The Struggle for the Eight-Hour Day
While Seattle’s mills slash hours and wages amid a lumber market slump, labor organizers face stiff resistance from manufacturers and owners.
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 sheet mills of the Amalgamated Association are in secret session here, debating the advisability of accepting the 10 per cent coal reduction as proposed by manufacturers. Nothing definite could be learned in regard to the meeting; the Amalgamated officials refuse to either affirm or deny the report. A prominent member of the Manufacturer's Association, speaking of the alleged meeting, said: 'If the sheet men agree to accept the 10 per cent reduction, the manufacturers are beaten. They will be compelled to make other reductions, and the strike would be at an end. The stand taken by the sheet mill men has caused considerable dissatisfaction among other trade workers.' Due to the light demand for lumber, the Port Blakely mill on Monday last was cut down from full time to two-thirds time. There are but four vessels at that port, viz., the B. K. Barr, schooner Owners, ship Prussia and a bark.
“If the sheet men agree to accept the 10 per cent reduction, the manufacturers are beaten. They will be compelled to make other reductions, and the strike would be at an end.”
In 1885, Seattle’s economy was tethered to the boom-and-bust cycle of timber exports, much as modern Seattle is tethered to tech. The tension between mill owners cutting capacity to protect profits and workers struggling against wage reductions remains a central, unresolved friction in the region's labor history.
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