The labor world., 1916-05-20
WALSH SPEAKS OUT
FOR RAILROAD MEN
Daring Chairman Of Industrial
Relations Committee For
Eight-Hour Day
THROWS NEW LIGHT ON
LIFE OF RAILROAD MEN
Discredits Statistics Given To
Public Officers and Managers
of Railroads.

PlTTSBCRGH, May 1S:-AddreSS-
ing great mass meeting of the Rail-
road Brotherhoods in the Lyceum
theater, Frank p. Walsh, chairman
of the Committee on Industrial Rela-
tons, said:
II hold that the eight-hour day is
so incontestably right that the de-
mand for 1t Is not a subject for arbi-
tration. 1t should be taken as mat
ter of inalienable right through the
economic power of the workers. Not
only should no man be compelled to
work more than eight hours day;
but no man should be permitted to
work more than eight hours a day
excapt with the consent Of his fellow
workers and under conditions which
they impose, by their collective bar
gaining power, to see that the one
man does not invade and imperil the
rights of his fellows
II hold further," continued Mr..
Walsh, that the right Of workers to
collective bargaining and the right of
every worker to be protected by his
fellow workers from arbitrary dis
charge are also the inalienable rights
Of modern industry and they also are
not subjects for arbitration"
What the Railroad Brotherhoods
are demanding" said Mr.. Walsh. 'is
that instead of a ten-hour dav thew
be given an eight-hour day. or If the
railroads won't grant that, then that
they be given time and one-half for
time over the eight-hour limit.
'"Tho ro31r0o1ep
merely a demand for wages to be in
creased. Suppose that the Brother
moods demanded without any alter
native that they be given the eight
hour day (Which every principle Of
humanity and human efficiency saws
is long enough for exacting risky and
vigilant labor) and that the railway
employees be returned to their homes
at the end Of each days work With
out expense to them as most other
employees are: " What a. howl would
then go up from the railroads as to
.he exhorbitant cost that would
mean to them. If these righteous de-
mands Of the railway employees have
become only demands for increased
wages 1t is because the railroads
themselves have made that the alter
native.
Bear in mind that the great ma
3or1ty OF railroad employees are a
great part of their time away from
their home cities.
They have to pay their own expenses
Tor lodging, food, etc., and that
comes out of their wages. What are
these wages? They will average. II is
claimed, $1,242 a year. That is per-
maps 800 or more too high, mas
much as it takes into account the
hlgher average of the $4,000: passen-
ger conductors, engineers and others
who are not. involved in this contro-
versy. But suppose it is $1.242 a.
year. The daily average wage for
trainmen is $2.7s for a ten-ho1r f3av
or 27 cents an hour. To make 1920
a year at 27 cents an hour means
mat a man must work 1900 hours in
the year, and that means the euuiva-
lent OF 400 ten-hour days, or 365 DAYS
OF more than Is hours labor each.
The way it actually works itself ont
IS That Tor many, many days Of the
year the men who run your trains
ana who keep the tracks safe and
into whose hands the lives Of all the
rest are placed, and safely placed
where the greed or cheapness Of the
financial managements does not in
terVene' those men must work to the
point OF exhaustion for sixteen or
more hours out Of the twenty-four.
We have been told by the rail-
roads that there have already been
considerable percentages of wage in
crease to the train operatives in the
past Few years. A percentage of
wage increase depends on what Won
start with. If you start with such =
annseraply low wage that a man and
MS wire and children cannot live on
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