The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-06-02
WELLS ISSUES STATEMENT
Says Shop Crafts Made No Proposition
for Reduction of Hours.

Denial that the Santa Fe manage
ment has any purpose other than the
necessity for curtailing operating ex-
penses. in laying off shop men, or that
the members of the shop crafts made
any proposition to the roads whereby
reduction of hours could have been
substituted for a reduction in force, is
made in a statement issued by A. G..
Wells, vice president in charge OF
operation, in answer to the statement
made Wednesday by the executive
board of the Santa Fe system fedora
ton of shop crafts.
Weiss statement is as follows:
81 have read with amazement and in
credulity the statement appearing IN the
afternoon paper and attributed to the ex-
ecutive board of the Santa Fe system feder-
alton of shop crafts, to the effect that the
executive BOARD of the system federation
made q proposition to the Santa Fe man
agement IN conference held in Los Ange.
les early in the year of closing the shops
down for portion of each month, and
thereby effecting a reduction in the payroll
and obViating the necessity OF laying men
1.-THE conference referred to doubtless is
that held in March OF this year at Los
Angeles, consisting on the part of the Santa
Fe Co., of It. A. Gregg, my assistant, as
chairman, and an assistant to the general
manager of each of the grand divisions of
the Santa Fe system, and H. S. Wall, me.
chanical superintendent of the coast lines of
this road. On the other side of the table
representative of the system shop crafts.
None of the officers of this company at
the meeting has knowledge of any such
proposition as that alleged to have been
made by the shop crafts board. The only
suggestion made at this meeting which has
any resation to that which it is alleged the
shop crafts board proposed emanated, not
from the shop crafts committee, but from
Wall, mechanical superintendent Of the
coast lines. who advised the shop crafts
committee that he had petitions signed by
a large majority of the mechanics employed
at several points under his Jurisdiction ask
I'M hot fho ho arTtffff nd m Ia nf
one day in six in order to avoid the neces-
sity of discharging anyone Gregg urged
the assent of the shop crafts board to this
plan for the entire Santa Fe system, point
been made by a system committee repre-
senting the Union Pacific shop crafts with
mittee members advised that they would
take the matter under consideration and
the following morning declared that they
regretted not being permitted to vary from
the provisions Of the national agreement,
which provided that six days work must
be provided for the senior men in a shop
kept open regardless of the number of men
whose services wkere dispensed with.
Moreover. We have reliable information
that w. S. Patterson, formerly secretary of
the machinists' organization on the Santa
Fe, with office at albuquerque, sent out a
communication to his constituents suggest
ing that they take vote on this subject,
and we understand that. Notwithstanding
the plan commended itself to the employees
at a majority of the points canvassed, he
was severely criticized by his superiors in
the organization for advocating a procedure
which is prohibited by the national rules
imposed upon the carriers of this country
by the railroad administration.
"The present reduction in forces has been
made with great reluctance. 1t has been
necessary because of diminished earnings,
the excessively high rates of wages which
deavoring to maintain the proper relation
between income and expenditures. We will
all be glad when the conditions will war