The Monticellonian., 1918-08-30
MINOR LABOR NOTES

A 50-hour law for women and chill dren was defeated in the recent ses- sion of the Massachusetts legislature Construction of the largest coal dis tributing pier in New York harbor, to have been used in handling next win ter's fuel supply for the metropolitan | district has been halted by a strike of union wOrkmen. They walked out, according to officials in charge of the work, because nonunion men were em- ployed. The federal department of la- Dor was notified of the situation.
 Employees of the Ross Gear and Tool company, Lafayette, Ind, were notified that the working hours in fu- ture would be half an hour less each day, and that time and half allow ance would be granted for all hours work in excess of 1T hours a week. In addition fiat increase on all hourly service will take effect. IL was said that employees also will continue to receive premiums on production, the premiums last month amounting to 55 per cent of the gross wages. A strike of $50 mechanics employed at the Watertown (Mass.) arsenal be- gan when Col. Charles M. Wesson, commanding officer, refused to grant a wage schedule demanded by the men. The men want the same wage schedules as approved by the United States shipping board which range from $4 to $10.80 day. The maxi mum wage at Watertown, the men say, is $5.76 a day.
 Lancashires cotton industry out look has been considerably frightened as the result of the meeting of the board of control with the president of the board of trade in London. The ar- engagements made will abolish the rota tion system of unemployment on Au- gust 10, substituting better system and providing for payment for forced unemployment.
 The National Conduit and Cable company, Hastings-on-Hudson N. r., | announced that all workers on an hourly rate would be paid on a 4S- hour-a-week basis, with time and a
 
 CTS will work 54 hours and be paid for 57, while night shift workers will put in 60 hours and be paid for 66 hours. All employees of the Washington Virginia railway have been given an increase in pay. Trainmen receive an advance of cents an hour, and cleri cal and other employees get an ad- vance of s per cent. The increase was granted because of the increased cost of living. It will mean an added $10,- GOO year on the pay roll. Establishment of a minimum wage and system of collective bargaining for employer and employees. together with a general increase in wages, fea- ture the decision of the war labor board in the case of the St. Joseph (Mo) Lead company. The company produces one-ninth of all the lead | mined in the country.
 While thousands of workers were returning to their homes, union main- tenance electricians in five substations of the Cleveland Railway company cut off the current and went on strike. Street car traffic was paralyzed for nearly an hour.
 Three hundred thousand workmen | in the district of Ivaneo-Voznesensk, Russia, have gone on strike. The | town is one of the chief centers of the | Russian cotton industry, and there are number of large textile factories | there.
  Introduction of systems under which British munitions makers are paid by piece-work has been responsible chiefly for the abnormal production achieved | by hundreds of munitions plants in Manchester. There has been little seri- ous trouble between employers and workmen.
 An agreement has been reached by l the department of labor with the unions and operators in the oil and gas fields of Louisiana and coastal
 Texas for adjustment of disputes by arbitration during the war.
 When the British Trades Union con- | gress meets at Derby in September
 for it's annual conference the member
 ship of affiliated unions represented l probably will be more than 100000.
 An increase of % cents day for
 machine operators and 50 cents day
 for floor men and ad men employed on
 newspapers has been secured by the
 Eugene (Ore.) Typographical union.
 Since 1914 the women employed on
 trans, buses and railways in England
 have increased S26 per cent.
 An arbitration board raised wages
 of Seattle and Tacoma street car en- ployees four cents an hour.
 | That's Different.
 | |; uor