Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1922-05-12
R. R. OUTLOOK
SITUATION UNSATISFACTORY
AS CAN POSSIBLY BE
DilatOry Tactics Pursued by United
States Railway Labor Board and
Court Decisions Arouse
Fear of Sell-Out

Washington-Here is the situation
that confronts nearly 100000 rail
way workers. situation as unsatis-
factory as it possibly can be.
Pending before the United States
Railroad Labor Board are applications
filed by carriers for heavy reduction
of wages and the changing Of work
ing rules and conditions that will, If
made, further reduce net incomes.
The argument employed by the
managers in support of their posi-
ton is that railway wages are higher
than those paid in relate outside in
dustrins. This argument has been
pretty effectively destroye by spokes-
men for the workers, who have not
proven that outside wage scales range
higher than railway pay, but +nat the
carriers representatives have at
tempted to hornswoggle the Labor
Board by offering for its consideration
wage statistics that have been jaggled
out OF all resemblance to the truth.
Meanwhile, a federal court has
given a decision that emasculates the
board end reduces it to the impotence
of mere consulting agency, to which
agg,ieved parties may present their
Complaints. The court clearly holes
that the Board, after rendering its
awards, has no power to enforce it,
leaving it to the intelligence or the
conscience of the rail managers to de-
eide Just what should be done with the
findings.
To evade wage rulings and working
conditions established by the labor
Board many roads have resorted to
the transparent fraud of leasing
shops and maintenance work 20 dunn
my agents on cost-plus contracts. The
effect of this practice is 70 take from
the workers any victory they may
have gained in fair arbltral combat
with the employer.
Consequently, many thousands of
workers today do not have The benefit
of decisions made by the Board in
their interest.
And the Labor Board, according to
the federal court, cannot do anything
to relieve this intolerable condition.
That naturally puts the workers
back upon their own resources, and
they evince disposition to grasp
them and make them serviceable to
end an impossible impasse.
The Federated Shop Crafts, through
their departmental organization, had
full appreciation of where the trend
Of events is carrying them when they
decided to submit a strike vote re-
ferendum to 100000 railroad workers
on the dummy contract and other
evasions of the transportation law.
1t is stated by officials of the union
that favorable response to this vote
will be followed by walkout of
workers affected by it.
The workers have kept the faith.
They have gone the limit in an effort
to make the transportation act and it's
abortive rail board workable. They
have suffered injustice simply because
they were amenable to a law that was
crudely drawn and is harsh and un-
fair in it's implications.
1t was the contention of railroad
workers when the Labor Board was
first broached in Congress that it
would not meet the situation. They
pointed out the accumulate experience
of other nations that had attempted
the short cut to industrial peace. But
Congress, with that faulty that so
frequently characterizes its action
when it is following a will o. the wisp,
went blindly on with it's work, re-
sponsive to the none too gentle ur-
gings of the railroad lobby, and per-
petrated a monstrosity that is now
pitiable object of contempt on the
part of the railroad managers and of
incapacity on the part of the public.