LABOR, MOVEMENTS AND AGITATIONS OF. 



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cinity, and was refused by them. The rates of 

 compensation for puddling iron had been fixed 

 since 1875 by a scale based on the selling price 

 of bar-iron, under which it was agreed that the 

 wages of the puddlers should rise and fall with 

 that price. The demand for an advance was 

 now made at a time when the market rate for 

 iron had been lowered, and this fact was al- 

 leged by the manufacturers as their reason for 

 declining to accede to it. The workmen re- 

 sponded that the plea of the manufacturers 

 was hardly fair, for, while they paid for pud- 

 dling bar-iron, they did not sell the product as 

 bar-iron, and at the price of that article, but 

 put it upon the market in other shapes and at 

 higher prices than ruled for bar-iron ; and in 

 consideration of this fact they thought they 

 were entitled to a readjustment of their wages. 

 At about the same time these questions were 

 opened, the report of the American Iron and 

 Steel Association on the condition of the Amer- 

 ican iron-trade at the end of May appeared. 

 It showed that under various influences of 

 short crops and speculative excitement the de- 

 mand for most iron and steel products had sen- 

 sibly slackened, and prices had very generally 

 sympathized with the decline. Steel rails espe- 

 cially had undergone a remarkable fall in price. 

 The situation at the time was pronounced far 

 from encouraging, and in some respects dis- 

 couraging. It was also alleged that the price 

 of iron- ore had increased largely out of propor- 

 tion to the price of manufactured iron ; and a 

 calculation was published, showing that while 

 the cost in 1879 of producing a ton of iron 

 from the pig to the finished bar was $33, it 

 would, under the scale demanded by the strik- 

 ers, reach $52. 



A convention of manufacturers, at which 

 every iron firm west of the Alleghany Moun- 

 tains, except those in St. Louis and a few in 

 Cincinnati, was represented, met at Pittsburg 

 on the 30th of May, to consider what answer 

 to return to the demands of the Amalgamated 

 Association. The manufacturers of St. Louis 

 sent assurances that they intended to resist 

 every demand for an advance ; those of Cincin- 

 nati did not regard themselves as affected by the 

 strike, for they had already for some time been 

 paying, by special agreement, the price for 

 puddling now demanded by the Amalgamated 

 Association. With the exception of these 

 manufacturers, who were already operating 

 under special agreements with their workmen, 

 the meeting resolved to return a decided nega- 

 tive to the demand for a new scale. 



The strike went into operation on the first 

 day of June. The Amalgamated Association, 

 by which it was directed, is a body formed by 

 the union of the former separate organizations 

 of iron and steel workers, and was estimated to 

 include at this time about 75,000 members, or, 

 practically, all the skilled iron-workers in the 

 country, and was claimed to have a fund of 

 $500,000 in its treasury at Philadelphia. The 

 extent of the interests affected by the strike 



was shown in the following estimate of the 

 number of establishments and the men em- 

 ployed in them, which was made by an officer 

 of the Amalgamated Association: 



Not all of these men, however, it was added, 

 were out on strike. Six establishments had 

 signed the new scale, six or eight were already 

 paying the price demanded, or were employing 

 non-union men, and all the Western steel- 

 works, some of which were included in the 

 list, continued in operation. The manufactur- 

 ers took advantage of the stoppage to repair 

 their works; and some thought it was well 

 that it had occurred ; for they were apprehen- 

 sive of embarrassment, if their orders should 

 continue to diminish, while production was 

 kept up at the full rate. It was even consid- 

 ered advantageous that a few mills should con- 

 tinue running, for they would supply the ex- 

 isting demand, and, by preventing a "short- 

 ness " in the market, would remove the temp- 

 tation from the closed mills to yield to the 

 demands of the strikers, for the sake of se- 

 curing the business that might offer. On the 

 3d of June the workmen in the mills in Cin- 

 cinnati decided to join in the strike, on the 

 ground that the committee who had made the 

 agreement with the proprietors, under which 

 they were continuing their operations, had 

 exceeded their constitutional powers. This 

 course was not approved by the officers of the 

 Amalgamated Association, and was receded 

 from under their advice. 



The Cleveland Eolling-Mill, which had not 

 employed avowed union men, filled the ranks 

 of its workmen with new men, and kept on. 

 The strikers demanded that its managers should 

 sign an agreement to be governed by the rules 

 of the union. The company refused to do so, 

 saying that their policy had been, and would 

 continue to be, so to conduct the affairs of the 

 concern as to insure to its workmen the high- 

 est wages its business would warrant, and that 

 they trusted that "the pleasant relations now 

 existing will not be disturbed by permitting 

 outsiders to influence and mislead you." A 

 committee, representing the strikers, subse- 

 quently visited the president of the company, 

 to say that they had been deceived into going 

 into the strike, and desired to return to work. 

 The president declined to receive the men as a 

 committee, for the company was determined 

 not to recognize the union in any manner, and 



