The Struggle for Tacoma Avenue
When the city of Tacoma withheld payment from contractors Cadwell & Vesey, labor tensions boiled over into a stand-off, highlighting the recurring fight to ensure workers get paid for their toil.
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There has been a whole lot of trouble over the settlement of Cadwell & Vesey's contract for the improvement of Tacoma Avenue. In the contracts made out for the city by City Attorney Carroll, there was a provision that the final warrants should not be given to the contractors until the Council Committee on Streets and Public Property were assured that the workmen had all been paid. The improvement has been completed for some days and the contractors are demanding the warrants upon the treasury. The Council has voted to grant them, subject to the provision in the contract. The Street Committee has answered the demands of the contractors with demands for a fulfillment of the conditions of the contract, and neither has complied with the demands of either. Mr. Cadwell met City Attorney Carroll in the City Clerk's office, and after some debate over the situation, the former declared his intention of bringing suit against the city at once if the warrants were not forthcoming. Shortly after that, Mr. Cadwell went to the City Attorney's office and signified a disposition to come to terms without going to law. There was a meeting of the Street Committee at the City Attorney's office, and it was decided that the warrants might be deposited in a bank, and the laborers given drafts against them; the balance that might be left over when these were paid could then be issued over to the contractors. Yesterday, in accordance with their agreement, Mayor Munson, Mr. Cadwell, and about four or five laborers gathered in the City Attorney's office and there held a grand pow-wow, which ended with a postponement of a settlement until tomorrow, on account of a technicality.
“It is the only way to do that: to make it a part of the contract that the city requires the contractor to show that their men are paid their wages before the city pays the contractor.”
This 1887 standoff over wage protection and municipal contract transparency resonates with today's frequent disputes regarding prevailing wage requirements and the exploitation of construction labor in Seattle’s rapidly developing urban core.
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