The Dickinson press., 1916-07-08
RAILWAY EMPLOYEES
EXPLAIN SITUATION
Cleveland, Ohio, July 1, 1916.

OleVcldnu, OlllO, July l., 1910.
In an effort to make their position
clear to the public, the Transporter
ton Brotherhoods have issued the
following statement relative to the
conference between the Employees
Committee and the Railway Manag-
ers, recently held in New York City.
The Employees Committee met the
Railway Managers Committee and
presented their demands for an eight
hour work day with a penalty for
overtime, of time and a half pay.
The Managers Committee refused
to grant these demands and did not
submit any definite counter-proposi-
ton to the employees.
The Managers did discuss what
they termed tentative proposal"
which did not take into consideration
the plain fact that freight train crews
arc piece workers and they are paid to
perform certain definite service Of
moving a train from one ends of a
division to the other and when they
have performed this piece work, they
have done what they were paid to
do regardless of whether it was done
in less than eight hours.
What the men want is chance to
perform this piece work in all cases,
in eight hours or less.
Having no penalty for the use of
overtime, the railroad companies now
use the men continuously from ~ to
20 hours.
The Interstate Commerce Commits
sion has no authority under the law,
to regulate wages Of employees any
more than it has to regulate the price
of steel rails and other supplies pur-
chased by the railroad companies.
Therefore, any investigation made by
the Interstate Commerce Commission
into the subject Of wages would come
to naught, for the reason that the
Commission has no power to settle
the matter.
Under the Newlands Arbitration
Law, it is distinctly provided that az
bitration can be set in operation
"when a strike is threatened"
No man has right to say that a
"strike is threatened" until the result
of the strike vote, now being taken,
is ascertained. The will Of the en-
ployes must be known before a strike
can be threatened.
If the Interstate Commerce Com
mission would assume the RESPONSE
bility Of agreeing that the demands
Of the men should be met, it would
clearly be up to the Commission to
provide the means for meeting any
increased cost Of operation.
The railways of course, would like
to put the Interstate Commerce Com
mission under this obligation to grant
increased freight rates.
If it is right and proper for the
freight train employees to 60 into an
arbitration as to whether they shall
be worked excessive hours and as to
what they shall sell their labor for,
than it would only be consistent for
the railway car and engine builders
and railway supply dealers to agree
to arbitrate with the railroads as to
the price the railroads should pay for
these things.
The principle objection however, Of
the employees to arbitration, would be
on the ground of the inability to Sc
cure impartial arbitrators who were
sufficiently acquainted with the tech
nicalities Of problem of this kind.
In a previous arbitration between
the employees and the companies, the
man who was acting as neutral arbi-
traitor, was corporation lawyer rep
|resenting large vested interests,
owners Of railroad securities and who
had appeared in numerous cases as
Attorney Of Record for the Standard
Oil Company.