A report by George P. West, from the U.S. Committee on Industrial Relations, reveals\ed exploitative labor practices at the Corn Products Co., a subsidiary of Standard Oil, during a 1916 strike involving 1,100 workers at its Argo plant.
West Report Shows How Standard Oil Co. Runs a Regular Sweat Shop at Argo
How a Standard Oil subsidiary runs a shop at the back door of Chicago and pays its working people way under a living wage is told by George P. West in a report from Washington headquarters of the committee on industrial relations.
West looked over the ground personally during the strike of 1,100 laborers of the Corn Products Co. at Argo.
Although the common labor rate in the Chicago district stands at 20 and 22 cents an hour in unorganized shops, says the report, the Corn Products Refining Co., now under prosecution by the government as a monopoly, paid its laborers only 17-1/2 cents an hour and worked them 12 hours a day.
“When the men struck for more pay,” it is stated, “the manager on orders from the New York office hired 200 guards, armed them with rifles, and with the aid of deputy sheriffs and police magistrates, arrested the strike leaders, took them inside the plant, threw them into jail and then fined them large amounts, later reduced when the men’s spirit had been broken and they had gone back to work.
“The Corn Products Co. is under the presidency of Edward T. Bedford of New York, and, according to ‘Who’s Who in Finance,’ he is a director of the Standard Oil Co. and has an office at 26 Broadway.
“Sup’t F.L. Jeffries admitted to your investigator that labor conditions are determined by the New York officers and he could not have granted an increase of wages had he desired to do so. He also admitted that the company, which maintains large plants in various parts of the country, makes it a policy to keep wages uniform at all the plants.
“The rate of 17-1/2 cents an hour is less than is being paid in any of the large industries in the Chicago district or other industrial centers. It is more than 20 percent below the prevailing rate for unskilled labor.
“No serious effort was made by the large Chicago newspapers to make the facts at Argo known. The Chicago Tribune printed an editorial unfriendly to the strikers. But the Chicago Herald did give publicity to the facts by printing a letter from Miss Grace Abbott, head of the Immigrants’ Protective League, in which Miss Abbott set forth the facts as to the low wages, long hours, and reactionary attitude of the New York officers.”
Source: The day book. (Chicago, Ill.), 11 April 1916.
