"What about your workers' representatives? It's impossible for more than 100,000 people to come in. ”

Several squad leaders of the security brigade came out and began to communicate with the striking workers' leaders, and soon five workers came out, all of whom looked like battered old workers.

Led by the security team leader, five workers walked into Tom's office.

Tom's office here is just as simple as the office in the Smith Building.

The luxurious carpets and elegant antiques of the big boss's office imagined by the five of them were nothing.

The five are: William, Andrew, Carl, Nick, and Fais.

Only two caught Tom's attention, William, a founding member of the American Labor League from the Yankees, and Andrew, the only one of the five who had a young wife.

Tom shook hands with each of the workers' representatives very warmly, and even took the initiative to hug the five people in dirty uniforms, except for William, the remaining four people accepted Tom's warm hugs.

"May you be seated?"

"I will not sit down until the workers do not have the right to move!"

"What about drinking?"

"Let us refuse, we are here for the due interests of the workers, not to talk to you about feelings!"

"Then feel free to do so, I'll hear why you're here."

William's performance is a ruthless, resolute struggle of the workers' representative image, Tom has only seen this kind of "hero" in textbooks, but he did not expect that after crossing over, he would have the opportunity to become the villain of the "heroic story".

The other four were all poor workers, eager to taste the "fine wine" of the big boss, but seeing that the real "backbone" William directly refused, he was embarrassed to speak.

Tom didn't care about the other party's attitude, and naturally sat on the chair, waiting for the other party to say his "demand".

"I'm also a native of Houston, Texas, and I've been working on farms for as long as I can remember, going to work in a northern factory more than a decade ago and joining Carnegie Bros. Steel as a steelmaker."

"After a few years of work, I joined the local trade union and later several joint trade unions."

"Now, I'm traveling all over the country to defend the interests of workers!"

"On the 20th of last month, my union merged with several other unions in Baltimore City to form the first national union in the United States, the American Labor League."

"At the same time, at the rally, I heard from some friends who were active in the South and engaged in the abolitionist movement that Houston, Texas, my hometown, also had a large enterprise with hundreds of thousands of workers, arguably the largest private enterprise in the United States and even the world."

"When the union learned of this, considering the tensions between the North and the South, it decided to send me, the only native of Texas in the entire guild, to see what the living conditions of the workers here were, etc."

"When I came here, I found that the local trade unions were in name only, and they did not fight for the slightest benefit for the workers, but colluded with the factory owners to give the factory owners a list of all the members of the union, and expelled all the union members from the factory, so that most of the workers would not be in a desperate situation and would not consider joining the union."

Tom knew this, of course, and that the unions in Houston were formed by his back-up support, in order to prevent spontaneous unions from forming to organize such strikes.

Against all odds, Tom did not expect that in the end it would be the "outside forces" that would incite the workers' strike movement.

One of these external forces is counted as one, and none of them are good, they all want to bankrupt our independent national enterprises in Texas and bankrupt me, the "Loving State factory owner" appointed by the governor of Texas!

But Tom firmly believes that people become people.

Back then, joining the union would be secretly disposed of by the Mueller family, and if they didn't join, they would starve to death.

"I want to lead the workers in my hometown to get out of this difficult living environment, and the workers deserve better living conditions!"

"We will not use any violent means, we will use reasonable and legal means to fight for the wages we deserve."

"We want an eight-hour workday!"

"Eight hours of work, eight hours of entertainment, eight hours of sleep!"

"Eight hours of work, eight hours of entertainment, eight hours of sleep!"

"Eight hours of work, eight hours of entertainment, eight hours of sleep!"

Watching William lead the four workers' representatives behind him to shout the slogans put forward by the First International at the Geneva Conference, Tom made an expression that he wanted to chop William on the spot, and I don't know if people would even think that Tom cursed a few words of William viciously in his heart.

"I can think about it."

"It's not a negotiation! It's not a proposal either! Here's the notice! It's what you unscrupulous factory owners have to do. ”

"Have you said yes to more than 100,000 people? Boycott work together until I agree to your terms? ”

"That's for sure, we don't have anything to say to an unscrupulous capitalist like you, let's go."

Watching William walk out of Tom's office like a victor, leaving Tom with a "resentful" face.

To be honest, what Tom regrets most now is the "pseudo-modular production" he made in order to prevent piracy.

If it weren't for this mechanism, Tom could have fired all these hundreds of thousands of people, and it was a big deal that a few factories would have been shut down for a few days, but without if, the operating mechanism of one shutdown and total shutdown made Tom unable to withstand the blow of any factory shutdown.

It's really shooting yourself in the foot.

"I don't want to use Carnegie's brutal bloody repression to keep the factory running, so the means won't last long, and I want to solve these delusional workers at the root."

"John, secretly contact all the workers who have a voice in the striking workers' group, including these five, to see who is willing to talk to me alone."

"Anyone who wants to bring it to me at once."

Watching John slowly walk out of the office, Tom looked through the information that John had just handed over with those three fingers, and Tom understood that it was a code between two people, and the left hand of the three fingers was only handed over to read the materials that had to be burned.

Tom took off the "resentment mask" he had just put on, and looked at the information of the workers' leaders and their families in this strike movement with a flat face, not only the five big leaders, but also those who were slightly famous among the workers, all of whom were on Tom's "friend list" that Tom "paid special attention to".

Tom took out the glass fake cigarette in his arms again, and wanted to put it in the wooden fake cigarette holder, and a smile leaked from the corner of his mouth, three points mockery, three points of contempt, three points of hostility, and a little admiration.

"Are you hundreds of thousands really going to unite for this?"