Labor's Seat at the Charter Table
The Western Central Labor Union moves to influence Seattle’s city charter revision, ensuring the workingman’s voice is heard at City Hall.
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 Western Central Labor Union at its meeting last night discussed the proposed revision of the city charter and decided to issue a call to every labor union in the city to send one delegate to act in conjunction with the legislative committee in drawing up recommendations on matters of interest to the workingmen. These recommendations will be presented to the committee charged by the city council with the work of revision through W.O. Armstrong, whose appointment as the representative of the Western Central Labor Union is satisfactory to that body. The committee invites any workingman in the city, whether a member of a union or not, to attend and make any suggestions on the subject they think proper.
“The committee... invites any workingman in the city, whether members of labor unions or not, to attend.”
Seattle’s governance has long been a battleground for labor influence. This 1893 organizing effort for city charter reform prefigures decades of municipal labor politics that continue to shape local council elections today.
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