The Broken Promises of County Printing
Everett printers expose how local officials ignored campaign pledges to keep public work union-contracted.
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Two years ago, a committee from the Typographical Union waited upon the candidates for county commissioners and other county offices and obtained from them a promise that if they were elected to office, the county printing would bear the union label. Men were elected who gave that pledge, and the printers assert it has not been kept. Further than that, they assert that printing contracts have been let to the only office in the city that is unfair to organized labor. They have expostulated but have been met with excuses and profuse explanations that did not explain. Someone in authority is responsible for the violation of these pledges, but the responsibility was shifted from one to another so rapidly that the printers were left in doubt as to whether the county commissioners or the office that transacted the county's business was to blame. Union voters are going to demand that office seekers produce a record of past performances that is clear rather than profuse pre-election promises.
“What good are campaign pledges if they are to be broken before they are cold?”
The tension between political candidates promising labor support and the reality of municipal contracting remains a perennial issue in Everett politics. The struggle over who gets the public contract—and whether that contract upholds labor standards—is a core component of local civic arguments today.
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