The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-12-29

One of the committee of the Brotherhood
OF Locomotive ENGINEERS gave the follow
ing detailed account of the four weeks
work of the committee in this City, the
origin of the trouble which has been ad--
iusted and the general character OF the
adjustment:
"a year ago the Southern Pacific Com
pany started to make readjustment of
the wages of the engineers employed on
the system of the company. BY the read
justment they claimed to have merely re-
ouced the higher salaries, which they
claimed were established when the sched-
ule time of trains was much slower. They
stated that they simply aimed to bring the
highest rates to level or equality with
other rates OIL the system.
"When the engineers began to examine
the readiustment they found that it
amounted to pretty good sizsd reduction
in the engineers wages, and that the COM
pany had not followed, as it claimed it
would, the proposition of merely taking
off from the higher wages, but had made
the cuts indiscri Intimately, reducing some
rates that had been made only few
months before.
''The result was that the committee of
the engineers was convened January 2,
1895, and took the matter up with the
company, showing that the readjustment,
as the company termed it, was nothing
more than a simple reduction of wages.
"After considerable controversy the
committee and the general manager, Mr..
Towne, came to an understanding that the
pay of the engineers on the Pacific system
would be made on a mileage basis. The
proposition agreed to was that out of this
mileage basis should come to the COM
pany per cent aggregate reduction in
the pay of engineers, as that pay existed
prior to December, 1894. And the under
standing embodied the further proposition
that the engineers would be privileged to
fix this mileage basis in any way to suit
themselves, so long as out of it came to
the company the per cent reduction.
This proposition of mileage basis,
giving the company per cent reduction
on the aggregate wages of the engineers,
was agreed to by both parties-the engi-
neers and the company-and 1t went into
effect April /, 1895.
after the agreement had been reached
and the committee had gone home it be-
came apparent to the engineers that those
points in the agreement which in meas
ure were unfavorable to the engineers
were strictly enforced according to the
letter. On the other hand those points
which were favorable to the engineers were
deriated from by the company.
This led to continuous contentious be-
tween the engineers and the officials about
matters of pay, the result being that the
committee was again convened on Deem
Der 2, 1895.
There was no dissatisfaction on the
part of the engineers with the mileage
system of pay adopted. The only dissatis
faction arose from the failure to carry out
the agreement as made. The committee
Immediately went before the officials with
a simple proposition that the agreement
as made and entered into on April 1, 1895,
be carried out, and they proceeded to show
many instances in which it had not been
adhered to in the past eight months.
after numerous conferences between
the officials of the roads, including Mr..
Kruttschritt, the new general manager, a
highly satisfactory settlement was reached.
"This settlement Was an expressed
understanding that the agreement OF April
/. 1895, would be carried out; that what it
gave to the engineers they should have