The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1894-04-05
JudgeCaldweIl Decides in Favor
of Employees
In the Big Union Pacific Legal
a Battle.
RECEIVERS SCORED
For Changing Rules Without
Consulting Employees
Who Had Contract With the
Former Managers.
Not Being Railroad Men They
Acted IgnOrantly.

OMAHA, April 5.-Judge CaldwelTs
decision in the Union Pacific wage
schedule case was rendered this morn
ing and was complete victory for the
employees.
The United States court room was
thronged with railroad men who listened
intently to the reading of the opinion,
which was very lengthy, comprising over
four thousand words. After stating the
facts of the road coming into the hands
OF the receiver Judge Caldwell says:
"The relation of these men to the com
pany and their rate of waP es we're de-
rules, regulations and schedules, some Of
which had been force for more than
quarter of century, and all of which
had been in force, substantially as they
stand today, for period of eight years
or more.
ules were the result of free and volun-
tary conferences held from time
to time between the managers
of the railroad and the officers
and representatives of the several labor
organizations representing the men in
the different subdivisions or branches Of
the service, viz: The Brotherhood Of
Locomotive Engineers, the Brotherhood
of Locomotive Firemen, the Order of
Railway Conductors, the Order of Rail-
way Telegraphers, the Union Pacific
Employees association, and the Brother
hood of Railway Trainmen.
Labor Unions Improve Efficiency.
''rhese labor organizations. like the
rules, regulations and schedules, had be-
come established institutions on the sys-
tenn, many years before the appoint
ment of receivers. Two Of the
ablest railroad managers ever in the ser
vice of this system and probably able
as any this country has ever produced
Mr.. S. H. H. Clark and MIR. Edward
Dickinson. now general manager of the
road, testify that these labor organIzd-
tions on this system had improved the
morals and efficiency of the men and had
rendered valuable aid to the company in
perfecting and putting into force the
rules and regulations governing the
operation of the Union Pacific railway,
(which confessedly, have made 1t one Of
the best managed and conducted rail
roads in the country
among the rules and regulations re-
ferred 10 and in operation when the re-
ceivers were appointed was one TO the
effect that no change should be made In
the rules and regulations and rate of
wages without first giving to the labor
organizations, whose members would be-
affected by sach change, thirty days mo-
tice, or other reasonable notice"
Judge Caldwell then recites how the
receivers went into court last January
to force a reduction on the schedule of
wages and states all the legal steps
taken down to and including the hear
ing just ended The court then says:
The Value of Conference.
s'At this conference an agreement was
reached as to the rules, regulations and
schedules relating to the train dispatch
ers and operators which have been re-
ported to the court and confirmed. This
was one of the most difficult schedules
in the whole list to adjust, and
the satisfactory agreement reached
in the conference shows the great value
of good tempered, calm and intelligent
inquiry in which both sides are repre-
sented, and in which both sides learned,
perhaps for the first time, the ground on
which the demand is made by the one
and resisted by the other.
'sThe receivers had declared to the
court that after careful consideration of
the matter and consultation with the
rcontinuod or, Il,ird Pa % 1