After a four-week struggle, the striking sweater workers won their first significant victory yesterday when Mr. Herman H. Newberger, owner of the Royal Knitting Mills, 846 West Jackson Boulevard, and Mr. David H. Gortshakov, of the Western Knitting Mills, 1146 Blue Island Avenue, settled with the Union; they granted many of the strikers' demands.

Mr. M. Rappaport, general organizer, and Hyman Wishner, president of the Knitters Union, negotiated with the above-mentioned firms which had deserted the obstinate association and had reached an agreement with the Union. According to the agreement, the workers who will return to the shops today, have won the following conditions:

A forty-four hour work week divided into five work days; a two-dollar wage increase for all week workers, and a fifteen per cent increase for piece 2workers; time and a half for overtime to week workers, and fifty cents extra for every two hours overtime to piece workers. Girls who are beginning hand work will receive a minimum wage of twelve dollars a week, and those who are beginning to work on the machine will receive fourteen dollars a week. There is to be an equal distribution of work during slack time, and a permanent arbitration board to settle all possible disputes arising in the future.

The agreement expires January 1, 1920. As Mr. Rappaport points out, the workers of the two above-mentioned shops will return to their work today, victorious. Now the Union will exert every effort to force the rest of the manufacturers to follow the example set by these two firms which were the first to negotiate terms.

The striking sweater workers received the news of the settlement with enthusiasm, seeing therein a sign which indicates that the time will not be long when all the strikers will win their demands.