The Connecticut labor news., 1922-07-07
RAILROAD BOARD TRIES ANOTHER JOKE MOVE BY DECLARING SHOPNlEN
 WHO WENT ON STRIKE "OUTLAWS"
GOmpers and Jewell Promptly Call Bluff While Workers Af- fected M erely Sit Back and Let the Offended Dignitaries Rave On.

Peeved at the action of the rail road shop crafts in not meekly ac- cepting the cut in wages and change in working rules, but instead going on strike, the Railroad Labor Board, through its chairman, Ben w. Hoop CT, promptly came to the railroads support on Saturday by declaring the shop crafts 'outlawed" and no longer railroad men but practically a gang of rough necks without any legal standing whatever. The board also advised such men as stayed at work or got jobs as strikebreakers to form new unions to treat with the Board in wage and other matters, evi- dently desiring to get another crowd together to slam at en masse for the benefit of the railroads. It also jovially declared that these men could not be called "scabs" or strike breakers" as they really would be patriots defending the government, whose august body, the Railroad It failed to add that the men filling long as the railroads needed them or until 1t gets tired of the strike and calls it off and it's old men back.
 The ruling of the United States Labor Board "outlawing" the railroad unions was promptly denounced by Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, in statement issued as "utterly bolshe- Vik in character" and an attempt by the board Ito disband unions at will" The ruling, MT. Gompers added, was palpably too ridiculous and fatuous to be accepted as permanent American government policy"
 The United States Labor Board has outlawed mot the organizations of employees, but itself," B. M. Jewell, head of the striking shop crafts union, also declared in letter to the board answering its pronunciamento declar ing the union had no more standing before it. Reiterating the shopmen's position that the present dispute over which the shopmen left their work last Saturday was with the roads, Mr. Jewell declared the board had failed in its mediation effort.
 '"The board," he said, "has placed itself in the position of being an arm of organized financial and em- ploying interests which are engaged in a nationwide campaign to re- duce wages below the level of decent living, to check the rising standard of living for the American workers, to disintegrate the protective or ganization of the workers"
 The unions, MT. Jewell told the board, are ready and willing" to meet the carriers and to do all in their power to reach an adjustment of the employees grievances, By out diving the union, the latter said, the board has abandoned it's effort to fulfill the duties imposed upon it by law"
 Expressing mo desire to promote any further misguided effort of the board to hamper and prevent fair adjustment of this dispute" the let ter added that the unions would consider themselves under no fur ther obligation to the board
 The board has attempted to estab- fish wages which for a large per centage of the men concerned will not provide the minimum amount found by the government officials to be necessary to maintain a worker and his family in a conditoin of de- cent living" MT. JewelPs letter said
 When the employees went on strike over these cuts, says the letter, the board Attempted to bring the executives of the labor organizations into hearing on the eve of the sus- pensOin of york; Confusion and dis orderly suspension would have re- suited, Mr. Jewell said. and the exccu- tives "refused to permit themselves to be drawn from their posts of duty."
 Now the board has attempted ar other disorganizing process" the let ter continued. Tt is lending aid definitely to the nation wide drive inaueuratcd by selfish financial in terests against organized labor, and in favor Of the so-called 'open shop which is, in fact, as you know, an anti-union shop. The action of the board would be comic if it were not even more tragic"