The Teamsters’ First Stand
Facing mounting pressure from streetcar companies and civic authorities, Seattle’s cab drivers and carters organize a collective defense to protect their livelihoods.
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 teamsters of Seattle have had considerable trouble recently, and are determined to have less in the future. A meeting was held last night in Masonic hall with this purpose in view. Cab drivers, carters, and teamsters all mingled in one harmonious body and discussed freely the best manner in which to keep out of trouble in the future. The organization will designate the number of cabs to stand at certain corners, and when a teamster gets into trouble, the executive committee will exert itself to get him out. The executive committee shall also act as a committee on arbitration, in case a question of the rights of the teamsters is raised by the city authorities. A rumor was current last night at the meeting to the effect that the street railway companies would make an effort to have the cabmen driven off the avenues on which their lines were constructed, but the rumor could not be traced to a reliable source. The teamsters will hold another meeting next Tuesday evening, when the committee on constitution and by-laws will make their report.
“Cab drivers, carters and teamsters, all mingled in one harmonious body, and discussed freely the best manner in which to keep out of trouble in the future.”
This meeting captures the infancy of Seattle’s labor movement, as independent transport workers sought to band together against the rise of large corporations—a dynamic that mirrors the tension between modern gig-economy drivers and platform corporations today.
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