The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1921-02-24
KELLY TALKS PLAINLY TO
UNION MEN OF BUTTE
PRESIDENT OF ANACONDA TELLS
THINGS COMPANY WILL
NOT STAND FOR.

pdugr III opening conference VIII
representatives, of Butte unions on tn,
question of renewing working agree
ments:
q see the representatives, of the
carpenters union here What l have
to say has, so far as | know. little APP
phcation to the carpenters organiza-
ton in any of our three localities, ex-
cept as it is involved generally, and
l will say in this respect, has little
application to Great Falls or Amazon
da. In those places we have gotten
along pretty well. But it is chiefly
confined to oppressive and absolutely
unreasonable conditions that exist in
Butte, and I will tell you what some
of them are. Every student of trades
unionism, whether he be an advocate
for or an opponent against unionism,
recognizes that the principal obiec-
tions that an employer has to trades
uniOnsm comes from two evils: One
is the tendency to preach slowing up
on the job. and the other one is the
constant claim as skilled work, be-
cause it commands a higher rate of
THE industrial reports of Great
Britain show that the decadence of
British industry. the outstripping of
England by Germany in the steel in
dustry and in manufacturing has been
due to this propaganda on the part of
the British trades unions, and there
has been no place where we have suf-
fered more from it than we have right
here in Butte.
Now let me give you an illustra-
ton. Suppose we want to INSTALL anc
a good many of you union men will
be surprised, | think at some of these
things il you think them over-sup-
pose we want to put in a little fan
underground What do we have to
do? We have to get a carpenter and
a helper an electrical worker and a
helper, and machinist and a helper
to do the job that any two men in
this room can do.
Another Case in Point
suppose we have an electric motor
that needs a little fixing down at one
Of the mines where there is no shop |
We have an electrical worker there, a
fellow who is on the job, who is an
electrician; he is a member of your
organization; we are paying him the |
wages you ask. and you in turn have /
given him a card certifying that he |
has the skill required for an electrical |
worker; something goes wrong with
an electric motor; he is an employee |
Of the Anaconda company; we ask
him to fix it. No; that is trouble |
work This fellow can sit down on
his tail and refuse to fix it while the
foreman of the mine, which may be
a mile and half from the shop, has
to telephone up to the shop and get
another member of your union, who
has been sitting around waiting for
something to happen. to come down
and fix that locomotive.
at is this constant fighting over the
Jurisdiction of work that makes OPP
preesive conditions I remember one
time when there was a fire here I'M
derground in one of the mines, and
we were endeavoring to install a fan
to pull the gas away from men who
had to work in it in order to try and
save the lives of their fellow workers
and the property; that in the install
alton of that FAM don't know whe-
Their it was the screwing up Of nut
or what, but some simple operation
that a boy could perform-a row de-
veloped between the electrical worker
and the machinist on the job, and
H. t.o41, 41,ro, 4opaI 10 r1tff Now J
those are things that l say are OPP
pressive; those are the things that I
say Illustrate what is wrong, and they
are the sort of things, gentlemen,
that are going to determine the rela-
tions-I am speaking now of the An
aconda company-with your organi-
cations.
Reasonable Rules Necessary.
eff we can establish reasonable
working conditions, reasonable rules
under which we can go ahead and do
business. and if we can cut out these
grievances which we feel are foolish
and oppressive, there is no reason
why we can not proceed amicably,
fairly. decently and lf-respectingly
and cooperate in our work. 1 am say
ing this to you just as candidly as l
can. On the other hand, if we can not
operate under such modified condi- Z
lions. if we can not get an adjust
ment of some of the matters that we
feel are grievances on our part then
we have come to a parting of the
WAYS. and I don't want to see that
bannen if if can be avoided, so that
the relations between the organiza-
tons and ourselves is very much up
to you; it is very much more in your
hands this morning than it is in ours
81 have cited just a few instances;
there are a great many of them, and
want to say this. because I am try
ing to tell you the whole story. | be-
lieve that there should be proper
division of labor; I don't want you to
think that we are going to ask an
electrical worker to do machinists
-,.t- ~, q oarnenter's work. 7 don't \