The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-01-24
WHAT AIS THE RAILROADS?

Despite the big increase in freight
| rates and passenger fares recently
granted the railroads, it seems they
still are unable to show even a. rea-
| sonable profit. Various reasons for
this condition have been advanced.
| One found in an editorial printed by
| the Railway Age may be as good as
any. 1t points out that merely one
out OF the 1872 rules in the shop crafts
agreement is costing the railways at
the rate of s14,5oo.ooo a year. It
says:
The Shop Crafts agreement pro-
vides than when employees are requir-
ed to check in and out on their own
time they will be paid for one hour
extra at the. close of each week, no
| matter how few hours they may have
worked during the week. This rule
in the first six months of 1920 cost the
| railways $6,445.65S and at the higher
rates of pay now in effect is costing
at the rate of $14,500,000 year.
Among other examples of the re-
salts these extraordinary rules pro-
duce are the following:
The Pere Marquette Railway was
compelled to pay 1864 in back pay
to four employees because their titles
under theN agreements were changed
by decision of the director general.
A car repairer on the Virginia Rail-
way was paid 1000 for work he never
did. He was laid off with other en-
ployes because there was no work for
him to do. When he became entitled
under his seniority rights to be re-
employed, the road refused to take
him back, because his eyesight was
defective. The road was compelled
to pay him from the time his Seniority
rights" would have entitled him to re-
employment, because he had not been
told his eyesight was bad when it laid
him off!
A train on the FL Paso & Southwest
ern was delayed one hour and thirty
minutes and an employe was paid five
hours time for making repairs to a
window which took him thirty min
utes, when a foreman who was avail
able could have done the work with
out delaying the train. .
AZ machinist on the Santa Fe for II
days performed the duties OF a night
roundhouse foreman while the fore
man was sick. The forernanss uS1y for
this time would have been 1866. but
the nnachinist, for Substituting for
him, received 1921.
-Four car men on ghe same road
Were sent out on the line to do a piece
of work that took hours and 33 min
utes. The company was compelled to
Tive machinists on the Norfolk &
Western were sent to an outlying
point where they actually worked
eight hours per day for three days
Each of them had to be paid straight
time for the "a hours they did work
and time and half for ~ hours they
didn't work.
Examples of this kind have been
cited almost without number. The
public naturally will ask how such
rules governing working conditions
and wages could ever have been put
into effect and how they can possibly
be defended. It makes no difference
how the rules came into existence or
what technical defense of them may
be made. They resulted under gov
eminent control in many millions of
dollars being given to the employees
for work that never was done. They
are having the same effect under pri-
vate operation, and will continue to
have until they are set aside. The
public has been and is paying the bill
The farmer who works ten, twelve or
sixteen hours day is paying it. Men
who do eight hours work for eight
hours wages and ten hours work for
ten hours wages in other industries
are paying it. Whatever technical de-
tense may be offered, there cannot
be, in the court of reason or fairness,
any valid defense made for agree
ments which result in railway en-
ployes getting many millions of dol
lars year for work they do not do
from people who get paid only for the
work that they do.