On July 7, 1919, roughly 2,100 of Boston's 2,400 cigar makers walked off the job in protest of their employer's failure to meet their demand of a 13 7/11% raise. Three of Boston's largest cigar manufacturers chose to leave the city rather than meet the union's demands and a number of union members formed a cigar-making co-operative. By August 30, 1919, all of the remaining manufacturers had reached agreements with the union. Early labor struggles During the early years of World War I, Boston's cigar factories hired many refugees from Belgium. In addition to being expert cigar makers, many of them were socialists. After this, the manufacturers clashed with the local union, who threatened to strike if the manufacturers hired more employees, implemented the use of machinery, weighed tobacco, ended the practice of cigar makers using their mouths to shape cigars, or dismissed an employee without the consent of a union committee. On January 24, 1919, the Boston Cigar Makers' Union adopted a resolution calling for "all the land and workshops and public utilities" to "be conscripted for control by the A. F. of L., in the interest of all of the people" and that "the working class take over the control of wealth production". Cigar Makers' International Union President George W. Perkins criticized the amendment as an "attempt to fasten upon the International Union...a communistic, socialistic, soviet form of government". On June 19, 1919, Perkins wrote that the proposed strike by the cigar makers would "put the Boston seed cigar entirely out of the market...How much longer the Boston manufacturers can continue to pay these demands, with the many restrictions thrown around them, is a mighty serious question". Walkout On July 7, 1919, more than 2,000 of the 2,400 members of the Cigarmakers' Union, Local 97 walked out against manufacturers who failed to implement a 13 7/11% wage increase. This shut down Boston's large cigar manufacturers, including Waitt & Bond, H. Traiser, C. C. A., Breslin & Campbell, Elcho, M. C. A., and Alles & Fisher. A number of the smaller shops who had granted the increase were able to continue production. A strike at the R. G. Sullivan factory in Manchester, New Hampshire was ongoing at the time of the Boston strike. Gustave A. Rothfuss, secretary of the Boston Cigar Manufacturers' Association, accused Local 97 of making repeating wage demands and of striking without the sanction of the