Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1903-05-18
THE CURIOUS OUTCOME OF AN
ARBITRATION AT CHICAGO.
An Arbitration Commission of Clereymen
Value the Time Of Engineers at 80 Gents
an Hour. and Their Own at $2l an Hour,
but Are Only Allowed the Rate Of 80
Cents.

One Of the recent efforts to arbitrate
labor controversies over questions of
wages has had comical outcome.
The steam engineers at the Chicago
stoc!syards, who were the parties on the
labor side Of this controversy, agreed to
submit the matter to the arbitration Of
three clergymen-two Protestant minis.
tens and Catholic priest. After spend.
ing something like IS hours upon the
case, this clerical board of arbitration
reported that 80 cents an hour would be
fair pay for the stockyards engineers.
The award was hardly satisfactory to
the workmen, though they accepted it
with grim good humor. But the end was
not yet. The engineers hid agreed to
pay half the expenses OF the arbitration,
and when they were confronted with the
arbitrators' bills for services the amount
staggered them. In comparison with
fair pay foi engineers, their estimate OF
fair pay for themselves seemed superbly
liberal. For they charged 81 900 apiece,
Or about $2l an hour.
After due consideration the engineers
organization decided that, inasmuch as
the preachers had thought 80 cents an
hour good wages for men working ase
gineers, they ought themselves to be
satisfied with that amount for acting as
Arbitrators; especially as it is easier to
make such a decision as they had made
than to 'un power plant. Accordingly
a motion was carried to pay the arbitra-
tors $l4.4O, which is at the rate OF 80
cents an hour; and an order for half the
amount, $7.20. mas drawn on the treas
urer in favor OF each arbitrator. This
done, the engineers tore up their arbitra.
ton agreement and went on strike.
The laugh surely seems to be upon the
preachers. Yet it is easier to laugh at
them than to show that they were wrong.
What they had been called upon to de.
eide was not the essential worth OF
days work at running til, engine Of
power plant. but the worth OF such work
according to usual standards. They were
compelled, therefore, to govern them
selves, in arriving at decision, by pre-.
vailing customs relative to wages, and
~ the cost Of customary living for
Ell yineers.
They could not have awarded the en-
gineets scale of wages at the rate Of $21
an hour, nor even tenth OF that amount.
Had they done SO they would indeed
have been laughed at, with loud and
irreverent guffaw, and by no one more
derisively than by engineers themselves.
The same rule applies to the pay Of
the arbitrator. 1t is not what their Ser
vice Was worth in itself, it is not what
they actually earned or could earn, it is
not what it would cost them to live If
they lived as engineers live. it is not
what board OF mechanics would have
uOue tnc WOIk lCT-uOuc vi tHCbO tuInRS
determine the proper rate of psy for such
work when done by professional or bust.
ness men. What does determine it it
what such men engaged in such service
are accustomed 10 receive.
Precisely as in the case OF the engineers.
it is the usual standard and not the es-
sential worth that determines rates OF
pay and, measured by that standard,
$2l an hour would not be very excessive
not excessive enough, certainly, to ex-
cite anything like the derisive laughter
among business and professional men
that the same rate if proposed for power
plant engineers would excite among the
class commonly called "workingmen."
There is lesson in this episode for all
coed people who would settle rates OF
wages arbitrarily. BY no possibility can
wages according to earnings be adjusted
by means OF arbitration or OF any other
arbitrary process. All that can be done
in any Of these ways is TO decide approxi-
mately upon customary wages.