Vol. XXXVII

MAY, 1920

EDITORIAL

No. 5

T

Wage Increase Presented to Railroad Labor Board

HE Railroad Labor Board which was created by the Esch-Cummins Bill, consisting of Judge R. M. Barton of Tennessee, Hon. G. W. W. Hanger of the District of Columbia, and Hon. Henry Hunt, ex-Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio, representing the public; Horace Baker, formerly General Manager of the Queen & Crescent Route, J. H. Elliott, formerly General Manager of the Texas & Pacific Railroad, and William L. Park, Vice-President of the Chicago & Great Western Railroad, representing the railroads, and Albert Phillips, Vice-President of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen, A. O. Wharton, President of the Railway Department of the American Federation of Labor, J. J. Forrester, President of the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, representing the employes, all of whom were appointed by President Wilson on April 13th, established temporary offices in Washington, D. C., and hearings have been held on the wage question before this tribunal by several organizations.

On May 1st, President E. J. Manion presented the following petition for wage increase to the Board in behalf of the employes who are represented by the Order of Railroad Telegraphers.

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen:

I was instructed by the last session of the Grand Division of the Order of Railroad Telegraphers, held in Saint Louis, Missouri, May 10 to 29, 1919, inclusive, to present to the United States Railroad Administration, or any tribunal having jurisdicdiction, a wage proposition which contemplated the standardization of basic rates of pay and in addition thereto a request for increases to be applied after such readjustments and standardization had been established.

In compliance with these instructions, and with the assistance of a special committee delegated by our General Chairmen to handle the matter, I prepared a proposi tion covering all classes of employees, represented by the Order of Railroad Telegraph. ers, namely: Train Dispatchers, Agents, Agent-telegraphers, Agent-telephoners, Telegraphers, Telephoners (except switchboard operators), Towermen, Levermen, Tower and Train Directors, Block Operators, Staffmen and Printers.

This proposition was presented to the Board of Railroad Wages and Working Conditions and argued on December 4, 1919, and by reason of the fact that it was still pending at the termination of federal control of Railroads, it was one of the items considered by the bi-partisan board during its recent deliberations.

Preliminary to my presentation of data I desire to state that the general wage conditions now existing in the branch of railroad service represented by the Order of Railroad Telegraphers, is unsatisfactory for reasons other than the inadequacy of the wages paid.

This may be attributed in the main to the methods followed by the Railroads and our committees in fixing rates. In past negotiations it was customary for the railroads to award a lump sum of money for apportionment among the employees. The appropriation thus made would then be distributed by representatives of the railroads and representatives of the employees in joint session upon the principal of application, "a little to everybody," and if anything was left after such application. it was applied to a few positions where the rates of pay were inordinately low as agreed to by the two parties to the distribution. The result of this system of appli cation of wage increases was the creation of a number of rates of pay without regard to equalization or standarization until today we find one hundred and eighty-two different rates of pay in effect among the classes we represent.

The anomolous condition thus created, of employees performing the same class of service in the same town and in some cases in the same building for which they receve different rates of pay, is a consequence of this unbusinesslike method of dis tribution of wage increases.

For the purpose of correcting the unjust inequalities resulting from past prac tices, the special committee designated by our convention to make a study of and devise ways and means for the establishment of standard basic rates, made a com plete analysis of the conditions obtaining on class one railroads under Federal con trol from information secured from our General Committee one one hundred and twenty-eight such railroads as applicable to sixty-four thousand seven hundred and thirty-six employees whom we represent. Each railroad was analyzed separately and by classes in the following manner: Agents, Agent-Telegraphers, Agent-Telephoners, General and Relay Offices, Division and Superintendents' Offices, Yard and Terminal Offices, Telegraphers, Telephoners, Block Operators, Staffmen, Tower and Train Directors, Towermen-Levermen, and Printers, or, thirteen subdivisions of the classes specified in Supplement No. Thirteen to General Order Number Twenty-seven.

As explanatory of our analyzation of these subdivisions, I will review three of our work sheets which were used in the compilation of the data which was furnished us by our General Chairmen and checked against the agreements in effect on the railroads.

An analysis of the Southern Pacific Railroad, Pacific System, develops the following:

Our analyzation of each of the one hundred and twenty-eight railroads was made in the manner just explained, after which a recapitulation, by classes, was compiled, and I will now explain the method used in the compilation of our data, and the results as to classes. I might say here that copies of the work sheets which I have before me were filed with the Board of Railroad Wages and Working Conditions on December 4, 1919.

Sheet No. 1.-This sheet contains the rates of pay in effect for Agents on the one hundred and twenty-eight railroads and each railroad is shown hereon together with the number of positions on each railroad under each rate and was used as a basis for computing weighted averages of all agents on the several railroads. It shows one hundred and seventy-three rates of pay in effect for the fifty-four hundred and twentyone agents shown thereon. Our proposition contemplates reducing the number of rates to twenty-four.

Sheet No. 2.-This sheet shows every rate of pay in effect for Agent-Telegraphers on the one hundred and twenty-eight railroads in the same manner as shown in sheet No. 1. It also shows fifteen thousand six hundred and sixty-six Agent-Telegraphers and one hundred and thirty-five different rates of pay in effect, which number we pro pose to reduce to eleven.

Sheet No. 3.-This sheet shows every rate of pay in effect for Agent-Telephoners