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Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 292, 8 December 1900, Page 4 (Supplement)

There is a curious strike now going on in New York, the parallel of which has perhaps never yet been known. The famous jewellery firm of Tiffany and Co. do most of the wedding invitation and other "swell' engraving business of New York. The firm employs 60 engravers, the majority of whom receive from £18 to £20 a week, and the rest from £10 to £15. They are said to be the highest-paid workmen in the world. The men have gone on strike, not because any attempt was made to reduce their wages or increase their hours of labour, but because the firm refused to put their factory under the rules of the Engravers' Union. When the firm made an attempt to employ outside men, the strikers proceeded to picket the factory, and the remarkable spectacle was presented of strikers dressed in frock coats and silk hats and patent leather boots, wearing diamonds, and looking as if they might be Trust magnates rather than downtrodden workmen out of a job and trying to prevent other men from working.