“Faith! the bosses will have to be mighty civil to us to git us at all, sor. And if they thry to put to work min who are not mimbers of the union, their buildings will niver rise out of their cellars, sor, for the other thrades are compilled to sthand by us, sor.”
Mr. Lorin French, the millionaire contractor and owner of the great San Francisco Iron Works, read in the journal next morning an account of the action taken by the Hod-Carriers Union and Mortar-Mixers’ Protective Association, and he smiled a grim smile. That day he sent invitations to a number of capitalists and contractors to attend a meeting at his offices, and the result of the conference was the formation of a Manufacturers’ and Builders’ League, of which Mr. Lorin French was chosen permanent president.
The daily papers the next morning contained the following advertisement:—
WANTED.
On the first day of next month, two hundred hod-carriers and mortar-mixers to work on the new post-office block. Three dollars per day will be paid until further notice. Men who have applied for and been refused admittance to membership in the Hod-Carriers’ Union will be preferred.
Lorin French.
1099 Market Street.
This base attempt of capital to coerce or bribe the worker into allowing another worker an equal chance of obtaining employment, was denounced by Rafferty the next night in a ringing speech at a special meeting of the Hod-Carriers’ Union, which meeting resulted in a convention of the Federated Trades being ordered.
At this convention it was resolved by a three-fourths majority, after a hot debate, that no member of any trade organization would, on penalty of expulsion, be permitted to work in or upon or in aid of the construction of any building, or in any shop, mill, foundry, or factory, or in or upon any work where any person not a member of some trade-organization was employed, or where any material was used which had been manufactured by non-union labor.
“My frent from the Plumbers’ Association speaks of this resolution, Mr. President, as a poomerang,” said Gustave Blather, a labor lecturer, who on this occasion represented the Dishwashers’ Lagerbund. “I don’t know as such languitch is quite broper coming from him, for a goot many beople haf their doubts whether plumbing is really a trate or only a larceny. But, my fellow pret-winners, if the resolution is a poomerang, it is one that will knock the arrogance out of the ploated wealth-owners, and teach them that in this republic—established by the ploot of our fathers [Blather’s great-grandfather was a Hessian soldier in the British army, and returned to Darmstadt after the surrender of Cornwallis]—in this republic the time is close at hand when suppliant wealth will be compelt to enture the colt and hunger it has gifen to labor for many years.” And, amid a storm of applause, Blather sank to his seat.