The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-12-29
Salary Graft
By Takers of
BrOtherhOOds
By WILLIAM 2. FOSTER.

BY WILLIAM II. EOO1 LINZ
The railroad unions, especially the
four Brotherhoods, are the most law
ish in the over-payment of their Of
ficialdom. The late Warren S. Stone
of the B. of L. E. was the star in
this respect. He received $4,000 sal
airy, and about as much more for ex-
penses, as head of his union, in ad-
dition to $4,000 yearly as chairman
of the Board of Directors of the
General American Radio Corporation,
and perhaps various other salaries
for his numerous jobs. At the 1924
convention of the B. of L. E. Stone
is said to have declared that he was
Indifferent as to whether or not the
union kept him even at this price.
He displayed a contract from a New
York bank guaranteeing him, should
he accept, a salary of S50,0O0 per
year for 10 years. Stone had two
assistants" at $4,000 per year and
expenses. There were also nine other
assistants" at $4,000 and expenses
per year. I'm connection with the big
bank scandal at the 1927, B. Of l.. E.
convention the salary of the head
of the union was set at $15,0O0)
W. G. Lee, head of the B. of r. T.,
gets the same salary as justice of
the United States Supreme Court,
$4,000 per year, not to speak OF
lavish expense accounts and salaries
coming from his various industrial
interests. The B. of r. T. secretary's
salary is $4,000. Other officials of
this reactionary union are paid ac-
cordingly. Similar conditions pre-
vail in the o. R. c., the president re-
ceiving $4,000. In "The Labor Her
ald," Oct. 1924, C. r. Hedlund writes
as follows of the upper bureaucracy
in the B. of L. F. and E.:
"The locomotive fireman, who
earns his living about as laboriously
as any human being on earth, who
fires some of the largest engines
in freight services for the entirely
inadequate sum of $5.43 per day,
nevertheless pays his Grand Lodge
officials the following salaries: To
the president $4,000 per year; to
nine different vice-president $1,000
per year each; to the secretary, S10,-
900 per year, to one so-called legis-
lative representative stationed at
Washington, D. c., $1,000 per year;
to the editor of the union magazine,
$1,000 per year; to the medical ex-
aminer, who looks over applications
for insurance, $4,000 per year. This
makes total of $118,000 for Is Of
ficials!"
To the foregoing salaries must be
added the usual huge expense ac-
counts, which often run more than
the salaries. The constant tendency
is to raise official salaries. This was
the case even when the wages of
the railroad workers were being
slashed on all sides. The unions of
the lesser skilled and less strategi-
cally situated workers exhibit the
same tendencies to over-pay their Of
ficials. Thus the head of the Main
tenance of Way Workers receives
$500 more per year than a United
States senator. Fitzgerald Of the
Railway Clerks gets $4,000. Ryan
of the Railway Carmen gets $4,000,
etc. AS against these fabulous sal
aries, the average yearly wage of
railroad workers in 1926, figured on
full time basis and discounting I'M
employment, was only $1656.
OVERHEAD Miners Officials.
In the United Mine Workers the
parasitic system of extravagantly
paid union officials is firmly estab-
lished. Never did this manifest it.
self more shamefully than at the
1927 convention. With the union
miners suffering widespread unem-
ployment, which had reduced their
annual incomes to not more than
$1,000, and with the union confront
ing a life and death struggle with
the employers, Lewis and his crew
made the raising of the officials
4 salaries one of the central issues Of
the convention.