The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1917-01-26
EVERETT'S INDUSTRIAL WARFARE
Adopt Trade Agreement

watched closely the working of the
trade agreement in other organiza-
tions, notably the United Mine Work
ers, an organization composed of men
! engaged in equally hazardous call
ing. They had seen that this secret
success of that organization lay in
the fact that it was not continuously
on strike or resisting a lockout and
therefore had time to do constructive
work, organize thoroughly the men
and pile up defense funds against
possible trouble. International Presi-
dent Brown after several heart-to-
heart talks with the Everett local,
persuaded the union to try the trade
agreement plan of doing business.
Trade agreements running for per-
iod of eighteen months were negoti-
ated with twelve plants in the Ever
EFT jurisdiction. Despite any denial
they were successful during their
,eriod of operation. There were eigh-
teen months of industrial peace,
marked only by petty disagreements.
No trade agreement that ever was
drawn gave absolute satisfaction, be-
cause agreements will sometimes be
fractured or something done not in
accord with it's spirit. But the whole
tendency of the trade agreement is to
recognize that each side has definite
rights and that business methods
ought to prevail in adjusting differ
ences so that those rights may be as
sured without the monetary loss,
physical and mental suffering at
tendant on strikes and lockouts.
During the life of these agree
ments, however, a spirit of discord
crept into the union, attacking the
principle of collective bargaining
through the written trade agreement.
Every petty infraction, by fore
man or superintendent, of the agree
ment, was magnified out of all pro-
portion and laid at the door of the
trade agreement principle. The con-
sentative men in the organization
were ridiculed, their methods cen
sured, they were accused of being lit
tie better than dupes of the employ
ing class. Direct action, syndicalism,
sabotage, all were held up as the
up-to-date, effective methods of Win
ming labor struggles. The constant
agitation slowly but surely did it's
work and at the expiration of these
trade agreements it would not have
been possible to have renewed them
had the employers been willing, so
strong was the opposition within the
union ranks.
1915 STRIKE
In the spring of 1915, the climax
of an industrial depression in the
single industry extending over a
period of years, notice of wage re-
duction was posted in the Everett
mills. Whether or not, in view of
the depressed condition of the Single
market the weavers would have been
justified in accepting temporarily a
wage reduction, is a question that is
at least open to argument. Weavers
generally believed wage reduction
would not help the situation for the
operators. The majority of the
single manufacturers have little to
do with setting the price and in the
other the broker. A decreased cost
of labor manufacture would be met
by an increased log price and a de-
pressed single price and the situa-
ton would be no better than before,
the logger reasoning that by lessened
cost of production the operator could
stand little advance in the price of
raw material while the broker took
it out of him on the other end. The
men knew from experience the hard
struggle attendant upon most efforts
to restore former wage scales or in
crease present ones. Suffice it to
say that the reduction was rejected
without the formality of an argument
about it on the part of the weavers.
After a short but bitter struggle
the strike was declared off and the
men permitted to go back upon the
best terms they could get. The dur
alton of this strike was marked by ill
feeling, occasional violence, the fami-
liar court injunction process, the i'm
portation of professional strike break
ers and strike guards, always the
scum of the earth and a menace to
the social welfare of any community
they infest.
The operators realized their fond
but foolish dream of crushing the
Single Viewers union and through
out the state of Washington it lay
crushed and broken.
Reorganization of 1916