Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1921-05-20
AS Worker Sees the Situation

Editor Newark LEADER
From a readers point Of view, why
the defunct condition Of our Big Cor
porations, principally the railroads,
and why they can not operate at a
good profit-simplv through misman-
agement and waste, from the highest
paid official to the humblest en-
ployee, the poor condition of all tools,
such as jacks, pinchbars, stocks and
dies, reamers, taps, drills, blocks and
fall; in fact almost all tools, the en-
ployees must work with. Where one
man should handle these tools, a
mechanic must call on his helper to
tap out nuts or cut threads on bolts !;
then they do not cut as they should,
but tear, from being worn out and
dull. If a mechanic has work on a
locomotive, requiring two or four
jacks to raise her up, out Of sixteen
or eighteen jacks perhaps he will find
from four to six of them that can be
used at all. The good ones will be in
use and the mechanic can wait till he
can get what he wants, causing delay
! to the work; and when he gets as many
as he requires, some other mechanic
comes around and wants to use these
| JctSho ClloOJ anu W WcllI uilJll JllCy
are let loose, before he can go ahead
with his work. If a mechanic wants
to move a locomotive three, four or
six inches one way or another, he
must run all over the shop to find
pinchbar, and after hunting them all
he won't nine time out of ten, find
more than one or two that can be
used at all, on account of being bent,
dull and worn out. Then he must
wait until he can get one or two
dressed and from two to four en-
plOyees waiting around for these bars
to do the work with. This is the con-
dition Of things from start to finish,
and nobody in authority seems TO
care, and the poor employees are the
ones to blame again
Poor buying of all kind of material
plays a great part in waste of time
in every particular, such as getting
an order for half a dozen or so of
bolts and nuts; and then when you go
to screw nuts on bolts and none of
them will fit, its up to the mechanic
to get the dull stocks and dies, or the
dull taps, and have his helper help
recut them. This takes up four times
as much time as when cut by a ma
chine, and you always wait to have
anything done on these machines.
These nuts and bolts should have been
fit before being bought. Again, from
one-fOurth to one-half Of everything
taken off old locomotives to be re-
paired or overhauled could be used
again, if taken down properly. But
no, nothing is taken care of and con-
sequently all goes into scrap, and all
new material is drawn.
High salaried officials go on in
spection trips about the shops and
yards and along the rights Of way,
and not one in dozen can tell any
thing except that the buildings are
still standing and the grounds have
been cleaned up. They know no more
about the condition Of tools in tool
rooms, condition Of pits under the
locomotives or the facilities Of work
men than newborn babe. If they
do not make good showing to the
stockholders whom they represent
they never think about cutting the
high salary of any of the officials,
but always go after the poor devil
who does the hard and dirty work
and knows more in one minute, from
actual experience, than they them
selves know in a week. Very funny
how some people are allowed to get
such high salary for a name only,
while the fellow who has the ex-
perience and knowledge and does the
hard and dirty work is only allowed
dragging existence for himself and
family.
These conditions prevail from from
one end Of the system to the other,
and it is funny when a fellow does
happen to get promoted to be a straw
boss or foreman over his lifelong
school boy chums, the boys he learned
his trade with, to see his head get so
big that he can hardly talk to the
workmen under him for fear of chok-
ing to death. But rarely one of this
always want book-educated guys as
foremen; they can do it all right on
paper, but when it comes for them
to do the work, they do not know
beams when the bag is open.
| am a general locomotive machi-
mist by trade, belonging to the !. A.
of NJ, and locomotive engineer be-
longing to Division B. of L. E., and
| know what | am writing about, and
can prove each and every assertion
to be the truth. Such being the case
this letter will show where thousands
of dollars could be saved by all cor
porations by employing a good, first
class efficient engineer to look afte.'
all conditions mentioned herein, pro-
viding he would do his duty, and show
the general public that it is not be-
cause the laboring class of people is
getting too much pay that creates
the depressed conditions of ou" big
corporations and causes them to lay |
off the men and try to starve chem
into submitting to a cut in Mames |