Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-03-01
EMPLOYERS IN ATTACK
ON STRIKING WEAVERS
Repudiated by United Textile
Workers of America, De-
clares Statement

The Philadelphia Cloth Manufacturers
Association launched an attack today
on the striking weavers OF Kensington
declaring that they had been repudiated
by the United Textile Workers or
America that they were not all pa
that their leader, Lewis J. Gergots. car
ried an Industrial Workers Of the World
card
II was also declared that the strikers
meeting To be neld saturday afternoon
IN Kensington Labor Lyccum. Second
and Cambria streets. will dc4de to end
the strike and that the manufacturers
will never arbtrate.
The attack was madc in the form
Of statement by Henry Morgan, sec
rotary OF the association, COmmduing
on the strikers telegram TO President
Wilson. Gergots sent the telegram.
which said General MCWade, OF the La
bor Department had failed to end the
strike and called upon the President 10
end IT, The message said the wcavcrs,
members Of Local Union 40. -. were
patriotic Americans, anxious to help
their country, and wanted the President
as true friend Of humanity to helD
them.
"The strike will be ended at the meet
Ing the strikers win hold Saturday"
said Morgan ~ know that bur I am
not at liberty 10 tell YOU how ! happen
to know il. Tho strike has failed. The
association has n membership of sixty
one mills. representing invested capital
of more than SlOO.O00,OOO Of these
looms, 20 per cent Of the looms in Phla-
dclphia are working and we are on y 10
per cent behind our Government con-
tracts for cloth for army uniforms and
other purposes. Washington has COM
mcnded us again and again for the
progress we are making. We are pro-
ducing more Goth than we produced be-
fore the strike.
''Gergots's telegram to the President
said the striEers were patriotic Ameri-
cans, / doubt that very much The last
textile strike riot in Kcnsngton re-
suited in the arrest of twenty-five men,
and all but three OF them We're foreign
born.
THE union that Is running this strike
has been rcpudiated by the United Tex
tile Workers Of America through its
head. John Golden, Gorgo,s carries an
l. W w card
"Gcrgots told the truth when he wired
, the War Department that the manufaC-
turers refused to arbitratc. We will
never arbitratc with the strikers We
have alwaya operated on the piece work
plan and we will not pay by tinA They
want forty cents an hour and a fifty-four
hour week and those demands will never
be granted. The piecCwork plan pays
we'll We can prove by our records that
We have girls in their teens working on
piccowork and making as much as S2i
~ week.
The striking wcaNcrs bitterly resented
the statement issued by the employers
secretary. donouncing 1t as untrue and
. calculated to place them in "A false light
before the public as well as 10 deceive
the public regarding the situation in
the mills.
Tho strikers denied that 95 per cent
of the looms were in operation and de.
clared Morgans statement that the man
ufacturers We're only 10 per cent behind
their Government contracts was an un'
conscious and inadvertent admission that
conditions were not normal and that tho
strike was hampering work and reduc
ing OUTPUT.