The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1921-06-01
RAILWAY MEMS WAGES
! TO Be GREATLY REDUCED
New Scales of aPy Are Announced
S for Practically All Railroad
Employees.
COST OF LIVING
/, FIGURES CITED
Estimated That Four Hundred Million
Dollars Will Be Slashed
From Labor Ill.

aE1our hundred million dollars Will be
alashed from the nations railway
wage bill when an order cutting wages
3 an average of IL per cent, to be hand
i9s Railroad Labor Board, becomes eff
,sfectiye July g. The order affects mem
Sers' of thirty y-one labor organizations,
employed on 104 railroads. ;.
4 While the decrease is specifically ap-
, piled only to. the roads whose cases
shave been heard by the board, the
decision says it may later be applied
to any other road asking hearing
under the provisions Of the Esch-
Cummins transportation act.
y Percentages of reductions computed
by members of the board gave the
average of IL per cent, and the same
source estimated the annual reduction
., in wages at'approXiraately $400,00O,-
: 600.
:, The decision grants reductions vary
!, ing from five to thirteen cents an
Nhour, or from to Is per cent, and in
the case of section laborers completely
wipes out the increase granted that
class of employees ythe 100000
wage award of July 20, 1920. For sec
tiOn men the reduction was approx
.imately 18 per cent. Switchmen and
b
reduction, while the train service men
were cut approximately per cent
Car repairers were cut about 10 per
cent.
Common Labor Light
Common labor, over which the rail
roads made their hardest fight, is to
be reduced six to eight and one-half
cents an hour, cutting freight truck
ers' average monthly wages to SOTO
and track laborers to Still. This new
schedule gives section n men an aver
age daily wage of $302 for an eight
hour day, although considerable testi-
mony offered by the roads, particular
ly in the South, showed common labor
wages as 10 (. $1.50 for q ten-hour
day.
Shop craft employees and train en-
gine service men except those in pas
senger service, are reduced eight
cents an hour. Construction and sec
tion fOremen are reduced ten cents an
hour.
Passenger and freight engineers,
who were given increases of ten and
thirteen cents an hour by the 1920
award are to be cut six and eight
cents an hour respectively. Passenger
and freight conductors, who received
increases of twelve and ona-half cents
in 1920, are cut seven and one-half
and eight cents, respectively, by the
new schedule.
Train dispatchers and yardmasters
whose monthly earnings at present
average $3.50 to $27O, are cut eight
cents an hour.
The smallest reduction will apply. to
office boys and other employees under
eighteen years of age, who will receive
five cents an hour less after July l.
Clerks Are Cut Down
Clerks are reclassified SO that enter
ing clerks, usually men and women of
eighteen to twenty years Of age, will
receive a monthly salary of $67.5 for
the first six months and $77.50 for the
second six months of service. Clerks
with less than one years experience
now receive 1920.
A new monthly schedule for floating
equipment employees on ferries, tugs
and steam lighters gives captains 5000
engineers $19G, firemcn and oilers $140
On lighters and barges captains will
receive $120 to $50, engineers $40 to
$3.50 and mates 800.
The decision tomorrow will say that
since the 1920 wage award there has
been decrease in the cost of living"
and "the scale Of wages for similar
kinds of work in other industries has
in general been decreased" These two
points were the chier contentious of
the railroad before the board. Testi-
mony was offered in the hearing which
began April 1S, and ended May 16, to
winter slump in business, railroad
arrangements have been clamoring for
several months for lower wages, and
the dicision tomorrow will mark the
show reductions of 20 to SO per cent
in the cost of food and clothing. Va
rying reductions in wages, mostly for
common labor, were also cited by the
carriers. "Thc board believes" the
decision says, chat based on the ele-
ments shown, the decreases fixed are
justified and required"
Whatever may be said as to the orr
gin or contributing causes, there has
been, and is, marked depression in
industry, affecting the entire country
and some lines of production most Sc
r1iously,o the board says. GAS a result
heavy financial losses have been suf-
fered and many hundred Of thou
sands thrown out of employment and
deprived of all wages, and this loss or
purchasing power by them has accel-
Grated the general depression by re-
ducing the demand for the products
they would otherwise have purchased
Whlle 1T has been argued that the fall
IN prices has not reached to any large
extent the consumer, it has, without
question, most disastrously reached
and affected the producers, especially
some lines of nannfo rfuro ord Al = . =.