Evening star., 1938-09-21
THREAT Of STRIKE
SNAGS RAIL PLAN
Operators and Labor Aides
Schedule Meeting Today
. to Push Legislation.
By the Associated Press.

~ the Associated Press.
Possibility Of a Nationwide railroad
strike complicated today the efforts of
railroad management and labor to full.
fill President Roosevelts request that
they cooperate on legislation to aid
the industry.
Representatives Of both sides dis.
cussed their problems jointly with the
Chief Executive yesterday.
Then they scheduled meeting TODAY
to determine whether the threatened
strike against Is per cent wage cut
would interfere with their following
Mr.. Roosevelt's proposals.
After mediation efforts failed re-
Gently the carriers decreed the wage
cut for October l. Railway labor is
taking a vote to decide whether to
strike. The result, to be announced
next Monday, will affect about 900 900
workers.
To Appoint Commission.
President Roosevelt told reporters
yesterday, however, he would appoint
a commission to study the dispute.
Under the National Mediation Act. the
strike could not take place for so days
after that body is selected.
(The commission would have 30
days to make its findings and rec
concentrations. Labor and man
agement would have an additional
80 days, described by Government
labor experts as cooling off, Pc
riod, to study the report.)
Mr.. Roosevelt, concerned by the
threats of war abroad and anxious
to avert a rail tie-up at home, asked
both rail executives and union leaders
to cooperate in drafting recommended
tions for the next Congress to help
put the Nations transportation in
dustry on sound financial basis,
He spent two hours discussing
many phases Of the railroad situa-
tion except the wage dispute, and
then left the representatives alone in
the cabinet room to talk it over while
he held his regular press conference.
Clash of Interests.
Some informed persons said the
labor representatives felt they could
not cooperate at the joint legislative
program and fight the wage-cut bat
tie at the same time.
The carrier representatives were re-
ported unwilling to revise their position
on the wage cut until they had con-
suited their fellow operators.
Mr.. Roosevelt disclosed he had
designated three spokesmen for man
agement and three for labor (the
same men with whom he conferred
earlier in the day. to serve as an
informal committee to draft the pro.
gram.
Persons close to the railroad situa-
ton said later, however, that co.
operation between labor and the rail
chiefs hinged on whether the car.
rlers would insist on or recede from
their demands that rail wages be cut.
Basis for Congress Action.
The President said he hoped that
within month or six weeks the COM
mittee would make report sufficiently
broad for Congress and the country
to study and act on, but there were in
dications after the conference that the
wage cut and the threatened strike
were still uppermost in the minds Of
the brotherhood chiefs.
Sitting in the two-hour meeting
with Mr.. Roosevelt were Carl Gray,
vice chairman of the Union Pacific;
Martin w. Clement. president Of the
Pennsylvania, and Ernest E. Norris,
president Of the Southern Railway.
Rail labor was represented by George
NJ Harrison. chairman of the Railway
Labor Executives Association; Bert
M. Jewell. head of the Railway EN-
ployes' Department of the American
Federation of Labor, and D. 3. Robert
son, president of the Brotherhood Of
Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen.