Longshoremen Halt the Coal Dock
A standoff over wages at the Seattle coal docks ended with a demonstration that forced non-union laborers to walk off the job.
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.
The ship Henry Villard, loaded with railroad iron, moved up to the coal dock yesterday morning to discharge freight. A force of union men under Stevedore Brown & McCabe, of Tacoma, went aboard the ship to unload the iron, and the Oregon Improvement Co. sent Captain George M. Garrison to pile the rails on the island between the Ocean and City docks. Garrison is not on good terms with the Seattle Longshoremen and Rigger's Union and employs non-union men. He brought down some twenty of his employees, who are paid 30 cents an hour, the union scale being 50 cents. About 10 o'clock the iron was raised to the wharf by the union men. The dock committee of the union was on hand, and the non-union men were ordered to stop work unless they were paid 50 cents an hour. A crowd of 300 men soon gathered on the wharf, all true blue unionists, and a very little argument induced the non-union men to quit work.
“A crowd of 300 men soon gathered on the wharf, all true blue unionists, and a very little argument induced the non-union men to quit work.”
This reflects the volatile labor environment of late 19th-century Seattle, where the docks were the primary theater of economic power. The tension between union and non-union labor over the 'prevailing wage' continues to shape regional politics.
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