The Unpaid Wages of Seattle's Mill Workers
Employees at a local mill face financial desperation after being notified that their promised wages for two weeks of labor cannot be paid.
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 mill employees of the mills owned by Oliver Bros. & Phillips were notified today that their wages for the past two weeks, which were due this afternoon, could not be paid. They were given to understand that they were not to be kept out of their money long, but many can ill afford to wait even for a few days and are very much distressed in consequence. N.B. Oliver, one of the members of the firm, said today that the estimates of the liabilities were all wrong and that the sum total would not reach half of $2,000,000, as that latter figure has been considered nearly correct.
“Many can ill afford to wait even for a few days and are very much distressed in consequence.”
While the scale of industrial failure in 1885 Seattle was different, the precarity of the working class remains a mirror to the modern Pacific Northwest. Today's gig economy and housing affordability crisis echo the same sentiment of the 1885 worker: the inability to endure even a short delay in payment without falling into deep distress.
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