Arizona republican., 1916-08-22
tllohrity


 Arbitration is urged by congress as a final method for settling controver- sies as to both hours and wages on the railroads. The Newiands law of 1913 was enacted by unanimous request of the four railroad brotherhoods and the representatives of the railroads. And yet the leaders who urged this law now take the position that a question of hours is beyond arbitration.
 But wages, not hours, are involved in these demands 50 proposal has been made to establish an eight hour working day.
 The demand is for an eighth hour day pay basis and this is the~ inter pretation given by the president in the proposal now before the railroads. The employees have emphatically made il known that they do not want eight hours work for eight hours pay-a real eight hour day.
 "A simple illustration win suffice to show how the eight-hou basis of pay would work out Take, for example, q freight employe paid five cents a mile with q days guarantee of s for 100 , miles or 10 hours or less. On a freight run of. say. only sixty miles in 10 hours. he earns s for his time. It is TOW proposed that for this work he
  sl.25 for the other two hours, a total of se.25. increasing his pay 25 per cent If, by reason of traffic delays, he is i held idle on side track, so that he l does not complete his trip until the end of i2 hours, he now is paid S6 foT ' his time no matter how little work ht performs. The demand is to pay him 1 S7.50 for this i2 hours service
 Meanwhile. the employees would 1 continue to have the same opportuni- ] ties as now to make still larger pay or | the mileage basis. For example. the man on five cent pile rate, making 1 say 150 miles in only seven hours earns S750 for his days work If aftel 1 this he Is called for a short period oi 1 emergency work. say only two hours he get another full days guarantee o' i $500 making Si250 in this example l for only nine hours service.
 Many other schedule provisions in- 1 crease the wage of these well paid mer | without increase in their hours of ser, 1 vice. Il is because of these oppor i turities to take pay under mileage o | arbitrary rules that the yearly earn ings are so far beyond those of othel workers charged with no less respon- sible duties.
 The proposal from the presiden now before the railroads is
 "l-To accept the eight hour day a l q basis for wages even where thu actual work to be done cannot be com pleted within eight hours, to quot the presidents words.
 "2-To increase the hourly rate o pay 25 per cent
 The result of the acceptance of thi proposal would be:
 1 "f--Absolutely no change in tn length of the work day
 "2-An increase in wages of nor than S50,000,000 a year to about four fifths of the train employees. or les than one-seventh of all railroad em ployes. In other words an unfair wag preferment would be granted withou investigation and under threat of national strike. to one man in seven il the railroad service.
 If these wage demands are just i whole or in part then public tribuna appointed by the president as we hay urged, would speedily so determine.
 The weight of the public opinio must determine this issue We can not believe that 1t is the calm judg ment of the country that we shouI sacrifice the principle of arbitration | our disputes, under a threat to tie II the commerce of the country"