Western Vial and Bottle Manufacturers Meeting, Hemingray listed

INDUSTRIAL.

Important Meeting of the Western

Vial and Bottle Manufacturer's

Association.

Unless Lower Wages Are Accepted by

Employes the Manufacturers Will

Not Soon Start Up.

Pittsburg Window-Glass Blowers Threaten

to Resist the Proposed Reduction

in Wages.

Striking Miners Threaten Death to Any Who

Shall Take Their Places.

VIALS AND BOTTLES.

MEETING OF THE WESTERN MANUFACTURER"S ASSOCIATION — LOWER WAGES TO BE DEMANDED.

The Western Vial and Bottle Manufacturers' Association met at the Pacific Hotel yesterday. The object of the meeting was to consider the present stagnant condition and general demoralization of the green-glass bottle trade, with a view to devising a remedy therefor; to take action on the present schedule of wages; and to decide as to whether it was advisable, under existing circumstances, to reopen the factories Sept. 1. The vial and bottle factories shut down for two months every year, from July 1.

PRESENT.

The following manufacturers were present: The Southern Glass Company, Louisville, Ky.; the Hemingway [sic] Hemingray Glass Company, Cincinnati, O.;Thomas Wightman & Co., Pittsburg, Pa.; the Kentucky Glass Company, Louisville, Ky.; William Eliot Smith, Alton, Ill.; the Ihmsen Glass Company, (limited), Pittsburg, Pa.; the Mississippi Glass Company, St. Louis, Mo.; A. & D. H. Chambers, Pittsburg, Pa.; Ottawa Glass Company, Ottawa, Ill.; N. D. DePauw, New Albany, Ind.; Cunningham & Co., Pittsburg, Pa.; William McCully & Co., Pittsburg, Pa.; Kearns, Heardman & Gorsuch, Zanesville, O.; S. McKee & Co., Pittsburg, Pa.; the Rock Island Glass Works, Rock Island, Ill.

Capt. R. Evans, of the Hemingray Glass Company, Cincinnati, O., presided. The Secretary was Mr. W. Eliot Smith, of Alton, Ill.

TOPICS DISCUSSED.

The discussion of the various matters which the meeting had been called for occupied a continuous sitting of four hours' duration, the special topics of discussion being the evil of over-production, the competition of the flint vial and bottle manufacturers, and the wages question. It seems that the flint-glass bottlemakers — who are a different kind of guild from the green-glass bottlemakers, each having its own laws, methods of working, and organized association, and each having its own trade union to fight — have been cutting prices in flint goods for the last year or so, until at present the flint vials and small bottles are almost, and in some cases quite, as cheap as the green goods. The result of this has been that the green men have been practically crowded out of the market in these classes of goods. Druggists, saloon-keepers, patent-medicine makers, and all others who require some small-sized bottles in their business will not buy green — that is, common — glass bottles if they can have flint goods for almost the same price. Of course, it is only in the smaller goods that this outside competition is felt; the beer bottles, brandy bottles, bitters bottles, and all the other leading articles of the green-glass trade having only to contend with the ordinary competition inside that trade and the foreign importations.

BEER BOTTLES.

And herein lies another matter for alarm. Beer bottles were imported into this country last year in large quantities. Some of them even reached Chicago. Foreign importation, which has never been considered of serious import in this trade, now threatens to become a serious matter indeed.

OVERPRODUCTION.

On top of the flint trouble comes the overproduction damage. All the factories, it is alleged, have been turning out a supply far beyond the market demands. The market has been glutted. Natural result — a reduction in prices. The trade paid well a few years ago. Since this fact was discovered there has been a rushing increase in the number of manufacturers. Within the last year or two an inasmuch number of little one-horse factories have been started, with results as stated.

TARIFF.

There is also the tariff question. The manufacturers, however, are satisfied that the present tariff is high enough, in all conscience. Several leading manufacturers, including the President and Secretary, said so.

WAGES.

The most important matter of all, however, was the wages question. "Two years ago," said President Evans to a TRIBUNE reporter, "we raised the wages 10 per cent. Two years ago we were getting $7.50 a gross for export beer bottles; now we get only from $5 to $5.50."

The feeling of the meeting was that a reduction in wages was necessary in order to carry on the business, and also that this reduction should be at least 20 percent to do any good. The meeting was unanimously in favor of keeping the factories shut down until a new schedule of wages had been agreed upon.

It was finally decided that a Committee on Wages be appointed to draw up a new schedule and present it to the Bottle-blowers' Union; that this committee be empowered to call a general meeting of the association, to be held in Cincinnati in September of early in October, at which they shall report the result of their work; and that all factories connected with the association keep shut down until the report of the committee be received and action taken thereon.

The meeting then adjourned.

·

·