The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-04-10

&WsSH 49, VoAQ8 wv mtAaaOtl
OF unnecessary expense . year, and
wasting some coo million manhours
Of labor q year, At . time when
there Is supposed 10 be Q manpowor
shortage,
AL this looks and sounds bad, Il
Il pictured as exploitation BY The
railway labor brotherhoods who GO.
mand that their members b paid
for doing nothing,
But there Is another side Of the
pancake, A. r. whitney, big, bat
Ting white-haired president Of the
Brotherhood Of Railway Tralnmen,
has lust released In washington Q
blast against some Of the wasteful
practices Of the railroad operators.
He mentions, for instance. that Q
railroad can call a man for o run
which will give him q full days pay,
then hold him o total Of 10 hours at
some terminal Ut the other end Of
the run, subject 10 call at any mo-
ment. without paying . cent tor
the time 50 spent. Railroad men say
that for every hour q trainman Is
paid, he spends two hours waiting
without pay for q return run,
CURE FOR SHORTAGE
From this, whitney concludes
there Is no manpower shortage On
the railroads that could not be
overcome by more efilcient utlli1a~
ton Of manpower now on railroad
payrolls, by temporary transfer Of
railroaders from areas Of surplus la
Dor TO areas Of shortage, and by
reduction OF labor turnover,
AZ the suggestion Of the once Of
Defense Transportation, railroad
operators and representatives Of the
brotherhoodS sat down In Chicago
ut the end Of March 10 see what
could be done about relieving man
power shortage on the roads. Ac-
cording 70 Whitney, the conference
quickly resolved itself into o de-
mAnd from California and New
York operators for an investigation
Of extra manpower wastage In those
two states, which have fun crew
laws.
This Chicago conference was Q
tollow-up on railroad labor and
management conferences held In
Washington during the past winter,
at which was drawn up IN elabo-
rate iS-point program to meet an
estimated requirement for over $780,
900 new railroad workers In 1888.
The program called for training Of
new workers, up-grading. transfer
from one road 70 another, relaxation
Of road mileage limitations. greater
employment OF women, reduction Of
retirements, encouragement Of re-
turn to active service by employees
already retired, and 30 on. Tt Is
Whitney's conclusion that this en-.
tire program was q mop.
THE PUZZLED PUBLIC
To the general public, which
merely tries to ride on the rail-
roads or ship things on its freight
trains. all this Is pretty disconcert-
ing. The fact that the brotherhoods
and the operators should be throw
ing stones at. each others trains Of
thought. as they whiz by, can be
understood at this time as part Of
the inevitable preliminaries to Q
new wage negotiation. II these
charges and counter charges were
only that, they could be discounted
accordingly.
But the general public does know
that trains are late. trains are
crowded. mail Is slow. freight and
express service are worse than they
have been. and II the disruption Of
the nations food distribution sys.
tenn Is In any way Q transportation
problem. things are in q mess.
It Is easy to explain and possible
to take all this as q war necessity,
but that apparently Is not the COM
plete answer. Fact Is. the railroads
have done q whale Of Q Job. Freight
hauled In 1912 was $50 billion tom
miles. or 80 per cent more than In
1881. Passenger trafIic was So bill
lion passenger miles, or 90 per cent
above 1871. Both figures were far
above previous national peak years.
Average trains were longer. heavier,
faster. cheaper than ever before.
Railroad net income was eiAs bill
lion, 90 per cent above 1871. Some
body must have worked, some place,
to achieve those results.
But even those records must be
broken in 1913. when equipment will
be further run down, old crews
older and new crews greener. II
there is any suspicion that there
Is some truth In what both the op-
orators and the brOtherhoods say
about each other. the tip for them
should be to get together quickly,
admit their arr0rs mead fs.alr u,assn