Denver labor bulletin., 1917-09-29
MAY MAKE PITTSBURG LABOR FREE
BY FORCING STEEL TRUST TO BE GOOD
Slaves Corporation Federation
Organizers Help Them Form Craft Unions; Chairman
Hurley Shipping Board Gets in
Committee Washington.

naces and 100 coke ovens, affecting
5000 men.
Mass meetings are being held in the
south side of the city this evening,
and the men are expected to strike
that plant, including bar, rod and plate
mills, affecting 10000 men. The move
ment is extending to the Woodlawp
and Aliquippa plants.
"OrganiZers are working on the
United States Steel Corporation plants,
and by Tuesday or Wednesday expect
to see 100000 workers on strike. So
far no disorder has occurred. The
men are calm, but are determined that
Jones & Mclaughlin and the United
States Steel Corporation shall have
to do away with the twelve-hour, sew
en-day system.
Tell the American Federation of
Labor that every available organizer
is needed"
Endless Hours of Labor.
1t has been some ten years since the
expose of the terrible physical and
social degradation resulting from the
twelve-hour day and seven-day week
in the steel mills at Pittsburg was
published, and the pity of a great
number of the small stockholders of
the United States Steel Corporation
attempted to organize enough of the
stock into an opposition" to compel
the board of directors to abolish the
welve-hour day. Their attempt failed
Later attempts also failed. All the
editorial protests that flooded the of
fees of the trust went for nothing.
The notion that the owners of busi-
ness will of their own accord reduce
their dividends at the dictation of con-
-f.sa Ill
The United States department of
labor has made Investigations into the
steel industry, and has done its best to
civlhze the mill management by the
indirect influence of reports and ap-
peals to their better nature. The
twelve-hour day was not abolished.
Try to Make Pittsburg Free.
War came, and with it the demand
for the fixing of prices upon all raw
materials for manufacture. Lumber,
steel, copper-these and many other
materials were to have their cost de-
termined, and prices at wholesale and
retail fixed accordingly. Some of the
more optimistic people who wanted
the twelve-hour day driven out of the
industry began to predict that when
steel prices were fixed they would be
set in accordance with calculation of
cost on an eight-hour basis, and that
President Wilson would somehow bring
pressure to bear for this reform, by
threatening to lower the price of steel
if the old conditions remained. But
that hope, too, has still to be realized.
Now come the men themselves, to
try to make Pittsburg free commu-
nifty. The last big strike in Pittsburg
at the Westinghouse plants-was
suppressed by clubs and guns after a
few days of apparently unanimous en-
thusiasm for the walkout. This new
uprising may sweep the city, or it
may possibly be suppressed. The A.
F. of L. has sent organizers to assist
those already at work, and its whole
weight is being thrown into the scale
to prove that when a body of men in
industry has determined TO be free, no
power on earth can keep them in sub
lection. If, in spite of its efforts, the
strike is lost, the failure will be only
a breathing period, during which the
men in the steel industry will get
ready for far bigger fight next year.
Hurley Gets In Bad.
After two weeks of fruitless nego-
tiations here. the three representa-
tives of the shipyard workers on Puget
Sound and in the Portland region on
the Pacific coast are leaving Washing
ton for home. armed with full powers
to call strike of $4,000 men in the
yards of the far Northwest. That the
strike will be called if the employers
still refuse their wage demands is al
most certain.
Their failure to get a settlement
here is due to the action of Chairman
Hurley of the United States shipping
board, who made 'scrap of paper"
of the labor treaty signed last month
by the heads of all of the international
unions in the shipyard trades. as well
as representatives of the shipping
board. the navy department, the sec
retary of labor and others.
Hurley waited until the Pacific coast
shipyards dispute was being consid-
cred by the industrial adjustment
board created by this labor treaty, and
then suddenly decided to settle the
dispute himself. He notified the la
Dor spokesman that he would see that
their demands were substantially
granted. according to the account Civ
en- here, and at almost the same mo-
ment the San Francisco strike. which
had not yet been forestalled by any
hearings on the part of the adjust
ment commission, convinced Hurley
that the adjusters could accomplish
nothing anyhow.
Chairman V. Everit Macy of the adj
Continued Page Ftve)