Lengthy strike disrupted region’s slate industry

About 600 area slate workers walked off the job on May 12 a century ago.
The skilled slate workers at quarries around Granville, N.Y., and Poultney, Vt., were demanding an hourly wage increase of 5 cents — the equivalent of 92 cents in today’s dollars.

Even with the increase, their wages, after adjusting for inflation, would still have been low by today’s standards. The increase would have brought their hourly wages to 62 cents for trimmers, 63 cents for splitters and 65 cents for block cutters — amounts equivalent to between $11.39 and $11.94 an hour today.

While the dispute involved pennies per hour, the requested increase amounted to a wage hike of more than 8 percent for the affected workers.

The strike began after the two union locals, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, negotiated unsuccessfully for an increase to make their wages commensurate with the higher wages being paid slate workers elsewhere — including in other parts of Vermont.

Members of the Poultney local voted 74 to 4 on April 24 to authorize a strike, The Granville Sentinel reported on May 1. The Granville local backed the strike in a 223-14 vote on April 25. Not all union members voted.

The strike began as the slate industry was enjoying its highest annual national sales among the years leading up to the Great Depression. Yet management officials of local companies insisted they could not afford the requested wage increases because, they said, the industry was depressed.

A representative of local slate companies said quarry operators were experiencing the worst slump in 30 years and had a surplus of about 15,000 squares of slate in storage, The Post-Star of Glens Falls reported on May 13.

The volume of slate sold in New York and Vermont did drop off in 1925, though this might have been a result of the strike, surplus supplies, or both.

New York slate producers sold 10,974 squares of slate in 1924, 7,650 squares in 1925, and 11,903 squares in 1926, according to the National Slate Association. Vermont producers sold 168,083 squares in 1924, 154,400 squares in 1925, and 148,026 squares in 1926.

On the second day of the strike, O’Brien Slate, which employed about 50 skilled workers, settled with the union, agreeing to the 5-cents-per-hour wage increase.

But larger operators appeared to be digging in for a long fight.
“It was stated yesterday that one of the largest slate operating concerns had started to store away equipment,” The Post-Star reported on May 14.

The union denied that striking workers were involved in setting off a stick of dynamite on local railroad tracks on May 15, the Sentinel reported in its May 22 issue.

A commissioner from the U.S. Department of Labor traveled to Granville to attempt to negotiate a settlement, but he was not successful, The Glens Falls Times reported June 2.

On July 21, The Post-Star reported that the federal Labor Department had again attempted to convene negotiations.

“By an act of Congress, the secretary of labor is empowered to intervene in labor disputes and use his ‘friendly office in bringing the two sides together,’” the newspaper explained.

The union was willing to “cooperate” with negotiations, but management refused, The Post-Star reported on July 22.

“There is no settlement in sight,” Labor Commissioner Richard A. Brown told the paper. “This controversy may be ended in a week, maybe in a year. I am in no position to say.”

The strike continued through the fall and beyond. Several small companies offered a 2-cent-an-hour raise, which the union rejected, The Post-Star reported on Oct. 3.

The strike helped to create a cottage industry for some.
“Since the strike went into effect, … numerous farmers and landowners have opened small pits on their property and, not pushed by competition from the larger operators, have reaped a harvest from otherwise useless deposits,” the paper reported. “In many cases pits are operated by regular farm help, which cut the labor cost to where there is a larger profit for the operator.”
Some striking workers opted to relocate.

“Several Granville families who have been deriving their income from work in the slate quarries have moved to Georgia, where they have obtained similar employment,” The Post-Star reported on Oct. 3.

Others opted to defy the union.
“One manufacturer reported that he had inventoried more slate at the end of this year than he had on his books when the strike was declared in the summer,” the Sentinel reported on Jan. 1, 1926. “Men have gone back to work regardless of whether union men were working in quarries or not.”
As winter turned to spring, and quarry operators prepared to reopen for a new season, operators began settling with the union.

Progressive Slate Co. of Granville and one other company agreed to the union’s wage demand on March 8, the Sentinel reported. Several other operators settled in April.

The disruption ended, and production stabilized for a few years. But tough times loomed for the local slate industry as the nation entered the Great Depression.

Sales of slate nationally decreased from a peak of more than $9 million in 1925 to $8.5 million in 1929 and less than $2 million in 1932, according to a National Recovery Administration report published on Jan. 22, 1934.

“The slate industry is heavily burdened by depression, by stagnant construction, by severe losses in past years, and by rival materials,” the report concluded. “Employment has averaged to about half the peak figures.”

 

Maury Thompson was a reporter for The Post-Star of Glens Falls for 21 years before retiring in 2017. He now is a freelance writer focusing on the history of politics, labor and media in the region.