The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-06-20
GREATER TENS|ONI IN LABOR SITUATION Tendency Toward Higher
 Labor Cost RECORDS BEING MADE Tremendous Activity of the Steel Cor poration Establishes New High Records for Pig Iron and
 Ingot Production
RECORDS BEING MADE

New York, June 19.-(Special. .)-Ihe Iron Age will say tomorrow:
 There is greater tension in the labor situation at iron and steel works. The drifting of workmen from one. opera tion to another gess on and many plant managers are finding more difficulty In holding their forces because of easier or better paying jobs offered elsewhere The tendency throughout the industry is toward higher labor cost.
 Manufacturers are less complacent under cost increase because net earn ings for the first half of the year will be very lean and the prospects for the second half, so far as profits are concerned, are far from satisfactory. Prices have advanced, it is true, but not enough to count much in dividends.
 With all the restlessness of labor there are few strikes. At three New Jersey iron mines the men went out after de- manding higher wages. At two of these a 10 point advance was paid. An advance was also granted at three eastern blast furnaces.
 On Connellsville coke the position of the makers seems stronger this week. Furnace companies as a rule are refusing to contract, standing out for $2 basis, while s235 to s3.50 is still the range of Connellsville quotations.
 Pig iron markets show less irregularity fin prices, but no definite advances apart from basic iron, on which $13.25 at val ley furnace has been established.
 Markets for finished steel show the ef- feet of postponement of action on some pending matters, particularly by railroads, and important buying is not expected until the presidential convention are out of the way. No changes in prices are re- ported apart from an advance of S2 ton in rivets.
 Cleveland, O., June 19.-(Special. )-The Iron Trade Review tomorrow will say:
 Politics, while perhaps responsible for slight diminution in some business af- fairs, has not had the slightest effect upon important activihes, heavy specify ing against contracts and great produc- ton by blast furnaces and mills proceeds unabated The slight lull in buying is not unwelcome to the manufacturers, who expect to obtain higher prices later in the year. Inquiries for export are more numerous owing to the continuance Of 8 prosperous condition in England ana Germany Foreign business is understood 10 be going at good prices.
 The tremendous activity of the United States Steel corporation is enabling it to break all it's records for production of iron and steel. Pig iron output by the corporation in May it is announced, es- tablshed new high record in its his tory and exceeded any other month by about 1000 tons. The total iron output was between 1,250,0o0 and 1,275,oo0 tons. Tn steel ingot production the May fig ires of the leading steel interests were about 1000 tons less than the high monthly record established in March, 1910, when 1,4s7000 tons were turned out by the open hearth and Bessemer plants.
 At the present rate the corporation is manufacturing pig iron on the basis of over 15,000,000 tons per year and ingots at 17,500,000 tons a year. At this rate it bids fair to shatter high record of 1910, when 11.S00,00 tons of pig iron and 14,100,000 tons of ingots came from the blast furnaces and steel works At the present time the cor poration is operating between 94 and e5 per cent of ingot capacity at which point it has been maintaining its activ- ity for a number of weeks. It's open hearth furnaces are now running at practically 100 per cent and though there is some idle Bessemer capacity, principally at the Edgar Thomson works of the Carnegie Steel company, some of the works of this type are little behind the general average of op- eration The Bessemer capacity of the Illinois Steel company is running prac- tically full.