Evening star., 1921-04-05
BY G. GOULD LINtoLx.

Copyright. 1921. by The Washington Star.l
(This is the fourth Of a series of articles
on the acute railroad and railroad labor
problems. The next will appear in an
early isaue.)
The railroad managements have beer
at it hammer and tongs" to do away
with the national agreements with the
workers, relating to working condi-
tions in the shop crafts, among the
clerks, etc. The question as to wheth-
in effect should be continued natur-
ally divides itself into two phases.
First. shall the national agreements
be done away with entirely as wrong
in principle?
Second, shall the national agree
ments be modified and amended but
retained as national agreements?
Insist Agreements Are Wrong.
The railroad executives have in
sisted that the national agreements
are wrong in principle. and they are
seeking to eliminate them entirely
and to bring about a return to old
conditions, where the individual roads
deal with their particular employees in
regard to working conditions, pay. etc.
They also have advanced large
number of specific instances to show
how, under arbitrary rules contained
in the national agreements. men have
been paid for many hours of labor
not actually performed These in
vidual rules and their effect. rather
than to strike the principle of a ma
tional agreement
The .men. however. have answers to
make to these criticisms, and they
are now in the process of laying these
answers before the Railroad Labor
Board in Chicago. I have talked to a
number of their leaders. and they in
sist that the railroad executives are
by no means a unfit their real SEN
timents could be ascertained-in the
demand that the national agreements
as such be done away with They
contend that the practical managers
realize that it is to the advantage of
the managements of the roads as well
as to the workers to have MANY Of
the questions involved in the national
agreements dealt with nationally.
Incensed by Committee. s.
In this connection it may be men,
toned that the selection of Gen. w.
W Atterbury, vice president of the
pennsylvania lines. as chairman of
the labor committee of the Associa-
tion of Railway Executives. and the
propaganda undertaken by that COM
mittee to discredit the national agree
ments. has greatly incensed the work.
ers. They feel. rightly or wrongly, as
the case may be. that Gen. Atterbury
Is antagonistic to organized labor and
mon thing to hear Atterbury de-
scribed by the workers as a "Prus-
sian"
There is no doubt that the railroad
executives, in order to focus public
attention upon what they claim to be
he Hofs
hooded the country with documents.
The workers have not been slow.
however, to hit back through the COL
umns of the labor pHess.
IN one OF the cases put forward by
the railroad executives to prove the
injustice OF the rules adopted under
me national agreements, it is insisted
that six men are now REQUIRED To
change a nozzle tip in the front end
OF a locomotive-which, the railroad
executives say, is "one-man lob"
licity.
To Change q Nozzle Tip.
AS the executives put it up. it shows
that to change the nozzle tip it is nee
essary:
1. To call a boilermaker and his
helper to open the door. because that
Is boilermakers' work.
z To call >pipeman and his helper
70 remove the blower pipe, because it
is pipemen's work.
3. To call a machinist ana his helper
70 remove the tip. because that is
machinists' work.
Before federal control a machinist's
neiper or any handy man put in noz-
zie tips alone. the executives say.
To the layman. who has little or no
knowledge of what a nozzle tin in
the front of locomotive is, this ar
ralgnment seems pretty complete. But
the machfnists with whom I have
talked insist that it is quite a ioh
and that the work involved actually
does call for men of these various
crafts who have been trained to the
work They also say that in the
past. before the national agreements
became effective, these same men