Electrical Union Challenges Municipal Power Plans

Union labor leaders in the electrical industry have issued an open letter to all labor unions attacking the Bone public ownership bill, declaring that the economic interests of the electrical trade are in jeopardy. The labor movement has in the past and will in the future support any movement towards public ownership, but they will, as they demonstrated at the recent convention of the State Federation of Labor, withdraw support if the economic interest of any trade union is placed in jeopardy. Officials of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers point out that only non-union men are employed by the municipal lighting plants of Seattle and Tacoma and that conditions at both the Skagit and Cushman projects are deplorable from this point of view. The nonunion conditions, according to this appeal, do not apply only to the electrical workers, but it is seldom that a union man is employed and this includes carpenters, painters, truck-drivers, machinists, etc. We therefore feel justified in asking the rest of organized labor to come to our assistance, as we felt that we would have a prior claim in the labor movement above this political question.