The Winslow mail., 1922-06-30

| Die, even II we did not have direct
! evidence to the contrary, we could
not believe that the Congress in
passing the law would thus deprive
railway employees of their funda-
mental rights not only as wage
earners but as citizens and even hu-
man beings.
Our attitude from the time the
Labor Board was established up to
the present has been, as you know.
that in determining the wages of
railway warkers, the Transportation
Act assumed that the Labor Board
would adopt the following basis of
procedure:
l. That the section men, laborers,
and others at the bottom of the scale
of occupation should receive a liv-
ing wage, as the term is ordinarily
used, or, an amount sufficient to
maintain themselves and their fami-
lies in comfort and decency, and
2. Other employees should receive
differentials above this amount, ac-
cording to skill, hazard, responsible
ity, training and experience.
We have stated and argued this in
| depreciation of the Transportation
Act to you on those occasions when
We have appeared before you during
the past two years. We are abso-
! lutely certain that we are correct in
this Interpretation of the Law As
a matter of fact, Senator Cummings
who had more to do with the franz
ing of the Transportation Act than
| any other person, when our repre-
5entatives recently appeared before
! the Senate Committee on Interstate
| Commerce, of which he is the chair
man, and placed this matter before
! him, sated publicallv and unequiv-
! Ocally that it was the intention of
| the Government in enacting the
Transportation Act that Railway
employees should under all circum-
stances, receive living wage. He
said, in speaking of your duty to fix
| just and reasonable wages, that
when organized society comes to
fixing the wage it is no more roght
to fix the wage below the point of
living and comfortable living than
it is to fix a return on capital below
a reasonable point
We hold, therefore. without reser-
vation, that the Board has made
blunder in interpreting the intent of
the Transportation Act; blunder
so serious as to threaten the welfare
of hundreds of thousands of railway
employees and their families We
cannot believe that you would delib-
erately violate human standards of
living and expose the Board to the
charge of infanticide by rendering
wage decisions which increase the
| infant death rate by making it i'm
| fO, foir of
way employees to earn a sufficient
amount to provide proper food and
| living conditions for their children
And yet this fundamental error in
| the Interpretation of the law has
been made in your decisions and We
are confronted with the inevitable
results We cannot understand how
| the error was made and we cannot
conceive how these decisions should
go unremedied
| But we cannot expect any change
in your attitude. During the past
two years we have repeatedly stated
that we could not accept decision
| based on the theory that labor is a
| commodity. After two years discus
sion of this fundamental principle,
however, you have decided to rest
your justification for wage reduction
upon this unjust and indefensible
basis. 1t would obviously be futile
therefore, for us to make rehear-
| ing.
We wish also to say further that,
realizing the serious conditions und-
er which our membership might be
placed by an error on your part in
basing wage determinations upon
the theory that labor is a commod-
ity, number of months ago we ap-
pealed before the Senate Committee
on Interstate Commerce, which was
conducting public hearings upon the
railroad situations, and submitted
the facts as to your failure up to
that time to interpret justly and cor
rectly the labor provisions of the
Transportation Act. It CALLED for
the significant statement from Sen
ator Cummings, the chairman of the
Committee, which we have already
quoted in part, and the further
statement that he thought our atti-
tpde was right.
We also presented to the Commit
tee the facts as to the deliberate at
tempts of the Railroads to omascu-
late the labor provisions of the
Transportation Act. We showed that
certain railroads had adopted the
policy of contracting with outside
concerns for their shop repairs and
maintenance work, thus depriving
large bodies of employees from en-
joying the standards of work and
compensation established by the
Board.
At the same time we submitted to
the Committee the facts relative to
the refusal of the Railroads to es-
tablish labor boards of adjustment
as provided for in the Transporta-
ton Act, with the obvious end in
view of overburdening and destroy
ing the effectiveness of the Railroad
Labor Board and of weakening col
lective bargaining and cooperative
effort between railroad employees and
management.
We have, therefore, exhausted ev-
cry possible way to secure remedy
/ III oh