Montana labor news., 1939-03-09
HAPPENINGS OF THE
CENTRAL LABOR BODY

The Silver Bow Trades and Labor
Council will recess its meeting on
the 21st of March at 8 o'clock in
order that a mass meeting may be
held for the nomination of school
trustees. The Silver Bow Trades
and Labor Council has been the
sponsor for the Independent Party
school ticket for many years and it
has become a custom in Silver Bow
county for a meeting of the Trades
and Labor Council to be turned into
a school mass meeting.
Mr.. Pat Deloughery of the Engi-
neers Union is chairman of the hide
penednt school ticket and Mr.. Roy
Richards of the Typographical Union
is secretary. At the meeting of the
Trades Council last Tuesday, no COM
mittees were appointed in respect
to either candidates or a campaign
but this will be done later on.
Senators Wheeler and Murray
answered letters which were sent to
them in respect to a request by the
Trades and Labor Council that Mr..
John Quinn be given the position of
zone engineer under the Works
Progress Administration left open by
the transfer of Herbert Fay to the
position of engineer for the Housing
Authority.
A number of requests were re-
ceived from politicians seeking the
endorsement of the central labor
council and the unions for various
offices in the coming city election.
Among these were Mr.. McFadden, a
member of the Miners Union and at
the present time a custodian of the
hall, who is running for police judge.
Another was from Bernard Holland,
the present city treasurer, who is
again seeking the same office. Louis
A. Buckley, who has served Butte
fairly and efficiently as police judge,
is again seeking the same office and
asked the help of organized labor.
Another echo of the trouble be-
tween the tobacco companies and
the teamsters and clerks was brought
up at the last meeting. The clerks
complain that all of the big tobacco
companies are delivering tobacco
supplies to unfair grocery stores, and
that while the teamsters have juris-
diction over these statesmen that
none of them belong to the Team
sters Union. The unions will be
patient for a while on this matter
until a reply is heard from some of
the big companies from a letter to
be sent out by Secretary Kennedy.
The Trades and Labor Council will
protest to the State Welfare Com
mission on any reduction in old age
assistance or aid to dependent chill
dren. This action arose from a state
ment alleged to be made by Mr..
Brandjord to the press that drastic
reductions will be made in these
cases. The miners delegates brought
out that in some parts of the state
the amounts paid to old people and
dependent children amounts to only
SIS or Sc a month.
= =
Frank Sullivan made a report of
the work done by the union dele
gates at the last session of the legis-
lature. 1t is published in another
part of the paper.
The Miners asked the Trades and
Labor Council to cooperate with
them in an effort to induce the Ana
conda Copper Mining Company and
other employers to stage a mora
forum upon all actions for garnish-
ment of wages of miners. Under
present conditions, the miners dele
gates said, many cases where men
are employed on government public
work projects and then go back to
work, that garnishments are imme-
diately placed on their wages and
this acts to either compel the men
to quit work in the mines or pre-
vent them from going to work in
private industry at all. Instances
were brought out that merchants in
this city had filed garnishments
against the wages of miners and had
compelled these men to pay the fees
and ~constable's expenses over and
above the debt that was owed the
merchant. Of course this is proper
under the law but it was alleged in
the Trades and Labor Council that
in some cases the miners pay as
much as from Sc to $3.50 fees and
service charges. Now the crux of
the situation seems to be this; that
if a garnishment is going to be
placed on a mans wages as soon as
he goes into the mines, he had better
not go back to the mines but remain
working on WPA or on other gov
eminent agencies. Insofar as the
Anaconda Company is concerned
also, if a moratorium could be placed
on the g%arnishment it would tend to
lower the turnover of employment