Denver labor bulletin., 1917-10-27
By LAURENCE TODD
Especial Representative The Denver Labor
Bulletin.)

Especial Representative The Denver Labor
BulIetin)
WASHINGTON, Oct. 22.-Gilbert
E. Hyatt of Minneapolis, newly elected
president of the National Federation
of Postoffice Employees, has just
reached the headquarters of that or
ganization here, and is preparing for
a years hard work at the task of
solidly unioniZing the entire postal
service Along with the job of bring
ing all of the men and women in the
department into one great industrial
association within the American Fed
Grafton of Labor, Hyatt will share the
work of Thomas F. Flaherty, general
secretary of the union, in getting
fair raise in pay for the postal work.
ers. Hyatt gives the impression OF
being able to handle man-size job.
"There is no question in my mind"
he said, "but that the service will be
completely unionized, owing to the
change in public opinion, noticeable
during the past few months especially,
and which has penetrated even the
heads of some of the officials of the
department. This change of opinion
has been stimulated, in part, among
the postal employees by the numerous
and heavy increases in wages in other
lines, outside the civil service. The
postoffice employees have been trying
to live on a Accent dollar, getting viz
tually the same pay they did years ago
while the cost of every element of the
necessaries of life has gone steadily
upward. They realize now that their
salvation rests with themselves and
with their cooperation with other
workers in the organized labor move
ment.
An Avalanche Movement.
"From a despised and discredited
handful of pioneers ten years ago to
the present, when sentiment has be-
come almost unanimous, our growth
has been steady. Today the movement
is an avalanche.
at is impossible for any employing
agency as large as the postoffice de-
partment to deny it's employees a voice
in determining their conditions of
work, without innumerable abuses
creeping in. The only way to make
the employees in the service contented
is to give them not only voice in the
fixing of their industrial conditions
but an opportunity to advise as to the
business administration of the depart
ment.
eve claim that the denial of these
fundamental rights has resulted in a
discomfort which endangers the effl-
cheney of the department thru resigna-
tions of a large number of the best
men"
Joining the Federation.
Secretary Flaherty, supporting the
statement that the postal employees are
now coming into their federation al
most unanimously, said that $4,000
members of the City Letter Carriers
association had just affiliated, and
that the Railway Mail association,
hitherto controlled in its policy by the
politicians, is now about
to vote on affiliation. Its president,
Who is opposed to affiliation with the
labor movement, conceded that 85 per
cent of the vote will favor going into
the organized labor camp.
Next year the Rural Carriers, the
most conservative of all the postal
groups, are to vote on affiliation. 1t
is altogether probable that they, also,
will strike out for general economic
program as wage-workers, and will
become part of the Federation.
In Touch With Farmers.
One of the interesting things about
this pending action by the Rural Car
riers is that to some extent they are
in touch and close sympathy with the
big economic movement of the farm
ers in the West-the National Nom
Partisan League.
In half dozen states the trade
union movement and the league are
in close cooperation, and the Rural
Carriers are getting to be link be-
tween them. AS the Carriers come in
to the labor movement in an official
way, the time when the last barriers
of misunderstanding will be broken
down between the farmers and the in
dustrial wage-workers, will be brought
nearer.
John Murray, the apostle of close