The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1921-08-26
OFFICIAL BULLETIN
To the Officers and Members,

OFFICIAL BULLETIN
To the Officers and Members,
Local Unions, l. 7. U.
Greeting; Since the issuance of
our Official Bulletin of August
9th, are in a position to Judge the
activity and strength of newly or
ganized locals. We are glad to be
able to report that all are increas-
ing in membership and activity in
the interests of their members. Or
ganization work in the South is GO
ing on in a better way than ever
before. We have been able to get
the cooperation of some of the
State Federations of Labor, and
quite a number of active trade
unionists in all sections of the
country.
While the newspapers continue to
publish reports of general i'm
provement in Industrial conditions,
if such improvements have come
about they are not yet apparent
to the workers. Unemployment in
the timber industry, as well as in
all industries, is still serious. Many
logging camps in the Puget Sound
section and in British Columbia are
closed, the reason being given that
there is surplus of fir in the
water. Prices for cedar logs are
so high that many mills are forced
to suspend operations, others are
operating with a reduction in wages
of from 10 per cent to 25 per cent;
again the workers are compelled to
help pay for the increase in the
price of cedar. 1t is now estimated
that there are over 100000 unem-
ployed in the United States; the
deep significance of this situation
should be lost upon no one.
Recent reports from the South,
from the State of Mississippi, are
to the effect that many of the
plants are operating twelve hours
per day with a common labor wage
from $1.25 to $1.75 per day.
In Seattle, common labor for the
saw mills is down to $3.50 per day,
and in some cases lower; in some
cases the employment offices do
not state the wage to be paid; you
pay your money and take your
choice when you get on the job.
FOUR L ASSISTS IN WAGE
REDUCTION
Membership in the FOUR L has
been made condition of employ
ment in Baker, Oregon. After they
had succeeded in gaining the -Four
L CLOSED shop" shop closed to
Union Men. they presented the
workers with $3.50 minimum
wage, thus the blessings of this
industrial misfit are most bounte-
ously bestowed. In discussing the
many good things that the Four L
has done for the workers, at
recent Four L meeting at Sand
Point, Idaho, President Norman F.
Coleman of that organization is
quoted by the Spokesman Review"
of Spokane, Washington, as saying
that the Four LIS has carried the OPP
orators and employees through the
present lumber depression with less
friction than in other industries
and that they had been directly re-
sponsible for maintaining a wage
scale in excess of other sections
and in better proportion to the cost
of living. This he claims, was
largely due to the fact that the
better men in the timber business
were members of the organization
If the President of the Four Is
wants to take the credit for the
present wage for his organization,
he is quite welcome to it; there will
be no argument about that part of
it. We have repeatedly made the
statment that his organization is
largely responsible for the deplor-
able wage rate that is being paid;
heretofore they have denied the
charge; now they quite frankly ad-
nit it. 1t is true that with an
organization of the Four L type,
that there will be but mighty little
friction; the better men in the
timber business" who are members
of it, will see to it that there is
no friction; there can be no pro-
test on the part of the workers, be-
cause they are strangled from the
time that they become members of
that organization. 1t is not and
has not been the wage rate paid at
any stage of the game that has
been responsible for the present
stagnation in the timber industry.
This condition has been charged to
three reasons: High wages, high
freight rates, and the refusal of
the people to buy lumber.
But the real reason is not one
of the three assigned by the OPP
orators, and their business agents,
the Four LIS. The truth of the mat
ter is that not to exceed thirty-five
men, or corporations, have a viz
tual monopoly on raw material.
They do not have to sell logs eX-
cept at their own price. The big
cost in lumber production today is
not labor; it is not freight rates;
it is the cost of raw material. The
public can we'll believe that the
lumber operators did not run full
page advertisements in the news
papers for the fun of it; they did it
because they hoped to mould public
opinion in their direction; they
wanted to place the blame most
any where but where it belongs
upon their own shoulders.
Reductions in wages have not sold
any more lumber; they have not
started any more mills and camps;
they have not reduced freight rates,
and they have not induced the
"public to buy" They are right
back at the end of the vicious cir
Gle upon which they started ten
months ago, in which they were
ably assisted by the Four LIS.
ORGANIZATION
International President Canter-
bury is now in the State of Ore
gon where he is rendering good