The French Laundry Showdown
A bitter labor dispute over an engineer's credentials at the French Laundry reveals the intense struggle for union recognition in 1912 Everett.
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.
F. A. Durr, proprietor of the French Laundry, recently claimed in local papers that he was being persecuted by a union conspiracy. The core of his complaint was that the Trades Council demanded he fire his engineer, who had failed an oral exam conducted by the engineers' union. However, members of the union provided a different account, stating they had attempted to negotiate with Mr. Durr for months. When the candidate, Mr. Chandler, was finally examined, he appeared unable to answer even the most basic questions about boiler safety, remarking at one point that he was merely the 'guy what pulls the levers.' The Trades Council, which took four months to deliberate before taking action, maintained that their interest was solely in safeguarding machinery and human life, emphasizing the lack of state or city license laws for engineers.
“I'm the guy what pulls the levers.”
This dispute over workplace standards and 'open shop' policies highlights the early 20th-century battles that defined the American labor movement. The mention of the lack of professional licensing for engineers mirrors modern-day debates about labor protections and the vulnerability of workers in non-union environments.
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