put into force on May 80.
Our conception was that it would affect
about ffty-two or fifty-three small
cargo carriers and that it would be in.
significant. but we found TO our surprise
that the Pacific Coast Steamship Com
pany, TO whom no request had been
made, locked out their men; that the
Pacific Mail Stea mship Company. which
carries chinese or Central Americans
in. its vessels; the San Francisco and
Portland Steamship Company. the Ore
gon Coal and Navigation Company and
others, locked out their longshOrennen
business of common carriers. The sea =
men were discharged as soon as cargo
was out Upon our advice, the rest of
the organizations on the front. owing
70 the conditions existing in this city,
disregarded the fact that they had been
locked out and returned to work. There
was no possible excuse for the delay
ing of the Korea or for delaying the
discharging of the Peking. or the ST.
IBERIA, We have publicly offered to
submit the question Of wages and con-
ditions to be arbitrated by any man or
men known to be fair and unpretu-
diced and to abide by the result The
Mayor of this city has urged arbitra-
ton. and SO far the employers have re-
fused.