Evening star., 1921-11-10

GENERAL WAGE. CUT
BYPACKERS LIKELY
Plant Councils Asked to Con-
slider Reduction Of
Own Pay.
STRIKE RECENTLY 0. KID
Closed Shop Never Recognized,
Union Efforts to Shut Plants
Might Fail.


Union Efforts to Shut Plants
Might Fail. =,
BY the Associated Press. =
CHICAGO, November 1o:-A general
cut in wages Of packing house work.
ers was forecast when four Of the big
five-Armour & Company, swift q
Company, Wilson & Company and the
Cudahy Packing Company-requesteo
their employees to consider, in the
plant councils. d reduction in pay 10
be made effective in the near future
No definite amount was mentioned
and officials said their conferences
had not determined the size of the re-
duction to be sought.
Morris & Company, the only one OF
the big five which has not established
employees councils. was expected to
make any reduction which the others
may agree on.
Union Vote Was for Strike.
The Amalgamated Meat Cutters and
Butchers Workmen' Union OF North
America recently took a strike vote.
in which a substantial majority au-
thorized Cornelius Hayes. internation-
al president, to order a walkout If he
was unable 10 reac IN satisfactory
agreement with the packers.
The big five claim. however, that
only a small portion Of their men are
union members and that strike
would not seriously affect their
plants. The closed shop never has
been recognized in the industry.
The strike vote followed termina-
tion of the period of federal arbitra-
tion, established during the war, and
under which Judge Samuel AltSehu
ler.. appointee of the Secretary OF
Labor, kept peace in the packing In
dustry until September. Is. when. the
packers having refused to renew the
agreement, his control ended =
Hayes Not Surprised.
1.-The packers action is no surprise
to u.s." Hayes said wnen told Of to-
days action. "And the packers are
going to cut wages regardless Of
what the plant assemblies decide"
Hayes announced district presidents
from all packing house centers IN
week to consider what action shall
be taken under the strike authorize
tion recently voted.
The present scale OF wages in the
industry range from 45 cents An hour
for common labor-which includes SO
maximum of 80 cents for the highly
skilled floor men. Semi skilled trades
are paid from As to IS cents; killers
from 62 to SIS cents, and hide remov-
ers from 20 to IS cents an hour.
Arxuments of the Packers.
I Arguments Of the packers for a
wage reduction at this time were pre-.
sented by Louis F. Swift, president OF
Swift & Co., in letter today to the
rnerhers of the variouS plant aRSeM.
hlies.
I'VE regret that we must at this
time ask you to present an unpopular
subject to your workmen through
trust that the membersaof. onry organ
azation realise that we wapt,them to
suffer as little hardship as possible
from the hard times that have be-
fallen the company.
TT is only because of the greatest
necessity that we bring up the need
of a further substantial reduction in
expenses, SO that we can meet the
competition of other concerns operat-
ing on much lower labor costs. We
have been doing sil that ,~s,,,as we can t.i1; IN
wages form such a large part Of our
expenses that 1t now becomes neces-
sary to consider. IN early reduction OF
1t must be apparent to you. to
that this step ha4sto be taken.
IF investors W6uld be unwilling to
put their monsf into the packing
business, we should, have to cur
tail operations, causing more unem-,
ployment and thereby injure our
workmen, ourselves and the general
public :.:.- - = :. =
Heavy oblfkatlon Cited.
I'VE have a very heavy obligation
oA
whom are $1,000 Of our own workers.
They have put their savings into our
stock and are interested both as en-
ployes and part owners.
"It is also a well known fact that
the wages in other Industries have
packing industry. and I believe that
every one in our organization realizes
that the only questions today are: ?
II. How much wages will have to
be reduced?
"2. How soon is the reduction 20
be made?
long as we possibly can-longer than
our business warranted-but having
established a system of cooperation
through plant assemblies, we want
to feel that we can consult with our
on every, vital matter that concerns
them. For this reason we have not
taken action before. We realize that
it Is difficult to ask them to consider
a wage decrease during the first few
months of the cooperative plan. but
we believe that the representatives
in our assemblies will handle the
matter in a broad minded way, rea-
lizing that their own welfare as well
as that of Swift & Co, depends on
an immediate reduction Of manufac-
turing costs. involving q reduction in
wage rates.
Swift Company's Labor Cost.
Swift & Co.'S labor costs per hun
dredweight in 1915 was 40 cents; in
1921 1t is 81. Live stock has dropped
in price almost to pre-war levels.
prices Of meat products also have
fallen, yet the difference between the
cost Of raw materials and the SELL
ing price of our products has broad
ened.
Bureau Of labor statistics for July
show that the average weekly earn
ihgs of thirteen industries In the
country are less than the weekly
earnings of Swift & Co. employees.
Swift workers averaged $50 more
per week than workers in steel and
$50 more than those in the cotton
industry"
At present the packing plants are
company which normally, employs
100, 600 men now has 81, goo.
The proposed cut would affect all
Of the principal packing centets out
side OF Chicago, as well as the big
five plants here, including Sioux City.
Iowa; Kansas City. Oklahoma Cfty
Fort Worth, Tex; East St LOuia III !.