The Brattleboro reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1907-1912, 1907-06-14
STRIKE IN
PAPER MILLS
About 600 Men Out in
Bellows Falls.
WANT THREE TOUR DAY
Will Take $1,000 a Week Out OF VII
lage Pay-rolls - Offers to RAISE
Wages Refused by Employes-lnter-
national Men Went Out Tuesday

Bellows Falls is in the clutches OF
one of the largest strikes IN lts ms
tory bv which 600 men are out OF en-
pIovment. The trouble has been ore"
ING for almost month and came 10
climax Tuesday morning, when 4oo OF
more employees of the international
Paper company joined the 100 workers
who have been out from the other pa
per mills since Saturday.
The strike is caused by the refusal
of the mill owners to adopt the three
tour system, as it is called 0eVeral
months ago the international faPet
company announced that as soon as II
could be arranged, the mills controlled
bv the firm would be under the three
tour system. BY this arrangement
three separate gangs are employed,
each working eight hours. At present
the tour workers are employed from
II to l3 hours, the night gangs WORK
ing longer hours and the day and nlght
gangs alternating each week, thus CIV,
mo all the same number of hours
work. The change, of course, increases
the number of men employed anu the
wages will be increased 80 10 per cent.
This system has been adopted in all
of the mills of the company except
those at Bellows Falls, Turner's FAILS
and Franklin Falls. In the two lat
ter places the company has agreed 10
take up the matter August l, and the
men are still working
In Bellows Falls the company has
offered to take up the matter for CON
sderation by January. Several weeks
ago the officials announced that thel
could not see their way to adopt the
new arrangement now, owing to the
greater cost of running the Bellows
Falls mills, but compromise offer was
made. This was TO the effect that the
men remain on the present two tour
system, working as outlined above,
with an increase in wages of 10 per
cent. which would total additional
amount which would have to be pald
for three tour work. The employees OF
the other mills located at Bellows
Falls. with the exception of the John
Robertson & Son, who make tissue pa
per. all asked their employers to adopt
the new system, but the owners re
fused.
President Cary of the National Pa
per Makers union was on from New
York to investigate the situation, and
for the past three weeks just what
would be done has been in the alr.
MANY conferences between the union
men and the employers have been held
and all of the owners made their
hands various propositions to take the
place of the three tour system, when
( il was decided could not be adopted
for number of reasons. The officials
of a number of the companies offered
/ TO give the number of men employed
under the two tour system the same
salary they would have to pay for the
/ new arrangement, and other equally
advantageous offers Everything was
/ done to avoid a strike, but last week
the employees of several of the small
est mills served written notice that un'
less the owners would agree to adopt
the three tour system by Tuesday
morning. the hands would strike.
The heads of the firms of the Rob
ertson Paper company, the Moore q
Thompson company, and the Blake X
Higgins company, took immediate ac,
ton and Saturday morning notified
their men that they might draw their
pay for the week S work at the office
and consider themselves discharged for
they would not adopt the new system
That night the $50 or more employees
of these firms left, the owners thus in
way effecting a lockout.
Tuesday morning, at the close of the
night s work, the entire force of the
international mills joined the others
making fully 600 men out of employ
ment at the present time.