THIS DAY IN 1918 IN THERECORD
Saturday, June 1, 1918. Workers on United Traction Company streetcars in Troy and Albany will go on strike tomorrow morning if the company doesn’t raise wages to forty cents an hour, The Record reports. Under their current contract, which doesn’t expire until July 1, 1919, motormen and conductors make between 29 and 31 cents an hour. Representatives of the Amalgamated Association of Street Railway Employees contend that “they should not be held to this agreement because it was not made in war times and conditions have changed immeasurably since.” At a conference in Albany today, United Traction vice president Harry B. Weatherwax makes a maximum offer of 35 cents an hour. “All the proposition I can offer the men has been offered to them,” he tells our reporter later, “Our financial condition does not permit us giving them any more.” According to union leaders, “The men claim they can not live on thirty-five cents an hour and will have hard going to produce an even ledger family account at the amount desired.” “We are six weeks late in taking this action,” Troy local president Joseph F. McLaughlin says, “It is apparent that the wages paid motormen and conductors are ridiculously low and it is almost impossible to hold them in service.” This is the second time this spring that streetcar workers have threatened a walkout. As before, there’s some suspicion that capital and labor are actually working together to get fares increased. Earlier this year, the Amalgamated lobbied unsuccessfully for legislation authorizing United Traction to raise fares from five to six cents. United Traction spokesmen have insisted that the only way they can raise wages is by raising fares.
Despite widespread suspicion, “All parties denied that the [strike threat] is part of a prearranged scheme to build public opinion for a six-cent fare or that the company and its employees are working in conjunction in any respect of the wage issue dispute.”
Because United Traction services the Watervliet Arsenal, the federal government may intervene in the dispute as a matter of wartime necessity. “I expect the government agents will get busy on the situation without delay,” Weatherwax says.
As Saturday night service winds down, the Troy police assign special details to United Traction car barns. While “it is not thought at all that there will be need of police service,” the Sunday Budget reports that “Still the precaution is deemed wise in case of any disorder.”
While rumors spread tonight that strikebreakers will operate the cars under military escort, United Traction officials state that “the cars will remain in the barns, and that’s all there is to it.”