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contract had to be stated in the bid. We fixed a proper wage based upon what was really paid to the largest number of people in that trade.
This wasn't the first time that we had fixed the conditions of work in a contract, but it was big and it involved a trade - at least one trade, perhaps two - in which there was an organized union. The others had gone through all right without any protest. But in this case an organized union was involved. I think there was more than one union, but the machinists' union was one of them, I think. We announced what the wages and hours would be. We never said anything had to be a specific wage, but that it had to be a certain minimum wage - “the wages must be not less than” so much.
The union men came pounding down to see me to say, “That isn't right. Our scale of wages is different than that.”
I said, “Yes, but in the locality where this work has to be done you haven't got any considerable number of union people. Here's the report of our investigation. I'll show you. We had investigators go down. They made this investigation. The number of union men doing this kind of work is infinitesmal. People who do that kind of work are non-union. This
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