The Seattle Star Newspaper, October 2, 1919, Page 15

THE ohn am ena + an 2, 1919. UNIONS REFUSE TO ARBITRATE THEIR IMPOSSIBLE DEMANDS Arrogant Stand of Building Trades Unions Responsible for Trouble and Delay i in Building Industry For thirty days the construction of homes, schools and commercial buildings vitally needed in Seattle has been interrupted and delayed by a wholly unnecessary strike of the carpenters, plasterers, cement finishers and laborers for higher wages, a strike the employers were willing at all times to settle by arbitration. For thirty days of perfect weather the people of Seattle have seen the building of homes held back when people are clamoring for houses and new arrivals are leaving Seattle every day because they can find no place to live; when schools are being run double shift for lack of new buildings. For thirty days ‘they have seen work delayed on new factories and commercial build- ings demanded by the industrial and commercial growth of the city. THEY HAVE SEEN THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS SLIPPING AWAY FROM SEATTLE DAILY BECAUSE WORKMEN WOULD NOT ARBITRATE when em- ployers were seeking peace and continuous production. It is time the People of Seattle should be informed of the responsibility for this delay in building, this irreparable loss in population, business and employment. Read the following history of the Building strike to date: HISTORY OF THE BUILDING STRIKE Late in August, notice was served on contractors that wage increases had been fixed by the crafts as follows: Carpenters from $7.50 to $10 per day, plasterers from $9 to $10, cement finishers from $8 to $10, hod carriers and plasterers’ helpers from $7 to $8 per day and un- skilled labor from $6 to $7. The increases for the plasterers and cement finishers were to go into effect August 25th, and the other increases on September Ist. The short notice of the wage demand» given by the unions allowed practically no time for negotiations. The Master Builders’ Association met on Saturday, August 23d, and voted unanimously to refuse to grant the de- mands as fhade, but to ask the building trades to remain at work while the demands were arbitrated by a board. COST WOULD BE PROHIBITIVE The ground on which the master builders refused the increase was that further increases of building costs would practically put an end to construction in Seattle of anything but small houses. The majority of building projects announced during the past four months had been abandoned when the prospective builders learned the cost and the master builders were convinced that increase of wages involving a large increase in building cost would practically put an end to investment in com- mercial and industrial structures and would lessen the building of homes greatly. On August 26th, the contractors and owners of build- ings under construction met and the owners pledged themselves to back up ¢he contractors in their refusal to grant the increases, pending arbitration. OFFERED ARBITRATION AND BACK PAY On August 28th, the Master Builders’ Association sent a communication to the Building Trades Council propos- ing settlement of the wage demands without cessation of work, along the following lines: That work continue on the basis of wages paid August 1st, pending arbitration of the wage demands, any in- creases granted by an arbitration board to be retroac- tive to September Ist. -That the unions proceed to ratify the tentative agree- ment between the employers and the union, which had been before them for some weeks preceding the wage demands, and that the arbitration be conducted under the terms of the agreement. The unions refused to continue with the work and treat with the builders on this basis and went on strike on September 2d. a . AGREEMENT WAS PEACE PROPOSAL The tentative agreement was the basis of settlement insisted upon by the owners and master builders. It grew out of the short strike of the building trades in May which was settled by the employers granting the demands with the understanding that an agreement would be framed and ratified providing for peaceful set- tlement of all future differences. The suggestion came from representatives of the Building Trades Council dur- ing the strike and the employers accepted it and paid the advances demanded with the understanding that there would be arbitration and peace in the future. The proposal was that a committee of seven be formed to draft the agreement. The committee was formed with-" out delay, the advice of the Building Trades Council rep- resentatives being followed in forming the committee, which was made up as follows: LABOR HELPED FORM AGREEMENT Chas, W. Doyle, business agent of the Central Labor Council; J. A. Roberts, president of the Plasterers, and Frank W. Cotterill, secretary of the Building Trades Council, representing the unions; C. C, Cawsey and FE. S. Booker, representing the contractors; Roy J. Kinnear, representing the public, and John Graham, architect, as chairman and umpire between the interests represented. After five weeks of continuous work, this committee rendered a unanimous, signed report embodying a ten- tative agreement outlining principles and rules to be fol- lowed in the adjustment of relations between employers and workers, which is probably the most advanced docu- ment in this line ever drawn by such a committee in the United States. Apparently it provided for peace and just treatment of both: employer and employe in the building industry. The basis of the agreement was the submission of all differences to a mediation board with the provision that there should be no strikes and lock- outs and that all parties would abide by the findings of the board. AGREEMENT RATIFIED BY CONTRACTORS This agreement, submitted to the Master Builders’ Association and the unions in June, was considered im- mediately by the association and ratified by them on June 24 with the exception of the makeup of the adjust- ment board which many of the builders considered to be too favorable to the unions. However, the agreement was finally ratified by the Master Builders’ Association as it stood on August 19. What consideration was given to the agreement by the unions we do not know. No action was taken on it by any of the unions prior to the strike. Instead these new demands were brought forward. As the Master Builders granted the May demands, with the understanding that the whole matter of wages and working conditions and rules was to be adjusted by a board, they felt that the action of the unions in de- manding further increases with no provision for adjust- ment of the demands was a violation of the spirit of the negotiations and so refused the dermands with the coun- ter proposal that the agreement be ratified and the differences arbitrated under it. UNIONS REFUSE TO ARBITRATE At no time, preceding the strike, or during its prog- ress, have the unions, as represented by the Building Trades Council, been willing to submit their wage de- mands to arbitration. They take the arrogant position that the employers and the public have nothing to say about the wages in the building trades. It was this arrogant position of the union committee which put an end to the negotiations following the an- nouncement that the Building Trades Council had ap- pointed a committee to confer with the contractors to settle the strike. They declared that the wage demands must be granted before any agreement would be dis- cussed. In other words, they would talk arbitration after their demands had been satisfied. UNIONS TURN AGREEMENT DOWN Finally the question of ratifying the tentative agree- ment and settling the strike under its terms was sub- mitted by the Building Trades Council to a referendum vote of the unions. The vote was against ratification and settlement, according to word received by the Master Builders on September 20. On receipt of word of final refusal to arbitrate, the Master Builders voted unanimously to resume work on the old scale of wages and to employ any workmen who applied, regardless of union affiliations. Work has been resumed on many buildings, approximately 1,000 men being engaged and the force increasing every day. The strike is at a deadlock, with building getting under way again rapidly during the past ten days. » Philadelphia . WHY THE DEMANDS ARE IMPOSSIBLE Would Bring New Building to a Standstill in Seattle The demands made on Master Builders to advance the wages of carpenters from $7.50 to $10 per day, plaster- ers from $9 to $10, cement finishers from $8 to $10, hod carriers and plasterers’ helpers from $7 to $8, and labor- ers from $6 to $7, were impossible to grant, because: Owners and contractors engaged in building realize that the granting of a $10 per day wage to carpenters, with the increases to other mechanics, and a $7 wage to’ un- skilled labor would put an end to construction of build- ings of any size in this city ‘and put Seattle out of the running in the competition for new industries and new business in this period of expansion when so much is be- ing offered in this line to the cities which can take ad- vantage of the opportunities. With carpenters working for $7 per day in San Francisco and Oakland, $6.68 per day in Portland and in Tacoma, with wages for other building trades in*proportion, we were in the position of resisting the demands for $10 per day for carpenters and increases for other trades, or of going out of busi- ness as soon as the work on which we were engaged came to an end. PEAK WAGES PAID IN SEATTLE While the advance asked by carpenters from $7.50 per day to $10 per day was the principal point of dif- ference, increases in every line of the building trades and building material trades would be involved, if the carpenters’ demands were granted, for there is a recog- nized differential between the scales of the different crafts and, if the carpenters were granted the scale they asked, other crafts, plumbers, electricians, etc., higher paid under the existing scale, would demand increases to maintain the differentials and the result would be a prohibitive inerease in labor costs of building. That the wages paid carpenters in Seattle before the strike compare more than favorably with wages paid in other cities is shown by the following wage scales, taken from the August issue of The Carpenter, the monthly organ and official publication of the United Brother- hood of Carpenters and Joiners: SEATTLE Indianapolis Ind. .... San Francisco . Kansas City, Mo lllens > os: un St. Paul, Minn.. Boston, Mass. . $1.20 to 8,00 porenee. 35° Birmingham, Ala.. ses B20 Tacoma ... steeees Dayton, 0.... . 6.00 Chicago ... $6.40, ; Butte, Mont. ... 8.00 Cincinnati, 0. .. Washington, D. C. Wheeling, W. Va.. Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Mo. Y y Loa Angeles, Cal. Dallas, Tex..... Cleveland, 0. Saved Milwaukee Detroit, Mich. .... Mobile, Ala... New York City.... . aes OD Buffalo, N. Y. Nashville, ‘Tenn. Duluth, Minn... Charleston, 8. C 5 Savannah, Ga Denver, Colo. New Orleans, La.. The disparity between the $6 per day paid unskilled labor in the building industry in Seattle is even greater than the disparity in carpe nters’, wages, unskilled labor reeciving as low as $3.50 to $4 per day in some Eastern cities, Seattle representing the peak wages for the large cities of the country, yet unskilled building labor is de- manding $7 per day in, Seattle. WE ARE DOING ALL POSSIBLE TO UPBUILD SEATTLE MASTER BUILDERS ASSOCIATION 4