Longshoremen Walk Off Jobs in Tacoma
Workers refuse to handle cargo until wages are raised from $3 to $4 a day.
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 men who are employed to load lumber into vessels are called longshoremen. The contractors who employ them are called stevedores. When a ship comes to the harbor to load lumber for foreign ports, the captain, or agent of the vessel, lets a contract to some stevedore to load the vessel. The work is hard, and consists in lifting, handling and stowing lumber from the mill wharf into the hold of the vessel, and properly bracing or piling it while it is in the hold. For the past six years the regular longshoremen have been paid three dollars per day for common labor, and four dollars per day for the inside foremen. The firm of W. W. Miller & Co., at Old Town, Tacoma, has a contract for loading the ships. The men knocked off work last Monday night and at 7 o'clock they did not put in an appearance. Captain Libby went down to see what was the trouble; the men informed him that they had decided to strike for a rate of $4.00 and would not go to work again until their demands were paid. The captain endeavored to talk with the men, but they told him it was no use; they had held a meeting, come to an understanding, and felt they would not deviate. Captain Libby told the men he could not grant their demands, but would lay the matter before the firm for which he was working.
“Captain Libby told the men he could not grant their demands, but would lay the matter before the firm.”
Labor disputes over wages and inflation have been a constant thread in the Pacific Northwest economy for over a century. The conflict between the necessity of living wages and the pressure to keep shipping costs low remains a central tension in Seattle and Tacoma's logistics-heavy industries today.
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