Wheeling majority. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1907-192?, 1910-12-29
!. lFrom . correspondent.l


s(From Correspondent
London, December Is, 191O-The.
British boiler makers resumed work
on December 18TH. the peace terms
having been accepted upon ballot by
"a majority of over 10000 votes. Upon
the figures being announced to the
employers the latter at once gave in
tstructions for the withdrawal of the
lockout notices. This lockout of those
members of the Boiler Makers and
Iron Shipbuilders' Society who were
employed in those shipyards which
were under the control of the EN-
Iployers' Federation, began on Septem.
Der Bird. 1t was alleged by the en-
ployers that they instituted the lock-
out in order to put an end to the
small sectional strikes which were
occurring at frequent intervals in
defiance of the National agreement
entered into in 1907 by the boiler
makers in common with all other sec
lions OF Sn1pyard WORKERS.
/ The Edinburgh agreement Of 1907
set up machinery for the adjustment
of all disputes. Admittedly the Execu-
tive Council of the Boiler Makers So
ciety had done it's best to preserve
the conditions of the agreement but it
found itself at variance with it's own
members, who, as / have before point
ed out, regarded the agreement as be-
ing worked wholly in the interests Of
the employers.
During the lockout great suffering
was experienced by the boiler makers
and their families and other Trade
Unions came to their, assistance,
Many conferences were held between
the locked out men and their employ
ers, but the adamant attitude of the
said employers, and especially their
demand that the Union should be
used for heavily filming those Union
boiler makers who struck without au.
thorisation, prevented any agreement
being reached. When, however, one OF
the leading members Of the Employ.
|ers' Federation, Lord Furness, declar-
ed against his fellow employers and
said that he would reopen his own
yards unless the employers adopted
more conciliatory attitude, it was
clear that an end to the dispute was
in sight.
The terms of the new agreement In
brief promise to secure to the en-
ployers what they set out to obtain,
namely, a cessation of the sectional
stoppages of work on the part of mem
bers of the Boiler Makers Society; to
the men they promise mitigation OF
the conditions which, they hold, pro-
voked the stoppages. The terms will
form a supplementary agreement to
the shipyard agreement signed by the
employers and the representatives OF
the eighteen shipyard trade unions
early in 10000. Whether they will be
binding upon all the unions or not Is
not quite clear, but it is known that
the Joint Committee representing the
Is unions under the agreement gave
it's sanction to the terms.
The dispute now ended, of course,
concerned the boiler makers alone,
though in the course of fourteen weeks
most of the other trades have been
thrown idle. The federated districts"
or the shipyard centres in which the
employers have federated mainly for
the purpose of meeting the mems or
carnations, consist of the following:
Flyde, Tyne. Wear, Tees and Hartle-
pool, Aberdeen, Barrow, Birkenhead,
Dundee, East of Scotland, and Hull.
together with "a Northeast Coast ship
repairing firms. The Belfast, Thames,
South Wales and other southern ship
building firms are outside the Fedora
ton.
Following the wood-workers' strike
and consequent lockout of the North
east Coast in 1908, negotiations were
entered into between the federated
employers and the representatives Of
all the unions for some arrangement
whereby questions of wages or condi-
tons must be discussed and settled
without stoppages of work, and the
National Shipyard Agreement was the
result. It is important to remember
ehat the Boiler Makers Society on
that occasion opposed the terms of the
agreement, but agreed to fall in line
with the other unions concerned. This
may explain to some extent why mem
bers of the Boiler Makers Society
alone committed breaches of the agree