text: The construction project's labor troubles worsened in 1933. With the Depression deepening, contractors were pressing for a 27.3 percent wage cut with their unions, particularly the carpenters' union. On January 6, 1933, a fire swept through the upper floors of the unfinished ICC building. The fire was ruled arson and a "disgruntled carpenter" was suspected. Two weeks later, the operating engineers and steamfitters unions engaged in a jurisdictional strike against one another, stopping work at the Post Office construction site, but the AFL intervened and arbitrated a solution to the dispute. The earlier wage dispute, however, had not been resolved, and by February a general strike among all unionized workers at the Federal Triangle complex seemed likely. Employers said they would fire all unionized workers if a strike occurred and replace them with strikebreakers. The two sides agreed to let the Treasury Department arbitrate their dispute, and on February 13 the government ruled in favor of the unions—averting a job action. The employers went to court, and in April 1933 the carpenters union agreed to the 27.3 percent wage cut.
  The second major wage dispute of 1933 broke out in May. On May 26, more than 500 members of the plasterers' union went on strike to prevent a $2 (14.3 percent) pay cut, halting all work on the seven active Federal Triangle constructions sites. The employers and the American Institute of Architects both argued that the higher wage would inhibit economic recovery in the construction industry. To prove their point, the employers locked out the workers; the strike collapsed, and plasterers went back to work on July 22.