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to them. The quarry owners claimed, on the other hand, that payment every two weeks was impossible on account of the time required to measure up the stone and make out pay-rolls.

In the course of the struggle general organizations covering the district were formed by both parties, the employers forming the Medina Sandstone Producers' Association of Orleans County and the quarrymen establishing the General Executive Board of the Stone Industry for Western New York representing three local unions in the county, viz.: a Journeymen Stone, Cutters' Association, a Knights of Labor Assembly and a local assembly of the American Federation of Labor.

The settlement of the strike was finally effected on July 6th. A representative of the State Board of Mediation and Arbitration had visited Albion on June 26th, and in conference with the quarry owners had suggested that the payment of wages twice monthly should be conceded to the men on condition that the latter drop the contention for employment of union men only. To this the employees agreed, and when the proposition was submitted to the quarrymen at a conference of the parties on July 6th it was adopted by them. The terms of settlement were embodied in an agreement to hold for six months, which is printed in full in Part IV (Document I).

GROUP II. METALS, MACHINERY AND APPARATUS. METAL WORKERS-EAST SYRACUSE.

[Table I, No. 117, Page 38.]

At noon of May 4th the employees of the M. S. Benedict Manufacturing Co., makers of silver-plated ware at East Syracuse, found the plant closed upon returning for their afternoon's work. Though it was a season of slack work and certain repairs were to be made, the shut down was really a lockout of the employees because of the formation by the latter of a union. No complaints had been presented to the firm and the movement for the organization appears to have been prompted by general considerations rather than any existing grievances. The factory remained closed until the end of the controversy

on May 22d, all the employees to the number of 134 losing a little over 2,000 working days in the aggregate. On May 22d a meeting of the employees resulted in the appointment of a committee to negotiate with the firm, which committee and later the employees almost unanimously accepted a proposition made by the firm. The terms of settlement involved a loss for the employees in respect of the main contention, the union being abandoned, but in return certain concessions by the firm were made as to piecework and registering of time, and the company agreed not to join any trust or combination of manufacturers for five years, that being the term for which the employees agreed not to join any labor organization. The agreement signed by the two parties is published in Part IV (Document II).

BLAST FURNACE MEN-BUFFALO.

[Table I, No. 113, Page 40.]

A strike of employees of the Buffalo Union Furnace Co., which lasted a month, began in one furnace on April 25th, the men at the other of the company's two furnaces going out three days later. All the employees, 400 in number, struck, both furnaces being closed, the loss in working time aggregating about 10,400 days. The trouble began with the demand of the gang in the stockroom of one furnace that an additional hand should be employed there, the refusal of which by the company precipitated the strike. Afterwards a demand for an increase of wages of from 10 to 12 per cent took a prominent place in the controversy. It was claimed by the men that both their contentions would simply restore the conditions in existence a year earlier, both force and wages having been reduced. The employers maintained that their wage scale was already the highest in the locality. A member of the State Board of Mediation and Arbitration interviewed both the parties and arranged two conferences between them, both of which were fruitless. The end of the dispute came finally through mutual concessions arranged at subsequent conferences of the firm and a committee of the men's union and resulted in a signed agreement (see

Part IV, Document III), which secured to the men the additional stockroom help, preference to union men and wage rates higher than those in force before the dispute, the advance being the result of a general change of furnace wages in the vicinity, however. The agreement as to wages was for five months only, at the end of which a conference of the company and a committee of employees was to draw up a scale for the succeeding six months. The agreement calls for the settlement of all differences either by conference or, that failing, by arbitration.

STRUCTURAL IRON WORKERS-BUFFALO.

[Table I, No. 192, Page 40.]

On Tuesday, August 13th, 32 members of the Structural Iron Workers' Union employed on the Dakota elevator at Buffalo struck on account of a non-union assistant foreman being employed, demanding that he either join the union or be removed.

On August 15th the structural iron workers employed on the Stony Point steel plant struck in sympathy with those employed on the Dakota elevator, as did also those employed on the South Buffalo bridge.

On the 16th a conference was held between the representatives of the employers and employees, resulting in a satisfactory settlement by the employers removing the objectionable assistant foreman. The men returned to work on the 17th instant.

MACHINISTS-VARIOUS LOCALITIES.

[Table I, Pages 42-49.]

The largest dispute of the year was the movement of the machinists instituted May 20th throughout the State, and in fact throughout the United States, for a nine-hour day without reduction of wages. The demands presented to all employers of machinists except those in Government, railway or factory service were as follows:

1. Inauguration of the nine-hour workday.

2. Increase of 121⁄2 per cent in wages.

3. Standard rates for overtime as follows: Time and one-half to midnight; double time from midnight until morning, and double time for Sundays and holidays.

4. Machinists working on night turns to receive extra compensation for all time worked over 54 hours per week, in accordance with rate set forth in article 3.

5. The regulation of the number of apprentices to be employed, one being allowed for the shop, and one for each five journeymen employed. 6. That both sides should agree to submit any disputes that might arise in the future to the Board of Arbitration.

The second demand refers to hourly rates, and was designed to offset the reduction of hours, the object being simply to keep daily earnings the same under the nine-hour day as previously. Employers were asked to sign an agreement for one year embodying the above terms, and in cases of refusal the orders of the officers of the International Association of Machinists, issued with the consent and approval of the membership at large, were for a strike on May 20th.

According to a statement by the president of the Machinists' Association* the demands were presented to some 340 firms in the State, employing about 16,000 machinists, nearly 300 of these establishments being in the larger cities. Each local union conducted its fight under the direction of the national officers, but in many cases made its own terms with the employers of its members, the result being a great variety in the terms of settlement in different localities. Numerous settlements were reached without strikes, but on the other hand there were many stoppages of work. Returns for all of the latter the Board was unable to secure, but reports for sixteen have been collected, of which three were in Buffalo, two in Rochester, two in Lockport and one each in Amsterdam, Carthage, Dunkirk, Little Falls, Newburgh, Oswego, Seneca Falls, Syracuse and Watertown. These sixteen involved seventeen firms with 4,302 employees. Twelve of the firms were closed by the disputes, 1,683 of the employees were on strike and 1,825 others were affected, making a total of 3,508 out of work. The total loss of time in working days was 61,823, of which 41,134 were lost by those directly and 20,689 by those indirectly concerned. All but one of the sixteen were settled either by direct negotiation be

See Bulletin of the Department of Labor No. 10, page 200.

tween the parties (nine disputes, with 2,856 strikers), or by return to work on the employers terms (five disputes with 475 strikers), or by replacement of the strikers with new hands in one case involving but seven employees. One strike of 170 machinists in two shops was settled by arbitration of the question of wages after hours had been reduced to nine. As to results, in three cases only out of the sixteen did the workpeople win the whole of their demands, and but 63 employees were directly concerned in these. Six strikes were complete failures, all but seven of the 393 workers participating therein going back to work under the old conditions and those seven losing their positions. In seven disputes, with 1,227 workpeople, or 73 per cent of all those directly concerned in the sixteen disputes, the result was a compromise. These compromises took a variety of forms. In one (500 employees directly involved) there was no change of hours, but wages were advanced 10 per cent; in a second (170 employees) hours were reduced to nine, but wages were advanced but 4 per cent, the result being a reduction of daily wages; in a third hours were reduced from 60 to 59 in the winter and to 55 in summer by means of reduction of one hour on Saturday in winter and a half-holiday on Saturday in summer, hourly rates of wages remaining the same; in, a fourth the Saturday half-holiday in summer was inaugurated, together with an advance of about 7 per cent in wages; while in three others the only gain was the Saturday half-holiday in the summer. Summing up for these sixteen disputes as to hours alone the results were as follows:

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These were the results for perhaps 10 per cent of the machinists in the State who participated in the nine-hour movement, but they cannot be taken as representative of the results

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