WORK AID WAGES

Evening Star, Issue 12026, 26 October 1903, Page 7

WORK AID WAGES

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. FIFTEEN THOUSAND MINERS IDLii. NEW YORK. October 24. The Amalsramated Copper (jom[«tr.y's pro perties at Montana have been shut down, throwing idle 15,000 workers. October 25. (Received October 26. at 9.40 a.ui.) The shutting dowu of the Amalgamated Copper mines in Montana is the uutcoui? of the Judge's decision in some lon«-sta3id-ing litigation between the company and the bands.

THE SEAMEN'S AGREEMENT. MELBOURNE. October 26. (Received October 26, at- 9.20 a.m.) The Seamen's Union are advised by the Shipowners' Association that the present agreement would be extended for a further twelve months from January 31 next.

A writer in a South African piper says that thousands of men in Johanresburg are' out of work, thai thousands of ex-irregulars-are walking the streets in a deplorable condition, and that appeals ;ire being i=enrbroadcast for funds to help the liand Aid Association—a body who are doing all in their power to relieve the distress. Tiie writer states that he was shocked by awful scenes of squalor and starvation side by side with temples of affluence. The trade unionists in the United States have received a set-back by the decision of the Federal Court (through Judge Rogers, of Arkansas) in the labor-injunction case of Boyer and others v. the Western Union Telegraph Company. The plaintiffs averred that they had been dif-charged by the defendants from the latter's employ solely because they were members hi a St. Louis lodge of the Commercial Telegraphers' Union of America; that a conspiracy existed between the St. Louis officials of the Western Union Company to discharge all members of the union and to break it up; that, tinally, the Western Union maintained a socalled black list on which have been pktced the names of the members dis-jharn-ed, and that this list has been furnished to other employers, with the result that the blacklisted persons have been prevented from obtaining other employment. The United States Circuit Court, sitting as a court of inquiry, were requested to prevent the Western Union Company from discharging any employee because of his being a member of a labor union; to prevent- the St. Ltuis officers of the Western Union from consyiring to that end, and to forbid interference of any kind with the Telegraphers' Union; and to prohibit the Westtern Union Company from maintaining a black list, and from placing therein the names of men who might be discharged because of being members of a union. The Court rejected every request of the plaintiffs, and sustained "the defendant company on every point. Judge Rogers held that the Western Union Company had a perfect right to discharge employees, not under contracteral relations with the company, for airy cause, or without assigning any cause whatever. He held, further, that tliere could be no such thing as a conspiracy to commit a lawful act such as he liatl averred the discharge of the company's """«<1< 1 "««» because of beine members of a

mrion to be. He decided, finally, that the Western Union Company had a perfect right to maintain a list upon which might be placed the name of ;i discharged employee, and the cause of discharge, and that this list might be given to others, provided, of course, that its contents were truthful As the Bill of the plaintiffs alleged that the Commercial Telegraphers' Union we formed for moral and proper purposes the Court held that there should exist no objection upon the partVf an emplovee to ?£!? £ a di9char ge based upon the mefe fact that ho was a member of such a union If there was nothing discreditable about sm*n a. union how could it discredit a man to be known to belong to it?