The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1919-05-16
THE SCIENTISTS
HAVE AFFILIATED
WITH A. F. OF |

Five hundred scientists and tech
nologists met last Friday night in
the lecture hall of the L. S. Nation
al Museum in Washington. d. c.,
and voted by a large majority to af-
filiate, through the National Fed
Grafton of Federal Employees, with
the American Federation of Labor
The gathering included botanists,
biologists, psychologists, patholo-
gists, psychologists, chemists,
physicists, and various other re-
search workers employed in such
branches of the Government as the
Bureaus of Plant Industry, Animal
Industry, Chemistry and Entomol-
ogy, in the Department of Agricul-
ture, Standards in the Department
of Commerce, and Patents in the
Department of the Interior. They
elected as their temporary President
DR.. Rodney H. True, psychologist in
charge of Plant Physiological and
Fermentation Investigations of the
Bureau of Plant Industry, and as
temporary Secretary, DR.. P. G. Ag-
new, physicist in the Bureau of
Standards.
The trade union idea has been
acutely impressed upon scientists,
they state in their announcement
of the meeting, by the work of the
Joint Congressional Commission on
Redistribution of the Federal Civil
Service, which has from the first
declared that it could not deal with
the employees as individuals, but
would deal with their organization,
the National Federation of Federal
Employees. DR.. E. B. Rosa, of the
Bureau of Standards, and other
speakers at the meeting last Friday
night, urged trade union organiza-
| tion for the scientists, because, they
stated, until the Federal Employees
Union was formed, the demands of
the Gqrernment workers for better
pay and improved working condi-
tions had been met with an offer
from Congress of longer hours with
out increase in pay or improvement
hand, these speakers pointed out, in
the three years of it's existence, the
union has defeated the proposal for
longer hours, has secured salary in
creases which have advanced from
per cent the first year to a flat
rate of $240 per year, and has crys-
tallized the hitherto unorganized
and futile agitation for reclassifica-
tion into an actuality in the form of
the work now in progress by the
Joint Congressional Commission on
Reclassification created by the last
Congress.
The action of these 500 scientists,
it is pointed out by President Lu-
tn C. Steward, of the National
Federation of Federal Employees.
emphasizes the movement which is
daily becoming more evident, name
ly, that all workers, mental and
manual alike, are rapidly recogniz-
ing that they have a common cause,
for which they have common Heed
that one in every five persons in
the District of Columbia is now
carrying a union card, with rate
of increase in this proportion which
will shortly put the National Cap
ital into rank as one of the most
highly organized communities in
| the United States.
The four local unions of federal
employees, who constitute the larg-
est element in the population, num-
Der approximately $4,000 members.
The trades in Washington, both in
government and private employ,
are and have been for years, organ
lied under the American Federation
of Labor, the school teachers are
now so per cent organized and af-
filiated with the American Fedora
tion of Labor, the school janitors
and custodians have two unions,
and the railroad office workers are
organized several thousand strong
under the Brotherhood of Railway
Clerks.