Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 09.djvu/156

LEFT STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS 122 STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS levels, and the high cost of living was no longer a pretext for demands for higher wages, the printers in New York City were able to obtain an elev :n per cent, raise in wages, already averaging higher than the incomes of most of the professional classes. After the signing of the armistice, which terminated the World War, in 1918, a world-wide period of labor unrest and disorder set in, accompanied by strikes of wide dimensions. In Feb- ruary, 1919, 45,000 union men went out on a sympathetic strike in Seattle, to aid 25,000 shipyard workers, who had walked out for higher wages a month previously. Within a few days the strike had spread to almost all the other crafts in the city and for over a week the theaters were closed, the street rail- ways ceased running and the majority of the stores were closed. This was the nearest approach to a general strike which had as yet taken place in the United States. So completely was the situation in the hands of the strikers that representatives of hospitals and other charitable institutions waited on the strike committee at union headquar- ters to beg the right of being supplied with milk for their patients. It was said that municipal authority had been shifted from the City Hall to labor head- quarters. This became so intolerable to the general public that a Vigilance Com- mittee was formed, which took the sit- uation in hand, and with public support behind it, managed to persuade a ma- jority of the strikers to return to their jobs, and the strike was broken. Of a peculiar nature was the police strike which occurred in Boston, in Sep- tember, 1919, when the police foi'ce of the city went out on strike to enforce their demand that they be recognized as a labor organization, and be granted the right to join the American Federation of Labor. Here again public opinion turned strongly against the strikers and caused it to be lost. Eventually all the strikers attempted to return to their jobs, but new men had been employed and a com- pletely new police force was organized. In this case public sentiment had been turned against the striking policemen by the fact that they permitted the criminal elements to carry on a mad orgy of loot- ing and robbery, without offering at least to maintain order. Ever since the Homestead strike in Pennsylvania, the steel workers in the steel mills had not been organized. In 1919 representatives of the American Federation of Labor determined to at- tempt to create a solid organization of these workers, whose working conditions were reputed to be very bad, in that they worked long hours and received com- paratively poor pay. In September the union leaders requested an interview with Judge Gary, president of the United States Steel Corporation, which em- ployed the large majority of the steel workers. Their object was to discuss with him the question of a steel workers* labor union. Judge Gary refused to meet the leaders, contending that they were not representatives of the men working in his mills. As a result a strike was called, and 268,000 men went out on strike. The United States Senate sent a committee into the field of disturbance to investigate, which reported that the strikers were anxious to negotiate with a view to settling the trouble by means of arbitration. Judge Gary, however, refused to consider negotiations, con- tending that a moral principle could not be compromised. The strike, therefore, continued. A peculiar feature of the methods employed by the strike commit- tee was the establishment of commissary stations, where the strikers and their families were supplied with food from the co-operative stores, this being the first time that these institutions had be- come a factor in labor troubles in this country, as they had been for many years back in European countries. The strike continued on into the early part of 1920, but was finally called off, the men returning to their work uncondi- tionally. In the fall of 1920 what re- mained of the strike fund was taken over by representatives of the American Federation of Labor and efforts were re- newed to organize the steel workers. That strikes are not only the weapons of hand workers was demonstrated in the strike of the actors in the early part of 1919. Rallying about the American Actors Equity Association, the actors demanded a revision of the form of con- tract which the theatrical managers' as- sociation compelled members of their companies to sign. Higher wages and pay for rehearsals were involved. At the call of the strike leaders high priced stars abandoned their plays an hour be- fore the curtain went up and practically every theater in New York City was closed the first night. Later the strike spread to Boston and Chicago. Finally the managers agreed to compromise; the Equity contract was adopted and the result was a complete triumph for the actors. Of lockouts there have been com- paratively few instances in American industrial life. Employers, however, have been more active in a slightly dif- ferent form of the lockout, known as the blacklist. Men known to be members of labor organizations are listed and these