The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1916-03-14
RAILWAY MANAGER.
In Address Give Their Views of Wage
Question

Chicago, March 1.-THE executive
committee of the Association of West
ern Railways has issued the following
statement:
Mr.. Farmer once upon time-like
the raiways-you paid your employees
a fixed monthly wage. They worked
till their work was done no matter
how many hours.
Your Farmland followed a pillow
behind a yoke of oxen, perhaps from
sun up till sun down, then did his
Chores and was contented.
Suppose shat when you invested
more Of your capital in a good team
of horses, to replace the oxen, your
employe had said:
These horses turn more burrows in
a day than the oxen and hereafter l
want to be paid by the furrow, or the
distance the pillow travels, but in case
anything stops the plow you must pay
me for a full day if I work ten hours
or less-if that plan would give more
money than the pillow mileage amounts
to-
Suppose that when you invested
more money in a wheel pillow, on which
your employee could ride at ease in
stead of being required to walk in a
furrow and wrestle with heavy pillow,
he said:
Hereafter l want you to pay me
for full day if | work eight hours
or less, or pow a fixed distance or
less, with time-and-a-half pay for
overtime either on a time or distance
basis, whichever will give me the most
money"
Suppose, futher Mr. Farmer, that
from 1904 to 1914 you had increased
the wages of your farm hand from
$90209 a year to $1,253.37 a year,
would you feel like granting his last
demand for more wages for doing ex-
actly the same work in exactly the
same hours?
That is precisely the question the
called on to answer.
The men employed in the railway
train service are demanding a 25 per
cent. increase in pay for exactly the
same wark they have been doing, and
under the same conditions, except as
to pay.
AS with the farmland, the working
conditions of railway train service
men have been constantly improved
at the expense of the employers.
Government statistics prove that the
hazard of their occupation has stead
lily decreased This is the result of
millions spent by the railroads for
better roadbeds, heavier rails, double
tracks, block signals, automatic coup
lers, air brakes, mechanical stokers,
oil burning engines and many other
safety and labOr-saving devices-for
which the employees made no invest
ment and assumed no financial risk.
The men who are now asking rs
per cent. higher pay are and always
have been the best paid of all railway
employees.
Their wages range from $500 year
for inexperienced brakemen to nearly
81 900 year for engineers on the best
runs.
The average wages of the 100000
employees who are demanding an in
crease are $1,253.37 year, an increase
of 40 per cent since 1904.
The 100000 other railway en-
ployes average $684.78 a year, an in
crease of 25.2 per cent. since 1904.
These are the facts, Mr.. Farmer.
Will you think them over and then say
if you think the railway train service
employees are justified in threatening
the prosperity of every industry in
this country, of even the very exist
ence of individuals dependent for food
supply on uninterrupted railroad SER
vice?