Leaders Report Poultry Truce

Union will be held next Monday night at the Great Central Palace. 96 Clinton street.

Four hundred members of the Schochtim Union Local 440 met in special session last night at union headquarters, 233 East Broadway, to decide whether to return to work when called by the market men.

Spokesmen of the union said that a speedy settlement was imminent. It is understood that if the market workers go back to work today the schochtim will do likewise. However, the slaughterers are ready to fight tooth and nail against the dismissal of any employees.

The union will not countenance, the spokesman declared, any merging of poultry markets for the purpose of cutting the staff. All markets that formerly retained one schochet must retain him.

Harry Frankel, secretary of the Chicken Workers and Drivers Union Local 167, the organization of market workers, said yesterday that the market workers were all back at work.

DAY OF CONFERENCES

The settlement came after a day of conference between representatives of the market owners and representatives of the commission merchants.

A scheduled visit of a committee of union officials to Mayor La Guardia yesterday morning to protest the statement of Market Commissioner William Fellowes Morgan last week that slaughterers’ wages are too high, failed to materialize, because the mayor was too busy to see the delegation.

The lockout by the market owners had been declared last Monday against alleged exorbitant trucking charges, coop hire and feed costs. Yesterday’s settlement was probably on the basis of these points. Franzel claimed that he had gained, temporarily at least, almost all his points. He refused to go into detail about the settlement.

Abraham Franzel, in an interview with a Bulletin reporter yesterday, denied the statement of a Yiddish newspaper that the Association is trying to drive out the small market men. He said that “we only want our competitors to pay the salaries to slaughterers and market workers that we pay.

“All rumors that we are trying to cut the wages of slaughterers are false. We simply want our competitors to pay the same wages.”

COOPERATION URGED

It was revealed that a letter has been received from the Vaad Schochtim Oifes, rival slaughterers’ union which recently preferred charges against Local 440 with the city administration, culminating in the Simon investigation, in which negotiation for the merging of the unions are made. Officials of Local 440 refused to comment on the subject.

At a meeting on Tuesday night the Vaad Schochtim Oifes passed resolutions calling for cooperation with Local 440 and the eventual merging of the two unions.