THE GARMENT STRIKE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 23, 28 January 1911, Page 19

THE GARMENT STRIKE.

A pitiful Incident. The condition of the striking garment Workers of Chicago, who number over 41,000, has now become pitiable in the extreme, wrote the Chxonicle'B correspondent on Bth December, as more than half their number are in abject poverty. The strike has existed so long that the uuion*e fund&.have run. out, and by far the majority of' the strikers are now practically dependent upon charity, The other unions are coming to the aid of the garment workers as far as possible, but winter being a crucial period in this western city and work none too well paid, considering the enormous increase in the cost of living help can only be given by the entailing of sacrifices upon other workers. It is proposed by the other unions to raise contributions for the strikers by the subscription of a shilling weekly from those in employment, aiuf this will . probably be done. Already 8000 children axe living on milk furnished by unionists and certain charitable organisations. The strikers are holding out for the "closed shop" and living Wages. They insist that it is only by the closed shop" that they can get such wag«s. Their chief complaint is that as 6ooti as they reach a wage big enough to keep body j and Bout together the employers cut | their rates or dismiss them, and intro duce new hands at low-er wages. Many i of the ten thousand women and girls among the strikers have been getting j lees than £1 a week, and in Chicago it is absolutely impossible to exist on euch a sum. «*— i I li i in »> law