The Great Crew Shortage of 1887
Facing a labor scarcity and rising costs, Seattle ship owners considered an radical, cost-cutting plan to import crews from the East Coast.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Ship owners are alarmed. Faced with a shortage of labor, they are threatening to hire crews from the East Coast. It is believed that it would be cheaper to bring these men West than to pay the current high wages on the Coast. The idea is to turn to the markets of New York. They say that a crew of 30 men for two months would cost about 800 dollars in wages, plus 300 more for reputable railroad rates. This would make a total cost of a crew of about 1,100 dollars, against 1,600 dollars under the existing system. The agents of the Coast Seamen's Union have been notified of the latest advance. The ships will likely have to pay the new scale of wages or face a stoppage of work.
“It is believed that it would be cheaper to bring these men West than to pay the current high wages on the Coast.”
The 1887 effort to break local labor power by importing cheaper labor from across the country is a familiar refrain in Pacific Northwest economic history. Today, the tension has shifted from shipping crews to the broader tech and service economies, but the debate over 'local wage scales' versus 'market rate' continues to define Seattle's housing and labor crisis.
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