Seattle Printers Accuse the Dailies of Replacing Men With Boys
Typographical Union No. 307 says the Post-Intelligencer and the Star swapped compositors for cheap help and imported ready-set plates—then asks the public to judge.
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.
Seattle Typographical Union No. 307 has issued a circular addressed to the citizens of this city, for which they ask respectful consideration. In this circular they make plain complaint against the Post-Intelligencer and the Star. They allege that men employed on these papers have been discharged and boys put in their places; that the two papers exchange matter, each printing from the same type; and that cheap plates of ready-set matter, prepared in Eastern low-priced establishments, are imported and used—all of which things are detrimental to the printing business, and in the nature of cheap labor and an imposition upon the public. The circular merely states these things for the information of the public, making no threats and giving the papers named at least this much credit—that they have not done this voluntarily, or through [illegible], but as a resort to keep themselves alive.
“Men employed on these papers have been discharged and boys put in their places ... all of which things are ... in the nature of cheap labor and an imposition upon the public.”
Seattle's 1885 printers were fighting an early version of the same cost-cutting that runs through modern media: replace skilled workers with cheaper labor, share copy, and import ready-made content. The union's move was not a strike but a public-relations appeal, treating the newspaper as a civic institution whose hiring practices voters and readers should care about.
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