Putnam patriot., 1915-11-26
A STRIKE UNIQUE IN LABOR ANNALS
Every Employee Went Out and
 Stayed Out
CONDITIONS ARE UNUSUAL
Town Hall Is Strikers Meeting Place -Companies Claim Product Is Luxury and Bushes too
 Poor to Pay.

Meriden.-For six weeks the plants
 Of the International Silver Company and of the Manning. Bowman Com
 pany of this place have been tied up i by a strike in many respects unusual
 and in some unique.
 In the first place. it is a 100 per cent. strike. All the employees went
 out They all stayed out In tEs l second place il is an American strike. ] With the exception of the employees 1 of one factory who are mainly Ital- ians. the great majority of the work 1 CTS were born and bred in the United /, States. of New England stock. and in the third place it was a strike con aucted without the semblanee of dis order
 Add to these features the fact that the expressed sympathy of the towns people is almost unanimously with the strikers. and you have a set of conditions not often found in recent 1 industrial warfare.
 It is perhaps not surprising that the strikers have the sympathy of the l iONitf lth JAIt9 dIC Ill tItEt tue i0A II itself. There are about 3.700 men and women on strike, and it is calculated | that through their families they rep resent about 15,000 of the 30,000 of Meriden's inhabitants
 Strikers Meet in Town Hall
 The strikers hold their meetings in the Town Hall auditorium. It is true 1 that the Town Hall has always been available for any body of citizens who desire to use it for any gather ing to which an admission fee has not been charged But it is also true that no official of Meriden would think Of raising any objection to the use of the municipality's property for this purpose. As one citizen expressed it. If any question were made about the matter they would simply call a town meeting and vote the use of the Town Hall to the strikers"
 IL is pointed out in the companies behalf that this sympathy with the strikers on the part of the merchants and citizens generally isf rom motives of self-interest. "They don't dare ex- press any opinion antagonistic to the men" However that may be- Meri- den is supporting the strike financial ly. The strikers had a tag day col lection which yielded them S1,100 A picnic brought them in s3.000. A fair inetted them about S1700.
 The men ask an eighthour day, time and half for overtime. a 9 per fcent increase in wages. a shop com mittee to take mp grievances of the employees with the foreman, and minimum wage for women of sS week
 The conpany's Side
 As to the merits of these demands fhere is naturally a difference of opin- ion between the company and the men. On behalf Of the former it is pointed out that the product of the silver company is a luxurv You don't have to have silyer-plated ware as you have to have shrapnel Business conditions the country over have been bad the past few years, the company has not 0een making so much money as 1t used to make. All it's contracts for this seasons output lave been made on the old scale T. pays about the same wages for the same work as it's competitors. t would be impos- sible in justice to it's stockholders to grant any such demands as the strik- CTS have made
 The company did offer to compro mise on a 10 per cent increase of wages and a tfty-fve instead of a sixty-hour week. beginning Jan. 1. That offer was refused. Apparently there was some misunderstanding about this compromise proposal. The wording of the eompany's offer gave the strikers an opportunity to assert that it was conditional. There is no doubt. however. that the offer was a bona fide one and that the strikers so understand if now.
 They will, however, have sone of it, January the strikers say is the be- ginning of the dull season in the silverware trade and the company al- ways lays the men off a few weeks at this time as it does in July. The busy season in the trade is in the fall in preparation for the holiday business.
 And this brings up to one of the great factors in the discontent of the