Salmon Cannery Standoff in Seattle
Striking fishermen clash with cannery owner George T. Myers over pay rates and the threat of low-wage labor replacement.
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.
A committee from the Fishermen's Union, accompanied by President J. L. Murphy, of the Western Central Union, and W. G. Armstrong, a delegate to the Central, yesterday waited on George T. Myers, proprietor of the cannery, with a view to compromising their differences. Mr. Myers said he would pay 6.5 cents a fish, but that was the very best he would do; that he had his own nets and could get plenty of men to work for 5 cents per fish. The committee argued that if men fished for him at these rates, the union men would have to come down to the same, and then there was nothing to prevent prices from going even lower if some Chinese or Indians who could live cheaper could be found to do the work for less. No settlement was reached, but another conference takes place this evening. The cases against the five union men arrested for intimidating a non-union man were continued by Justice Von Tobel until tomorrow at 1 o'clock. The wind was too high yesterday for good fishing in the harbor, so neither side made a move.
“The committee argued that if men fished for him at these rates, the union men would have to come down to the same.”
This 1892 labor dispute captures a recurring tension in Seattle’s history: the exploitation of immigrant labor to suppress local wages. It highlights the early intersection of the labor movement and the exclusionary politics that would define the era’s civic debates.
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