The Connecticut labor news., 1921-08-19
Trolley Wage
Continued from Page One. )

agreed.
 The hearings opened at 10 o'clock l Wednesday morning with Justice l John k. Beach of the Supreme Court, the third arbitrator, presiding. Judge James II. Vahey of Boston, the troll 1 Ieymens arbitrator, also acted as their counsel and presented the open cph Berry of Hartford, was arbitra- tor for the company, and Attorney George D. Watrous of New Haven, was counsel. The public took little interest i'll the opening session prob ably because of the opinion that the hearings would not be open. The trolleymen of the state were well represented, however, delegates as follows representing the various local unions: Frank O'Meara, Hartford, chairman Wm. B. Mardon, Stamford, | vice-president; John Looney, New Haven, secretary ytreasurer; John | IOOhey, Bridgeport, seCretary-trcas- urer; Francis F. Houlihan, Hartford; C. H. Farrelly, Hartford; J. l.. Sul- livan, MiddletoWn; Joseph H. Kane, Meriden; Fred Walker, New Haven; Thomas F. Bassil, Derby; Frank Mclean, Waterbury; W. 5. Mayhew, NorWalk; B. J. Flanagan, Bridgeport.
 MT. Nahey, as counsel for the men, spent the morning in putting their case before the board. He said that the relations between the company and it's employees had always been cordial and that the company had used to good advantage the bulletin system in which changes on working 1 conditions for the men were an nounced over the signatures of both 1 officers of the company and repre- 2 nt 10 H hoe 111c claim for objecting to the cut i'll l wages on the grounds that the men had never received adequate pay and that, while the cost of living appeared 10 have dropped, 1t was only tenn porary reduction and would go up again.
 In addition to the demands for re- tentiOn Of the present rate, instead of any reduction, the trolley employees ot the state desire, according to the presentation of facts by Mr. Vahey, a change in the length of the gradu- ated scale, to provide that a man working the first three months re ceive 54 cents an hour, the next nine months, 57 cents an hour, and there after GO cents an hour. This is the method generally adopted by media tors in street railway controversies all over the country, notably by the national arbitratOrs, Taft and Walsh, Mr. Nahey said.
 l The trolley operators agree to the I5 cent an hour over the regular, for One-man car operators, though 1t is only time and one-quarter. Relative to. the employment of extra men, the men want, MT. Eahey explained, a guarantee Ot certain number of hours a week, rather than to weekly Ia Of
 The present arrangement permits the employing company to work man overtime for few days of the week and give him nothing the remaindex l Of the week.
 He then asked the board to disre- gard all questions of the financial condition of the company, for it would in common with other street railways, he said, probably urge this as a reason for reduction in wages. Other decisions given as precedcnts, he said, disregarded this factor en- tirely, also the factor of supply and demand.
 Were this latter to be recognized, he said, the only test of it would be strike on the part of the employed to test to the company whether it would be possible 10 fill the places of the men. A lockout was con s1dered equally unjust to the public, he said
 Albert Sturgis, a former investigator
 for the War Labor Board, was called by the trolleymen's representative to give statistics as to the balance between wages and living costs. Although supposed to represent the troleynen his testimony was turned to the advantage of the troll ley company by the adroit questioning of the company's attorneys He defined a living wage as that which will enable a !, .amily to live with a fair amount of comfort Tn accordance with the stand 4rtis set up by his friends andsassOciates Mir. Sturgis said that there is no reason why the employe of a prosperous com rany should receive any more than the , cr1plOye of less prosperous, or declin- |, ing company. This point should not affect a neutral arbitrator i'll agreeing upon a just wage. he said.
 l He admitted that 1t is possible that many people are living upon less than a
 living wage In his testimony he said the living wage was agreed to be about 5000 year for family of three chi- dren, under fourteen years of age MT. Sturgis made the important statement
 that in his opinion arbitration tribunal
 should not take into consideration the
 physical or financial condition of a com
 pany The tribunal would decide upon fixed waste, and developments would tell whether the company could pay 1t or . not.
 To show the difficulties ''extras" have
 in making a weeks wages, the attorney ! fer the trolleymen put witnesses on who
 related their experiences with the Con-
 necticut company. Robert C. Smith, ot 80 Frederick Street, explained that while
 he found 1t extremely difficult to carr = fair wages during the winter months, the 6 heavy summer traffic afforded him mucf
 better chances to earn reasonable pay e Mr. Smith contended that he had founC a it rather hard to obtain the weekly guar
 antee of $21 offered by the company a: there were many restrictions concerning
 this pay He said that work was no : judged by the day but by the week l When questioned he said that an extra
 employe is allowed two 'misses' al roll call during the week and that Ii 7 in any manner it is impossible to show l up at this time the $2I was not given l Thomas J. Hennessey business = agent of the trolleymen of the Wor- = cester X Springfield Street Railway ? told of the agreement existing be-
 tween the employees and the employ l CTS of that road.
 About half a dozen of the em.