Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1922-06-16
Railway Shopmen Taking Strike
Vote Because Their Pay Is
Cut 100000.
WALKOUT MAY Be AVOIDED
Supreme Court Deals Organized Labor
Severe BIow-France's Refusal to
Reduce Reparation Blocks German
Loan PIans-Radical Republic
ans Win Victory in Iowa
Primary Election.
BY EDWARD w. PIckARD

n BOUT $60,0O0,000 having been
"A Topped off their yearly pay by
the federal railway labor board, the
railroad shopmen are taking a vote re-
turnable on June 80, on the question
OF accepting the reduction or going on
strike. The maintenance of way men,
whose annual wages were cut some
$5O,0OO,OO0 also are taking a strike
vote.
Thus, apparently, the country faces a
strike, probably effective in the middle
of July, that might come near to ty-
ing up its rail transportation. But
there is hope that it will not eyentu-
ate. An affirmative strike vote and
an actual strike are different things,
and the vote is but seldom used only
as a weapon in the hands of union Off
cials in negotiating. Railroad exeeu-
tives profess to believe that the men
will not even vote to strike. A COM
mittee Of six rail presidents issued the
following statement:
"There is no talk Of strike among
the men," the statement says. '"The
disturbing statements are prepared by
leaders Of the unions, whose viewpoint
has been distorted by months of efforts
before the board to resist the inev-
table downward trend of wages. The
employees are in the main sincerely in
terested in taking care. of their Jobs
and their homes, and few employees in
any industry have more good reasons
for doing so.
'sThe records show that the proposed
scale of wages for the classes of en-
ployees involved in the two wage re
duction orders already issued practi-
cally would restore the scale in eff
feet at the end Of federal control in
1920, which carried an increase for
these employees of 10 per cent over
the wages paid in 1916. The cost of
living, as shown by the Department of
Labor for March, 1922, was AZ per cent
above 1916"
On the other hand, B. M. Jewell,
head of the railroad employees depart
ment Of the American Federation of
Labor. says: 1.-THE new wages do not
permit a minimum living wage, and
they are wholly at variance with the
saving wage championed by President
Harding and Secretary of Labor
Davis" Mr.. Jewell and other union
chiefs who were in conference in Gin
cinnati predicted that unions with
membership Of 100000 would vote to
strike
Just as in the last previous wage de-
cision by the board, the three labor
members dissented, and this time they
were especially vigorous IN their dis
senting opinion.
While the rulings Of the railway la
Dor board are professedly being made
quite without regard to the rulings of
the interstate commerce committee in
the matter of rates, the two cannot be
disconnected in the public mind, and
the railway executives also couple
them, naturally.
T Union labor received what it con-
~ siders another body blow last
week in the decision of the United
States Supreme court in the Colorado
coal mine case. The United Mine
Workers of America and certain in
dividuals had appealed from a deci-
sion by the United States District
court of Arkansas, approved by the
Circuit Court of Appeals, holding them
guilty of violating the Sherman anti
trust act during a strike in 1914, and
imposing damages of 100000, which
was trebled under the antitrust law.
The opinion of the United States Su-