The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1907-08-21
REASONS FOR
STRIKE GIVEN
LESS PAY THAN TWENTY YEARS
AGO ACCORDING TO PREsI-
DENT OF UNION.

T. w. Brann, president of the Tele-
graphers' union gives the following rea-
sons for the present strike in an ar
ticle to the Oregon Journal:
The work of the telegrapher is Sc
dentary in the extreme, the operator
being compelled to sit for nine hours at
a stretch listening to tho messages, and
where the Phillips code is used he is re-
quired to make instantaneous transla-
ton of combinations that in many
cases bear no resemblance whatever
to the sentences when written out in
full He must put them on the type
writer in perfect English, correctly
spelled punctuated and Photographed.
To accomplish this it will be readily
seen that the operat'r is required to
strain upon the sending operator is
second only to that of receiving.
For doing this he gets the same or
less wages than received by operators
lone hand and wrote messages with a
pen. An operator cannot secure a po-
sition today unless he is an expert
on the typewriter In the SOS and up
was not in general use among the tele-
graphers. An operator can do twice
as much work with a typewriter as
with a pen, yet he receives not as
much salary, and in many cases not
as much as did the men who struck
in 1888.
In February the Western Union and
Postal announced an increase in rates
of from 20 to so per cent. The COM
panies also announced a 10 per cent in
crease in the salaries of their employees.
They did not forget 20 make the public
pay the increase in tolls, but they did
forget the promised increase in wages
To offset this 10 per cent the companies
introduced what they call "a sliding
scale"
They have given it the correct name,
because nothing slides unless it is going
down hill o'with the wages of the
operators. They have continually de-
creased since March /, and the teleg-
rapher's position is worse than it was
previous to that date. For instance, an
operator having a rating of $SS per
month resigns or is dismissed from the
service. He is substituted by man
receiving $82. The operator receiving
$50 is relieved by an operator receiving
ST. and so on until the lowest salary
is reached, which is $40 a month in
Portland. We can cite cases in Port
land where the sliding scale has been
introduced.
An operator is compelled to work
from 12 to IA hours day to provide
the bare necessities of life.
The unskilled laborer receives fully
as much without working overtime, as
the average telegrapher does with over
time included Several years expert
ance at an extremely low salary is re-
ouired before an operator is able to
secure a first-class position. And when
he becomes first-class operator the
nervous strain is such that his career
of usefulness and earning capacity is In
a majority of cases cut short by COM
nlication of nervous troubles resulting
from the heavy stra- n required In order
to swell the Golfers OF the directors of
the telegraph companies.
All we ask is a fair remuneration for
frst-class work. Our demands include:
An eight-hour day and Is per cent in
crease in wages, no discrimination be-
tween union and nom union operators
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