"Those Eighty-Eight Unfortunates"

Like Captain William Courage, most of the men who were arrested in July 1934 and marched through the streets of St. John's were fishermen by trade. But the fishery had failed and prices for fish were low. The men needed to make money to support their families. The government's policy in the 1930s was "no dole for no work." The only jobs were in the woods. Fishermen were used to hard work and trying conditions. When they heard that the pulp and paper companies needed woods workers, they signed on. But once they were in the woods they realized that it was impossible to make money. Even though they had full-time jobs their wages were very low. This was true even by the standards of the 1930s.

The men were not paid a flat wage by the hour, day or week. They were paid by how much wood they cut. The price paid could be anywhere between a $1.30 and $1.43 for a cord of unpeeled wood. Peeling the wood meant stripping off the bark. Extra money was paid for a cord of peeled wood. It would usually take a man a ten hour day to cut 1.25 cords of unpeeled wood. But sometimes the area or "chance" a man was given to cut had many thin or stunted trees. Sometimes the wood was difficult to get at. Men who did not have much experience in the woods found it slow going.

The "Scaler" determined how much a man was paid for the wood he cut. He was an employee of the company. The scaler measured the men's piled wood to see how many cords they had. They took note of the amount of poor wood and even the air spaces between the logs. The loggers never knew what to expect when their wood was scaled. Many men felt that the scalers did not give them a fair deal. The loggers thought that because the scalers were company men, they would always favour the company.

In addition, a great many expenses were taken out of the loggers' paychecks. Here is how a logger's finances worked out at a $1.34 a cord. If he cut 1.25 cords a day for 26 working days a month, a logger made $43.55. But there were many deductions taken from this money: