The Connecticut labor press. (New Haven, Conn.) 191?-1921, 1919-05-10
PHONE GIRLS
WILL ORGANIZE
UNIONS HERE
Three Leaders to Work in Con
necticut for Two Months
Organizing Operators.
JULIA O'CONNOR'S SALARY
Gets $4,000 Yearly and Expenses
and Is Worth >It-Teresa and
Rose Sullivan.

Miss Julia S. O'Connor, president of
the New England Telephone Operators
Cn1on Miss Teresa Sullivan, organizer
and Miss Rose Sullivan, an assistant,
will be in Connecticut for the next two
months to organize the telephone oper-
ators. Unions have been established in
Bridgeport and Hartford for some time
and charter has been made out for
New Haven. The three organizers are
from Boston and Miss O'Connor and
d1ss Teresa Sullivan were active In the
successful strike of the operators of the
New England Telephone Company.
f. The strike itself was a revelation to
union leaders IN other lines, and to en-
ployers. Ordinarily the response of Is
per cent. OF the employees IN a large
industry to a strike order is considered
good; 95 per Tfcent is close to record.
L he telephone girls struck 100 per cent,
and telephones became as useful as the
Wl1at-nots that used to fill corners of
Down East sitting rooms.
Then the men came out-8000 of
them. They came out IN sympathy but
as an afterthought presented demands
OF their own. This made the t1eup as
complete as anv one could ask, and IN
tive days MT. Burieson capltulated, al
lowing the girls all they asked IN the
matter Of direct dealing with their ern-
ployers and collective bargaining. In
the conference that followed the girls
got most of their demands-lnclud1ng
about 100000 back pay and increases
IN wages that wlH net the 1000 close
to- $6O0,000 year
Thanks to the women, the men Jared
as we'll They received very l1ttIe back
pay (due, as noted, to their lateness In
making demands), but their pay checks
will be $l,zO0000 fatter than they were
for21918.
There is the story of the strike and
Of Julia 0'Connor. It is not told by
her, for she will talk of almost every
stsiys exnept her and atfyufzsg ssle
Is busy worm these days.
am not of interest" she says. my
work may be. If | have accomplished
anything, it IS because I believe in work
and in organizing Without organiza-
ton you can get nowhere With it,
with an organization worth while, one
can get everything We have a sp1en-
did organization-a 100 per cent. or
ganizatlon and every member 100 per
cent loyal They followed every order
and did splendidly everything they were
asked to do.
This strike, which was forced upon
US and was not at all of our seeking,
proves plainly that women can be or
ganized as thoroughly as men, and it
should prove to the satisfaction of ev-
erybody that by organization the ex-
plo1tatlon OF women In industry can be
prevented. When they learn the lesson
of Coordination exploitation will cease
They must, however, be not only
for woman labor, but for all labor
They should work for all. Labor every
where must work together. Just now
there is tendency to ask for too much
special legislation for the protection of
the woman worker. We realize. of
course, that there are physical limita-
tions, but women cannot very well in
sist on equal pay and that sort of thing
and yet be constantly demanding, special
privileges. In this contest the men
stuck by US and we stuck by them. In
the labor movement men and women
must work together or fail"
= At the same time, while Miss OCon-
nor, deprecates too much special legisla-
ton, she is very keen for legislation
that will give women the ballot. Among
other things she has found time TO put
in much hard work toward that end
1T is bound to come, she says, and
SOO-AN@
for all"
Not that she thinks il. is cure-a1l
fer the ills of the body politic-she is
too clever for that-bUt she insists equal
suffrage is a matter of simple justice
and that, though it will not cure al the
ills of the state, it will help materially
to that end.
Nor is she afraid that Bolshevis:n viii
get any considerable foothold in this
country.
So much for Julia tO'Connor who, by
the way, is believed to be the highest
paid woman labor leader in the United
States, if not in the world. Her salary
is said to be $1,000 a year, with all
expenses paid, and she IS on
the road much of her time Some In
quasi-1abor movements may and prob
ably do receive more than this, but none
in the simon pure labor organization.
For. that matter, the heads of some of
the bigger of the mems organizations
receive less.
But the phone operators, saw Miss
O'Connor is worth 5000 and more if
she cares to ask for it. Women's unions,
at least, are not ungrateful