The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1910-03-03
WHAT THE BARRE STRIKE COST.

''Cb phCiu W IdS DtIluu,
WHAT THE BARRE STRIKE COST.
(Boston Transcript
For fourteen weeks, beginning Nov.
10, the strike. of granite-cutters at
Barre VT, now just concluded, has
been in progress, IN its inception ii
seems to have been complicated with
a lockout and 20 have been as sup
erfluous and ill-advised as such per-
formances generally are. One of the
smaller firms belonging to the Barre
Granite Manufacturers Association
1ad installed pneumatic surfacing
machines and failed promptly to
equip them with suction fans. The
operatives, four in number. walked
out and their shopmates followed.
The Manufacturers Association met
the following day, and in view of two
facts, that their agreement with the
Granite Cutters International Asso
citation had still some sixteen months
to run and that members employees
had acted promaturely and applied
unjustifiable pressure, decided to
stand by the firm that had been
struck" AS consequence. some
5000 union men in Barre and other
Washington County towns have loaf
ed through tile winter on Strike
pay and as many more worlmen---
apprentices, quarrymen Jumpers,
boxers, transfers and derrickmen--
have had to get along as best they
could.
In the final settlement, the question
of suction fans to carry off the gran
lite dust, which was said to be so dead
ly, seems scarcely to have arisen eX-
cept at one point. An advance in
wages is the basis of the new agree
ment, which provides for an eYtIA
ten cents day for the next three
an hour for the three years succeed
ing. The advance takes effect at
once, instead of on March l. 1911, the
date at which the agreement that was
broken by the strike was supposed 20
terminate. Members of the union Will
receive that extra sixty cents week
during the coming year, and oy so
much they are better off. On the 9TH
er hand, these men who are accus-
toned to earn from three to four dol
lars a day have been existing more
.han three months on $125 a day, and
in order to sustain such payments
t,eir union, which had resources of
some half a million dollars, has been
compelled to use fully half of its fund.
In one respect the conduct of the
strike has come as near the ideal as
/ q labor war could. The manufacturers
sheds lay open, practically unguarded,
and any malcontent armed with q
| hammer could easily have done thous-
ands of dollars worth of damage III
single night. No such vandalism
was attempted. The strikers, with the
I exception of few obstreperous tai
ians-Anarchists who were eXiled
from Paterson for Paterson's good,
and who have displayed in Vermont
Tie traits that aroused antipathy IN
New Jersey-have shown themselves
MET peaceable, and not indisposcd to
make terms. 1t is fortunate for the
Industry that union so strong as
this, embracing as it does, practical
ly every granite cutter, ,polisher and
ol-sharpeners, is on the whole con-
scrvatively guided. True, it is some
what too fond of trying conclusions,
tanned five months strike to insure
that the three years agreement with
the manufacturers should date from
HAY l. instead of January Ia co.,
tenton which was finally compromised
on the basis of March /, Yet the7-
WHO comprehend it's powers will real
ize that it might easily do worse.
The regrettable feature of the whole
affair is the unnecessary waste II
time and money that it has involved,
Manufacturers have lost by della. ed
and cancelled contracts; union men
have sacrificed good wages; sever al
thousand laborers who had not even
''s'i Ike pay to anchor them to soT"-
thing like solvency have been invol-
unfairly drawn into the dispute and
have suffered severely. More than siS
weeks ago, the head of the union stat
} ed that, up to that time, the strike had
= cost the members of his organization
, in wages given up and benefits eX'
, pended, fully $1,000,000-a sum which
) probably at this time it would be SAT,
. to double. Whether this and concur
, rent losses can ever be made up b,
: the net gain of ten cents day, is no
3 Il problem in arithmetic only, IL is 1
: question of civics, and invites an ap
I PEAL both to business principles an,
common sense.