The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1941-11-01
THEY WAITED TIL IT STARTED


It doesn't 90 back very far. bur it
covers period of great significance for
this eity-a period which most of as would
ike 10 avoid going through again.
And. since that is the case. we should
like 70 suggest that Key West businessmen,
and civic leaders in general. study it. and
remember.
In the issue of July 81, 1871. we car
RED the story that striking carpenters and
laborers had returned TO their jobs on de-
Tense construction. They returned. If you
remember, partly because a committee of
local businessmen had told them their case
would be carried to the highest authority if
they would go back and turn the wheels
again
We said in an editorial the following
day:
Granted that there has been a loss,
and that it cannot be regained through
worrying about it, the question now would
seem to be what Key West has learned
through its much-discassed experience with
labor trouble
And that question, we think. is up to
the civic leaders who helped to end the
strike by promising aid for the unions in
getting complete new appraisal of the
living cost and necessary wage scale in this
city.
with that promise, Fred Dion and
the others at the chamber of commerce who
worked with him, helped TO bring the strike
! to an end
by carrying out that promise, they
viii be keeping faith with the workmen, and
they viii be removing the likelihood and
the necessity Of another strike"
The businessmen were pleased when
the carpenters and laborers went back to
work-so pleased. in fact, that they must
have forgotten their promise.
For nothing at all happened, and in
September we told Of another strike, a
strike which was settled Sept. 30, on the
same day when another committee was
formed to act permanently as a mediator
IN all defense labor controversies.
So We have two committees now, both
dedicated to the proposition that the labor
ing man in Key West shall get fair trial.
A few weeks ago. representatives of
labor and Of the Belcher Oil company at
Boca Chica met in the office Of Mayor Al
bury. They met because the unions had
protested that the Beleher company, con-
structing an airport at Boca Chica, had re-
fused Cor neglected) to hire any Key West
workers.
At the end of the conference, the com
pany men agreed to do their hiring through
the Florida State Employment Service, Civ
ing preference to local men, and the union
officials went away satisfied County Com
mission Chairman Carl Bervaldi had made
one protest to the Beleher company, and
planned another. but the success of that
conference led him to drop the subject
But the union officials have con-
tinued to protest. and there has been a gen
eral belief in Key West that the company
either was forgetting its promise, or was
side-stepping It. The claim of the union
leaders is that the company actually has
made show of hiring men through the en-
ployment agency, but has promptly fired
them again
So that is as far as the lesson goes.
Civic leaders undoubtedly viii be very
useful in settling another labor dispute. but
we wonder if they could not make them
selves considerably more useful now by
Strengthening out the difficulty before it
starts.
Union records show between Is and
20 Key Westers on payroll said to include
197 names And Key Westers. you remem-
Der, are paying one mill this year for that
airport
IF the union charges are untrue, this
would be a good time for one of the COM
mittees to find Il out If they are true. It
would be good time to find out why.