Montana labor news., 1934-05-03
EASTERN LABOR
NOTES
NEW YORK

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Thus when Charles Coner, a men,
Der of the Hotel Employees local of
the Amalgamated Food Workers. was
gyped out of $50 by a New York en-
ployment agency in 1888, the skids
were stuck under one racketeer.
Coner saved up his tips when he did
get a job until he had 500. Then he
went back to the Vincent Employment
Agency and paid over the savings for
another fake job promise. This gave
him his chance to get acquainted with
other victims. Soon he had a group
collected and they made a united land
loud) demand for repayment of stolen
fees. At that moment an inspector
from the city license bureau walked
in.
At the resulting hearing, 80 witness
es were put on the stand by Atty. Rose
Weiss who claimed $500 had been
taken from them. Three had been
sent to Florida for nonresident jobs.
The commissioner of licenses closed
the gyp shop, forfeited their $1,000
bond and sent the witnesses to the
district attorney.
81 got my $40 WORTH" Coner said,
grinning.
Shutdown of all silk mills in the
northeastern states for a week, for
which permission has been asked of
the MIRA, is to be used as a club to
force down wages. Paterson bosses
have been secretly circulating a pro-
posal for a general cut of Z per cent
from the scale which went into effect
when the silk code was established.
Recently there was a 8 per cent cut.
Twenty thousand workers in the
Paterson district are involved, 10000
elsewhere.
Faced with a glut of silk products
due to consumer resistance to high
prices, the manufacturers hope for an
additional wage cut on the ground
that they must reduce prices or shut
down indefinitely.
ages III Tic Hlhuotly WNAh up
Under the code until they were about
20 per cent above the low point of the
depression" said A. J. Music, chair
mar of the Conference for Progress
sive Labor Action, "but the workers
still were unable to make a decent
living. A weaver, for instance, could
average little more than $40 a week.
If this threatened pay cut gets start
ed, it will inevitably mean a revival
of ehiseling by the small contractors,
and the wage and hour structure built
under the code will be broken down."
*##
Seven months on the breadline for
most of the LOO workers involved in
the strike of the American Radiator
Co. plant in Bayonne, N. j., came to
an end with the prospect of jobs for
about 700 when the plant reopens.
When in September the men asked
for a 25 per cent wage increase, they
were answered with a shutdown of the
plant. Most of them, with their fam
lilies numbering close to 5000 people,
were on city relief all winter.
1t is said that the possibility of not
being allowed to bid on government
contracts FASTENED the decision of the
company to reopen, after visits of
strike delegations to the Regional La
Dor Board in New York, to the COM
pany officials, and to the Natl. Com
pliance Board in Washington had fail
ed to bring settlement.
A 10 per cent increase was granted
over the minimum wage provided in
the code for the cast iron industry.
Only n shift will be operated at the
plant, with no assurance that, even if
the wage increase is in force, the men
will be given 40 hours work a week
despite the code.
*#&
Hearings on the remaining 800
grievances of anthracite miners not
yet heard by the Anthracite Concilia-
ton Board, have been recessed by UNI
pire James German, who was desig-
mated to decide miners grievances
against officers of the United Mine
Workers of America and coal oper-
ators.
power to legislate for the District of
Columbia, since it is the abode, though
temporary, of members of Congress,
but if the arrangement must continue
then it would seem that some rule
should be abduced which would pre-
vent lengthy and %protracted debate IN