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Monday, April 15, 1918

Members of the Amalgamated Association of Street Railway Employees vote tonight to walk off their jobs with the United Traction Company, potentially paralyzing streetcar service in Rensselaer and Albany counties.

When the walkout will begin remains to be determined. Tonight’s vote only authorizes the executive committees of the Troy and Albany locals to call a strike. Union leaders want one more chance to negotiate with United Traction representatives before taking decisive action.

While union representatives had been reluctant to describe their move as a strike, Troy local president Joseph F. McLoughlin doesn’t hesitate. “In order to force the issue the union must strike,” he says in a statement issued earlier today.

The issue is the union’s demand for a “living wage” of at least forty cents an hour. The current top rate is thirty- one cents an hour, but McLoughlin writes that “the public realizes that a man cannot support a family on this amount.”

McLoughlin and other union leaders deny that the Amalgamated is colluding with United Traction to pressure the government into authorizing a one-cent fare hike. The walkout threat followed the demise of a fare-hike bill in a legislative committee.

“We do not care anything about the six- cent proposition, and never did,” McLoughlin claims. While union representatives lobbied legislators for the fare hike, they did so “because we knew if it were granted we would receive increases.”

The amalgamated insists on an increase whether fares go up or not. “If the public was sure the men would be given the increase I do not doubt that there would be little objection to a six- cent fare,” McLoughlin believes, though he questions whether a fare hike is really necessary to give workers what they want – but if United Traction can’t pay more without a fare hike, maybe management should get out of the streetcar business.

“If the company claims it can not meet operating expenses with its income then there is an excellent opportunity for it to be placed in the hands of a receiver,” McLoughlin taunts, “There are reports that the government might take over the lines. This would be more than satisfactory to us, for we know we would be given wages on which we could live.”

Union spokesman had been careful in their language until now because many people, including Troy mayor Cornelius F. Burns, believe that a strike would violate an agreement Burns negotiated in 1916. Instead, union men have threatened to quit their jobs permanently and seek better-paying work in war industries.

“Any person who states we are flagrantly violating an agreement does not understand the case,” McLoughlin insists.