Show ILLS CEASE 1 HUM I I I Beginning of the Wage Conflict in New England I I VAST NUMBER AFFECTED EIGHTY THOUSAND FEEL TH VEFFECTS OF WAGE CUTs CUT-s e Will Be Directed By the Labor La-bor Union Strength Will Be Concentrated NewBedford and LowellrCoal Operators and M ers Meet at Chicago t Boston Mass Jan 17 Eighty thousand thou-sand skilled operatives employed In about 73 of the chief cotton mills of New England states will today come under the sweeping order of a new wage scale which entails aj reduction of 10 per cent or more This reduction reduc-tion brings on in New Bedford Mass bring LeWston nd BldddfOfd Me labor strikes which may prove thebeglnning of a industrial battle greater in extent ex-tent and more disastrous IrjCffect than any in the previous historyvpf cotton manufacturing in the UnitedStjites The great corporations inN Bedford Bed-ford are silent and thousands of operatives are idle while here and there discontent has cropped out all day the most serious being at Bldde ford Maine where 3200 p rsons refused re-fused to work thus closing two mills and at Lewistqn where one mill was crippled by 400 weavers staying out The general wage reduction is estimated mated to affect 127DOO persons In about 150 mHes mHe LIGHTS TVEN OUT All the New Bedford mills opened at the usual time When no help came in lights went but pSed stopped overseers i over-seers and second hands prepared to make everything snug and th mill gates were closed indefinitely The labor unions did little work today except ex-cept to car out plans of campaign which will be developed only as fainthearted faint-hearted weavers seek to return to work The battle against the corporations undoubtedly would have been fought everywhere had not the voice of men and women who are ill prepared at this time of year to go into idleness been heeded by the conservatives As it is the great majority of persons employed grelt in nine corporations in New Bedford and one corporation each In two Maine cities will take upon themselves the task of forcible resistance to the reduction re-duction In New Bedford the nine corporations represent 2 mills giving meanSjOf livelihood live-lihood to nearly 10000 DIRECTED BY UNIONS The strikes will be directed by labor unions the lead being taken by the Mule Spinners union the national executive ex-ecutive committee of which has sanctioned sanc-tioned the strike of opposition and promised financial aid The spinners and weavers are practically the only branches of operatives which have maintained organization One striking feature of the preliminary prelimi-nary agitation against the cutdown atton and the strike talk was the plea of the I national labor bodies Interested that no strikes b begun except at New Bedford Bed-ford and Lowell and asking that all strength be concentrated on the former place Lowell operatives held In abeyance I abey-ance a decision to strike pledging their support to the other city The strikes in the other places mentioned have yet to be officially sanctioned by the governing I gov-erning labor body One feature of the labor troubles which may manifest itself is the return Ito I-to their Canadian homes by hundreds I of families who speak French who I Hock to the states in winter to secure employment NUMBER AFFECTED Following is an estimate of the number num-ber of operatives affected by the cut down butthe actual result will scarcely scarce-ly be seen until the new > schedule of wages is tried Knight Goddars Chase mills in Massachusetts Rhode Island and Connecticut Con-necticut 20000 Lowell mills 15000 Lewiston 5000 Fall River 4000 Bidde ford and Saco 4000 other Malnb mills 4000 Nashua 3000 Worcester county I 5000 Hoyoke 10000 Vermont 10000 miscellaneous 6000 |