Denver labor bulletin., 1917-12-15
ny LAURENCE TODD
(Bpsstai Representative The Dsaver Labor
Bullefin.D

.
cratic management of the railroads is
the biggest industrial issue before the
country. now that the government is
going to run the railroad business.
Either the employees on the railroads
are going TO keep their unions-and It
is a lOO-to-l probability that they
will-or there is going TO be an at
tempt 10 apply Burlcson rule to the
business. In that case, the labor
movement will be heard from in Con-
grcss, and everywhere else, in the
loudcst kind Of protest
At this date. the President is re-
ported 20 be planning 10 take over
the roads for the period Of the war,
and TO invest so much public money
in them, that government ownership
Of railroads is made absolutely GER
tain in the next few years. This
means that nearly n million men in
the United States, now employed by
railroad companies on the trains, in
shops. in freight yards, in offices, etc.
will become government employees. II
means that they will be serving one
Of the vital parts of the government
machinery during the war. II postal
employees should, as Postmaster Cen
eral Burleson demands, surrender
their right to organize into unions, in
order that the public safety may be
assured, how about the railroad en-
ployes?
Burleson Is lin Bad"
Burleson has not resigned. He is
still in the cabinet, however in dis
favor he may be with the rest of the
Presidents advisers. While he clings
to his job and his $4,000 salary as
Postmaster General, and while he in
,fa ,,,t11f,,, nj
employees have no right to ask their
boss for raise in pay, or to protest
against longer hours of work at the
old rate of pay. the railway employees
will not indorse government operation
of the roads with any high degree of
confidence. On the other hand, the
postal employees are highly pleased.
The more men brought under direct
control of the government, they argue,
the sooner the issue of democratic
management within the industry will
be settled. and settled right.
What the postal employees want, and
what the railway employees will insist
upon. IL the right to sit down at the
conference board. with the chiefs Of
the official management, and discuss
and decide upon the labor policy and
the whole industrial management.
They want the human element in the
railroad machine and in the postal
machine TO be given its due weight in
all decisions affecting the lives of the
men and women who are this human
element. They want free discussion,
between spokesmen of the government
and spokcsmen of the employees, of all
questions of wages, of hours, of shop
rules. of transfers, of the right of
leave of absence. and n hundred other
,-,nhtg tInt mn prtn Mt N tho
sons concerned.
Rights of Federal Employees.
A. O. Wharton, president of the
Railway Employees division of the
A. f.. of L., when asked by your cor
respondent. at Buffalo. rs to how he
stood on public ownership. replied
that he stood waiting to see what
labor policies would be adopted by
the government He expected. he said,
to find that under government owner
ship. if it came, the necessity for COM
plete union organization would be as
great. or even greater. than under
private ownership. No government
could be expected to look after the
rights of hundreds of thousands of
men unless they explained clearly,
and through their accredited spokes-
men, just what they considered were
their rights.
Nor will this issue be determined
merely for the postal employees and
for the railroad employees. There are
the telegraph employees, and the half
million or more of coal miners, who
may soon be drawn into the same re-
lation to Uncle Sam. AS the war goes
on. labor officials here believe, the
tendency to nationalize industries "for
the period of the war" will be in
creased. So the labor movement faces
the most important crisis of its whole
dcvclopmcnt-how to adjust the con-
ditions of free unionism to govern
ment service. II is problem of re-
educating the members of Congress
and the administration. in so far as
they do not now realize the new stu
alton. to the fact that the wage
workers of America have grown past
the stage where they had nothing to