The Connecticut labor news., 1923-02-02
Burlesque Hearing (Continued from Page One.)


 B. & o. was much worse off than the New Haven, with 73o freight loco | motives, or 53 per cent of the total, out of service for repairs, and 358 per cent ot It's passenger locomotives out of order. In the middle of Sep | tember came the settlement on the B. & O.. By the end of the month it's in serviceable freight locomotives had been reduced to '55I, or 4I.3 per cent of the total. The score of the next months was in bad-order freight locomotives, October $50 or 25.o per | cent, November 287 or 2I4 per cent The percentage of passenger locomo- | tives out of order was reduced to 245 per cent in November from the 35.8 per cent in August
 Thus the B. & O., which was near | ly twice as badly off as the New Ha- ven in August improved to a position
 materially better than the New Haxen | inside of three months, merely by | making peace with the shopmen. While the New Haven had got a net | total of three freight locomotives out
 of it's shops, the B. & o. got total l of 442 locomotives repaired That is some measure of the superior effic- iency of skilled and satisfied union mechanics over strikebreakers.
 I also want to call your attention to the superior efficiency of the Balti- more & Ohio in moving it's traffic, because this IS a measure of the con d1t1on of the equipment which Is
 actually On the lines The significant
 figure here IS what the Interstate
 Commerce Commission calls the met
 ton-rniles per car-day" A ton-mile
 means one ton carried one mile A
 4l,
 one day. Met ton-mi1es per car-day" means the number of miles the ton
 mage is carried for every car on the
 road per day. It therefore is an ac-
 curate measure of the traffic efic-
 iency of ,the> road. This figure for
 the New Haven road was August,
 Io8; September, I85; October, I87;
 Novmber, I78. For the B. & O., 1t was, August, 28I; September, 344;
 October, APO; November, 52o Net
 ton-niles per car-day naturally have a tendency to increase with heavier traffic. But the increase between Au-
 gust and November on the New Ha- ven was only about per cent; while
 on the Baltimore & Ohio 1t was
 about 7I per cent.
 It is even more enlightening to compare this figure for November, 1922, with November, 1921. The New Haven did worse this year than last, ! Baltimore & Ohio had 52o this year against 437 last.
 1 am merely giving you striking
 sample of what the official l. C. C. | figures show. There are many more tof them to the same effect 1 would have brought the comparison down through December and January, but November IS the last month for which
 detailed figures have been published. 1 have no doubt that more recent figures would simply emphasize the ar gument, but as far as they go, these data certainly show that service can be improved by settling the strike. It may be said that the Baltimore
 & Ohio is only one of many roads which have settled. That is true In
 order to show that the B. & o. is not exceptional, I have taken a group of 10 of the largest settled roads-be
 sides the B. & O., the New York
 Michigan Central, Seaboard Airline, Southern Railway System, Chesa- peake & Ohio, Chicago, Milwaukee &
 St. Paul, Elgin, Joliet & Eastern, and Pittsburgh & Lake Erie. For these 10 roads, the average locomotives out of service for repairs requiring over A hours were between July and Septem- Der Is, the date of the strike settle ment, 25.6 per cent of the total. Be- tween October I and December E the average percentage dropped to 23.6 per cent. These figures are taken from the American Railway Associa- ton. They show an improvement of 7.8 per cent in locomotive condition
 on the ten roads representing those which settled with the shopmen. The same figures for the New Haven show 28.o per cent out of order for the
 first period, and 2o.5 per cent for the second-a deterioration of 3.I per cent in locomotive repair condition. !. Let us look for a moment at the figures of earnings for these roads as compared with the New Haven. The
 significant figure here in the ''operat
 ing ratio"-that is the percentage of
 revenues which were used up in ex- penses. In the three months before the settlement these roads had an loperating ratio of 7o73. In the two months after the settlement their operating ratio dropped to 75.52-a
 very marked improvement. The New Haven's operating ratio went from 8o.o in August to S4 fl in November. The Interstate Commerce Comm1S- sion is looking into the extravagant expenditures of the railroads which
 have not settled the strike and I have
 no doubt will bring out further in formation along this line
 The New Haven road admits that 1t lacks experienced mechanics, by its continued "help wanted" advertise | ments. I have here four-inch ad- vertiSement in the New York World
 of January goth, offering regular | positions for competent men whose | work is satisfactory" in the shops.
 The advertisement further states, this is not strike against the rail-
 road; it is a strike waged against
 reduction in rates of pay ordered by l 1. II..:+od S+.4oc Ra:1rond | ahnr