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Salt Lake Telegram | 1933-11-14 | Page 4 | Competition is Ruled Evil When Slavery Ensues

Type issue
Date 1933-11-14
Paper Salt Lake Telegram
Language eng
City Salt Lake City
County Salt Lake
Rights No Copyright - United States (NoC-US)
Publisher Digitized by J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah
ARK ark:/87278/s60g4t7x
Reference URL https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s60g4t7x

Page Metadata

Article Title Competition is Ruled Evil When Slavery Ensues
Type article
Date 1933-11-14
Paper Salt Lake Telegram
Language eng
City Salt Lake City
County Salt Lake
Page 4
OCR Text Competition Is Ruled Evil When Slavery Ensues B By B BRUCE CATION CATrON A toA court of equity will not lend its H. aid id to protect a a business which can survive only by oppressing its work work- ers rs These words part of a decision by Judge Harry Fisher of Chic Chicago go in a 1 aase case ase arising from a dispute between a garment factory and its workers sum um up one of the most important phases bases of the recovery campaign about bout as well as any anyone one sentence could Its It's worth looking for a moment at their background The workers in this Chicago plant were cro out on strike Their weekly were somewhere between 5 and nd 9 0 below the minimum fixed bythe by bythe the he N R A. A Their hours of work were said to be bc from 55 to 60 hours a week The he factory owners seeking an in junction unction to stop the strikers from picketing explained that keen leen compel compe forced them to pay low wages and nd impose long hours But the judge after alter laying down the ic principle quoted above denied the plea ilea for an injunction ordered N R A hours jours and wage scales to be installed at t once and ruled that the company must comply with any code that may maybe maybe maye be e adopted for the garment industry Now there is more in this than just the lie settlement of another strike Judge Fishers Fisher's blunt statement ex cx- presses a truth that ought to have been een self evident a long time ago but ut which has seldom previously won approval from the bench The pressure of competition Is the most mast frequently used of all excuses for or unsatisfactory working conditions From rom lumber camps to textile mills from rom ugar sugar beet fields to coal towns It has been cited over and over again when workers have protested Intolerable erable rable conditions Sometimes it Jt has been just an alibi and sometimes it has b been een n justified by facts Now at last ets judicially on the head Unless you can pay your workers a de decent ent wage and make it possible for or them to live like human beings youve you've got no right to be in business at t all all that that In substance is what it says It makes a pretty good rule And that is why these various codes are re so important They seek to o improve the workers worker's lot they aim to o curb reckless competition so sa that thai it t will no longer be necessary for an to pay starvation wages and impose sweatshop hours They offer protection to the employer who wants to o do the right thing To the other kind they offer a way one exit
Reference URL https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s60g4t7x/16298671