Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1915-02-10

half for overtime, with the rates per
hour you show in Exhibit 20, as sub.
stitute for our proposition or what
ever is awarded by this arbitration?
Eliminating all penalties and all ar.
bitrary rules, and paying every man
on the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe
on an eight hour day basis except
the passenger man, paying him the
rate you show in Exhibit 20 in the
different classes of service and CIV
ing him time and half overtime, in
exchange for anything in our propos-
ition or any thing that might be
awarded-would you do that?
Mr.. Keefe: You are betting on a
dead sure cinch, aren't you, Mr. Car
ter?
Mr.. Carter: No, sir. I offer our
proposition or anything that may be
awarded after this arbitration is over.
Will you exchange what the men get
here, freight service, yard service,
pusher and helper service, local way
freight service and all other service
except passenger service and give to
them in exchange for what they get
here, an eight hour day, time and a
half overtime after eight hours, on
the rates you say they are earning?
Mr.. Keefe: On your basis 1 think
it would be most unfair. Men would
receive an unreasonable compensa
ton for the service they perform.
Mr.. Carter: Then, Mr.. Keefe, il
railroad men received the same com
pensation and were under the same
working conditions that men in the
building trades receive, and the wag
es you say they are earning, it would
be an unreasonable request?
| Mr.. Keefe: You have not placed il
upon the same basis or plane at all
Mr.. Carter.
| Mr.. Carter: That is all.
| Besides Mr.. Keefe there was on the
stand during the week William J. Tol
lerton, mechanical superintendent OF
the Rock Island Railroad, who en-
deavored to discredit statements re
specting the installation of labor saw
ing devices on locomotives, the conse
Quent tightening of firemen's la
bors, the work a fireman actually has
to do or does not do, and similar data
which the brotherhoods presented ex
tensively over month ago.
Witness Keefe, however, did not
give way to Tollerton before he had
shelled few of the enemies ram
! vuk~ III n 1ff vi hi re
which were supposed to prove that en-
gineers and firemen have about the
best jobs of any craftsmen in the
world. Warren S. Stone, grand CHIEF
engineer of the engineers brotherhood
riddled the Keefe stronghold in cross
examination and, among other things
prove the following:
About 10000 engineers earned in
October, 1913, less than S167 month
or little over SO per cent of the to
tai; over AZ per cent of Western en-
gineers earned less than $3.50 q
month; about 1.S per cent of Western
firemen During the same month re
ceived from $3.50 to $15S; only II Of
/ per cent of all Western firemer
made more than $3.50 and as high as
STA that month; about $40 of 1 pei
cent of Western firemen reached the
high point of SITS to $1S3 per month
Data indicating that less than pei
cent of the scoop shovel locomotive
men in the West earned over $3.50 a
month in what Grand Chief Stone de
scribed as ''the best month Of the last
five years" also was presented. Pres
ident Carter, along the same line
gathered from the various exhibits
of the companies that a hostler's com
pensation averaged "a cents an hour
which, on eight hour basis, would be
1892 day.
"Why, that is only so per cent OF
what a hod carrier receives" re-
marked the firemen's executive.
Mr.. Carter also discovered that in
switching service firemen were shown
to have received Is cents an hour
5000 day on an eight hour basis
It remained for Mechanical Superin
tendent Tollerton of the Rock Island
who took the stand Thursday, to Offer
other data respecting a fireman's la
bors. Mr.. Tollerton said that he had
superintendent $1,000 observations or
twenty railroads in Western territory
to back up his assertions. A summary