Tacoma Labor Fights a British Granite Contract
The Trades Council says a Port dry-dock job is shutting out American stone and American workmen.
Tacoma, Wash.—The Trades Council charges that R. L. Fox, a British subject bidding for granite work on the Port Orchard dry dock, did not notify the government that some of the samples of stone submitted were from Nelson Island, B.C. Fox, having secured the contract, is getting out British Columbia granite; and the Trades Council, finding that American workmen and American granite are discriminated against on British Columbian government buildings, is demanding that the Navy Department compel Fox to use superior American granite in preference to inferior British Columbian rock, and is interesting labor organizations of the Coast to join actively in this protest.
“American workmen and American granite are discriminated against on British Columbian government buildings.”
Public contracts still turn on debates over Buy American rules and local hiring. The 1894 protest shows the same question—whether public money should support local labor and materials—being fought out on a dry-dock job.
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