The Missing Payday at the First Seattle Railroad
Workers on the nascent Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad staged a walkout after a payroll error left them empty-handed.
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.
Workers employed at the first section of the Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad struck yesterday morning over wages. The matter is as follows: There was $410 due the men in the previous month. The men did not receive this through a mistake made by the foreman of the work in giving their time. The following arrangement was to be carried out which the contractor, Mr. Edwards, agreed to: the men were to perform their duty, and to receive their money at the City Surveyor’s. The City Surveyor was to make an approximate survey of the work the first of each month, and this was to be handed into the City Council for the amount of the trip to be reserved until the work was finished. This was done the first of October, and the trip finished and paid over to Mr. Butler, ignoring his arrangement. Mr. Butler, instead of paying the men their due, applied the money to his own account for the work on the strip, paying only a portion of it to them, and the balance was applied to other bills, mostly for labor. It was not discovered until after there had been a mistake made by the foreman in giving the amount of days when it should have been more. The Union in turn explained the matter to the Council, and it was a total loss. It could not be rectified until the next monthly settlement. When the contractor, Mr. Edwards, arrived, the men went to him with a complaint of the mistake, and not receiving satisfaction under the circumstances, he began to rave about the Council not coming to time. Then the men, they ignorantly began to clamor for the balance due and refused to work until it was paid. As it now stands, the Council has ordered an approximate survey, and a month’s trip to the amount of about $400, which will put an end to the present trouble.
“The men, they ignorantly began to clamor for the balance due and refused to work until it was paid.”
Labor disputes over wage theft and administrative 'mistakes' were as much a part of Seattle’s foundational construction era as they are today. While the actors have changed, the tension between contracted labor and bureaucratic mismanagement remains a fixture of the city's economic history.
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