About one hundred and fifty steel workers, mainly Polish, went on a strike yesterday in the Union Works of the Illinois Steel Company, Archer and Ashland Avenues. These workers are not organized, yet they had consulted with each other and decided to strike because the wages paid them for their hard labor were too small.

According to the class of work they perform, the strikers were breakers, wheelers, and firemen, the first earned twelve and a half cents an hour, and their difficult twelve hour labor consisted in lifting iron ingots weighing 175 pounds above their heads and tossing them against a steel post.

The wheelers earn sixteen cents an hour and also demand a higher wage. The first and the second demand twenty cents an hour. The company announced that instead of paying an hourly wage, they will pay piece work per ton 2of finished ingots. This is the cause of the strike.

The company is employing Negroes to take the place of the strikers, who are picketing the works, which is being guarded by the police. There is fear that violence may break out at any moment.