The Swindled Worker of the South Prairie Line
A laborer finds that the Northern Pacific Railroad's subcontracting system is a trap of unpaid wages and unreachable bosses.
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.
Work has been stopped at Bennett’s camp on the Cascade division of the Northern Pacific Railroad, and liens have been attached. The men are yet unpaid, and the claims are worthless without Bennett’s signature, and he will not be responsible for his sub-contractor’s bills. The men say they have worked nearly every day all winter, and have barely lived. Provisions were very high. Bennett charged 15 cents a pound freight from South Prairie to his sub-contractors, and hay was $40 a ton at one time. All supplies had to be bought at his store at the camp by his sub-contractors. If a man was lucky enough to get a check for his pay from Bennett, he was obliged to go to South Prairie, 16 miles on foot, and there he would get a draft on a Tacoma bank, which caused a trip to Tacoma, 30 miles by rail. His net pay was $2.00, less three days' expenses before he could get back to South Prairie. Verily, 'for ways that are dark and tricks that are vain,' the 'contractor' Bennett—'are peculiar.'
“For ways that are dark and tricks that are vain, the 'contractor' Bennett—are peculiar.”
This 1885 account of wage theft and predatory contractor supply stores illustrates how labor exploitation in the Pacific Northwest was built directly into the infrastructure of early rail expansion. Today, these grievances persist in the form of independent contractor misclassification and gig-economy wage disputes, showing that the fight for fair pay in Seattle remains an unfinished business.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.