The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-01-16
Boulder Dam-No. 2
WORKERS FLAY
DAM BUILDERS
FOR SLAVERY
Protest Conditions on U. S.
Project Endanger Lives
of LaborerS.
BY ARTHUR MOORE
Times Stan Correspondent

Times Stan Correspondent
BOULDER CITY, New, Jan. is.
Work on Boulder Dam started
late in April last year, and almost
at once an attack on labor condi-
tions started.
Virtual slavery" low wages and
bad living conditions we're charged.
Among the men from Boulder
Dam, along Las Vegas streets are
men who bitterly denounce the Six
o. Companies, Inc. Not all of these
are drifters; some certainly are not
agitators.
Here Is what one man said of
working conditions as he leaned
against the wall of the Boulder
Club, one of the newest gambling
houses of Las Vegas:
A StumbIe-And goodbye,
I've been a miner all my life
and I've never worked under con-
ditions as bad as in the conversion
tunnels up on the job. Chances of
big explosion are taken daily.
Blasting has been carried out
within 100 feet Of where powder and
fuses were stored together. On or
ders Of my foreman, I've carried
armloads Of mixed powder and
fuses into tunnels. If l had STUN
bled-good-by tunnel and about
eighty men.
My impression is that the COM
pany is more interested in getting
back our wages in the commissary
than it is in guarding us on a dan
gerous job"
The man was a Las Vegas citizen;
he had little home on the edge Of
town; a wife, two children.
Drive Trucks in Mines
There are certain conditions in
the work of constructing tunnels
that are condemned by Nevada state
mining officials. One is the opera
ton of trucks under their own
power, deep into the tunnels. The
Six Companies was ordered to halt
this practice at one time as con-
trary to state mining law.
The company, however, got an in
junction barring Nevada from in
terfering with the job on ground
mat 1t is a government reservation.
Today the trucks roar in and out
OF the borings again under their
own power and the company insists
there is no danger to Workmen from
gas fumes.
Work is carried on in three eight
hour shifts a day.
FOR two weeks after the coming
OF cold weather, the men were
hauled from their work in open
trucks. Objections were made and
now the men are carried to and
from work in covered trucks.
Housed by Company
off the job, the men are housed
in dormitories, if single, or rent
houses from the company if mar
ried. The dormitories are tWo-story
structures with single rooms for ITO
men. Eight dormitories have been
completed and all are equipped
with a combination heating and
cooling system.
A charge of 10 cents a night is
made for use of the dormitories and
board costs $3.50 daily. In addition
to these charges, a hospital fee of
$3.50 monthly is charged and a SO
poll tax to the state is taken from
each workers first pay check. The
board and room fees are taken
from pay checks without choice to
the worker.
The company houses are rented
unfinished, except for cook stoves,
$40 month for two rooms, $50
month for three rooms.
Food Too High
Objections to the food are not
based on quantity or quality so
much as on the necessity of paying
$3.50 daily for board when frugal
workers could eat for less.
Company officials feel that criti-
cism made at the start of work,
when the camp was new, now can
be answered in their favor.
Remember this" insists Norman
S. Gallison, in charge of public re-
lations for the Six Companies" we
started work here as fast as possible
under pressure from the public and
from Washington to make as many
jobs as soon as possible. We opened
up before we were ready. Naturally
things vent wrong. But we feel that
when hot weather brings its prob
lens this summer, we will be ready
to meet all conditions with the we'll
being of the workers always first in
mind"
Next: The Death Toll at Boulder
+ Dam; the Wage Scale Controversy.