The Daily Worker

CUT BUILDING TRADES WAGES
Jersey Bosses Seek Further Slashes

NEW YORK.—Wages in the building trades were cut more in May than in any month since 1922, according to The General Building Contractor, a magazine for the bosses in the building trades. Thirty-seven wage-cuts were reported in seven cities. But these are only the cuts in the wage rates. In addition to these the building trades workers are being forced when they do work to work at under the scale rates.

Paying Under the Scale Rates.

The report states that "a surplus of building labor exists in all cities. The result is that under the scale wages are being paid in many localities, particularly on small jobs. This will undoubtedly continue until the volume of construction reaches a point nearer normal."

The bosses in the building, together with the labor fakers in the leadership of the reactionary building trades unions are attempting to follow up the actual under the scale wages by putting these cut rates into the agreements. W. L. Dill, managing director of the Associated Contractors of New Jersey, sent a letter on July 1 to all of the reactionary building trades unions in New Jersey, urging them to put through a "voluntary" wage reduction. The bosses are trying to fool the workers into believing that if only they will take a cut in wages much more building will be started. The building trades workers in New Jersey must put up a militant struggle in their local unions to prevent the wage-cut that the bosses are planning to put through with the aid of the labor faker business agents and other officials of these unions.