The Labour Market in America.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3420, 28 January 1890, Page 2

The Labour Market in America.

. A New York; oonespondent says; • This: year promises to be a very exciting one in the field of labour. For nearly two years pasUhe labour.. organisations ihaye. kept 'ooapM*U tively quiet j Tout tbeVp are 'biafiy BJgnsj 5, that this has been only the lull before ' a great ; fltorm. ■ To-morrow the Federation of Labour meets at Boston and in a; few. : days we shauV know . whetherj on May 1 next', there is to boa universal strike, or a.series of small ones'"in"'favour', of the eight hours' law., ..The, now, has over'ooo,ooomembofs'belonging'' to 4700/ Unions, and every Union has been working hard to perfect its financial arrangement, for,a critical

struggle. Jflioi Knights oh' Labour are in a sdniewiiat depleted condition';' but during the past month they hive succeeded in establishing an offensive and defensive alliance, with the., four. peat Farmers'Unibnsof the-Westj";. these four only a,week before consolidated intb'fr'gigantio .organisation with 800,000 members. It will bo curious, indeed,nf the farmers J whose. i work is evidently of a-character such as forbids any fixed 'schedule of hours labour, should aid tho Knights and the Federation; andtheßixliundredthousandmembersoftuerailroad organisations in a combined effort to make eight hours the absolute limit of a day's labour, The President of the' Federation was nominated for

State Senator a month ago; under circumstances' which ensured his election, but though the post is one whioh the labour men have long coveted, it was deolinedon the ground that just at present the President's undivided attention to the affairs of the organisation was absolutely nocessary. This man, who is an Englishman by birth, named Gompeve, is a bom leader of men, and 1 his devotion to the cause is shown by the fact that ho has always refused to allow.his salary'to be raised above the modest i sum of 6no hundred dollars a month.,