Organized Labor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 25, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 47.

Chicago has another great strike in progress. All the union street-car men are now out, and the companies are endeavoring to operate the roads with non-union motormen and conductors. Some progress has been made in this direction, tho the great bulk of the cars are not running. Police are riding on the cars, and squads of police are accompanying them in patrol wagons to prevent the mobs from destroying the cars and killing or injuring the operators and passengers. On the first day of the strike many of the cars that were sent out were badly damaged. The firemen in the power-houses are also on strike. Ten thousand miners in the coal mines of Colorado went out on strike on November 9, for an eight-hour day, increased wages, and the recognition of the miners' organization. The miners refuse to confer with their employers until the union is recognized. The annual convention of the American Federation of Labor opened at Boston on November 9. President Gompers in his address stated that the Federation had increased its membership during the year by 442,000. Foreseeing a period of industrial depression, he advised the workingmen not to submit to a reduction of wages which the employers would probably attempt in order to tide over the industrial depression, nor to submit to an increase in the hours of labor. He reported that never before had there been such uniform growth in unionism as during the past year. During this convention a resolution was introduced and warmly spoken to which declared that the so-called open-shop policy, whether under private or government management, could not be tolerated by organized labor. Many of the delegates took the ground that President Roosevelt's position on the union labor question was an affront to organized labor.