﻿OOLITIC LIMESTOXE INDUSTRY 



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1903. They asked also tliat a second sawyer be employed in 

 each mill having nine or more saw-gangs/"*^ There were no fur- 

 ther developments of note nntil April 9, when the Federal Labor 

 Union proposed a scale of wages for its members, also to take 

 effect May 1, 1903. 



So far, the avoAved cause of the strike was the inequalities 

 in the wages paid for the same kind of labor. The scale asked 

 for, however, was higher than the average prevailing rate, al- 

 though it was not above the maximum rate. Moreover, a scale 

 proposed by the operators was rejected because it proposed an 

 insufficient increase : and hence it may reasonably be concluded 

 that a desire for higher wages was one of the causes of the strike. 



Employers generally name the desire for recognition of the 

 union as an important cause of the strike. Union men deny 

 this, and indeed only one union in the district asked for recog- 

 nition. This was the Quarrymen's Protective Union, wdiich, 

 some time after the strike had begun, asked the Bedford Quar- 

 ries Company to recognize their union and to employ only union 

 men. The demand does not appear to have been insisted upon, 

 however, and can hardly be regarded as one of the principal 

 causes of the strike. The statement made by several employers 

 that ''strike fever" was a cause doubtless has some degree of 

 validity, in accordance with the tendency of comparatively new 

 unions to emphasize their existence by means of a strike. How- 

 ever, of these various causes, that of the inequalities of wage 

 scales appears to have been the primary and moving cause. 



After the submission of the demand of the Federal Labor 

 Union, the employers formed an association, and on April 17, 

 1903, submitted a scheme for a more general revision of wage 

 rates than had yet been proposed. This was rejected by the 

 workmen on the ground that it made an insufficient advance 

 upon the prevailing rates, and the Federal Labor Union, acting 

 as a central body, made a counter proposition which w^as in turn 

 rejected by the employers. On the 29th of April, the Planer- 

 men's Union submitted to the employers its request for a uniform 

 scale. No agreement having been reached by the first of May, 

 the members of the two organizations walked out and the mills 

 and quarries shut down indefinitely. Following this action the 

 Stationary Engineers and the Quarrymen's Protective Union 

 each presented a formal request for a new scale, the latter organ- 

 ization asking also for recognition and the closed shop. 



^3 Only t^vo companies at that time employed these second men. 



