BLACKMAILING AMERICAN EMPLOYERS.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11647, 29 July 1903, Page 7

BLACKMAILING AMERICAN EMPLOYERS.

fie recer* iv-v.'-l.r ions as to the blackmailing me-tho-is of labour h-iob-l'S in llie United States fully •-spi.uii* v» iiv hi as|r_»-iiiir to a gettlcinvir.. vi tiie great building strike m New York the iiTiiuns promised to curtuil the poutrs ~:' the "walking delegates." It Was hUh tlin--. indeed, that the. iullltetlCe- of these individuals w< diminishc-d, for it Kwai abundantly cl-ar that for their own personal benefit they have engineered many of the labour troubles which have hampered American industrial progress during tlw last if\v year.-.. "Walking de-legate" is the name, given to the- paid official agent of ft union. Ho does not work at his trade, his duty being to walk about, and sen- that the inefnbe-r- of his union are not- "put upon" in iiny way, and that they are ■trictly conforming tv the rigorous regulations by which they are bound. An example of his activity in this direction is afforded by an incident, that, look place

some weeks ago iv connection with the Hecla Iron-wovks in 'Brooklyn. {Some ornamental iron-work had to be put into a certain largo building in course of construction. According to the' i _le of the unions the structural iron-workers had to do a portion of the work, and the architectural ironworkers another part, and this rule was faithfully observed. "But when, the work was ifinishod," says the contractor who te-lls the _tory, "a walking delegate of lone of "the unions; came around. He jumped to " the conclusion that one set of men did the "whole work and gave a whistle, where- " upon all the iron-workers -went on strike, "tieing up all the work on the building." It was a week or two before the Hecla Company could find out what had caused the trouble. When at last they did hear they explained the circumstances to the walking delegate, who admitted that he had made a mistake. But when he was asked whether he was not going to order the men back to work, ho replied that they would nob go back until they were paid "waiting time"—in other words, they or he demanded their wages for the whole time they had been ou strike. Six thousand dollars was tha sum required to release the men from the embargo laid on them by their leaders, and though the company refused to pay ko mudi, in the end they had to settle the matter for 2500 dollars. Another strike was ordered because bricklayers made a hole in a"wall to admit an electric light, wire, the electrical workers' union claiming tl_vt it was their work, and in another instance a contractor narrowly escaped having a strike ou his hands because, being unable to find two masons' labourers on one occasion ho got two cellar-diggers to carry a plank across a street. So much for the arbitrary and utterly unreasonable nature of the "walking delegate's" methods. Had as they are, however, they are rendered worse by the fact, now established beyond doubt, that, they are often employed for his personal profit, and at the expense, not only of the victimised employer, but of the deluded men whom he pretends to protect. Sensational disclosures are reported to have been made as to the extent to which employers have been blackmailed by representatives of Unions under threats of strikes, and one builder declares that he can prove that last year over £400,000 was extorted from employers by this means. It is probable that these revelations have been made as the result of the action taken by Mr Jerome, District Attorney of New York, who has been conducting a vigorous campaign against these blackmailers. The walking delegate has had two strings to his bow. He has endeavoured, with success, to bleed employers by threatening to declare a strike unless he was bribed to •How matters to remain as they were, and when this plan failed and he ordered a strike, he has demanded and received large sums of money to end it. Some weeks ago Mr Jerome caused the arrest of two men for action of the latter kind, one having extorted from a contractor 2000 dollars, .and the other 300 dollars before they would "call off" a strike. In another case the contractors Jor a large building paid five walking delegates no less than £3500 to declare a strike off. One of the men is alleged to have made " a regular "business of declaring and settling strikes "for his own profit."' and he is evidently not singular in his conduct. The New York papers, while denouncing the action of the blackmailers for its effect, upon industry, rightly reserve their severest censure for the treachery shown by these sharks to the men who trusted them. It is asserted that not one strike in five, hundred has been caused by the discontent of the workers. In most cases idleness was a serious matter to them, and they would have preferred to go on working, but. believimr. from what they were told, that

a principle was at stake, they have obediently gone through the experience of a strike, sometimes at the cost of suffering and privation. Now, when they learn that they have been betrayed, that they have be-n the tools by which their trusted udvi-er enriches himself, their resentment must be. bitter indeed. It is little wonder that, learning by the experience of the

great strike just ended, and by the disclosures in the criminal courts, New \ork unionists have determined that in future

it shall be beyond the power of the walking delegate to use them as counters in his

own game.