Hearings, Reports and Prints of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare

I. The Adamson Act and Wilson v. New

One matter which inescapably impresses Members of the Congress and others who tackle the labor problems of the railway industry is the vast body of precedent which exists. Parts of this background undoubtedly may serve to hinder or prevent a fresh approach to some of these problems. But much of it must be comprehended, at least in its essentials, as it serves not only as the legal background of most proposed solutions of railway labor-management disputes, but is also a part of the backgrounds of the thinking of parties on both sides of such disputes. Unless there is a minimum understanding of these backgrounds, it is difficult to understand the positions of the parties to the disputes.

The Adamson Act is still on the statute books. It is one piece of a large body of Federal legislation regulating wages and hours. But it is also an example of the direct settlement of a labor dispute by the Congress, the imposition of a settlement by law. It, thus, may be considered an example of compulsory arbitration.

Actually, it goes beyond this. It is an imposed settlement, the most extreme form of congressional intervention.

The second document is the Supreme Court decision in Wilson v. New, which sustained the constitutionality of this act. This decision sets the bounds of Federal power to resolve labor disputes in interstate commerce, to the extent they can be resolved by dictating the terms of a settlement. This power is nearly unlimited, if properly exercised. For a recent reaffirmation of this power, see X, "b," below.

The third document is an account of the dispute and its outcome, extracted from the classical work by Prof. Edward Berman on Presidential intervention in labor-management disputes, and published in 1924.

The dispute which occasioned the Adamson Act settlement has another point of interest. During the dispute last summer (1966) over legislation to deal with the airline strike, many references were made to the time "back in 1917" when Congress ordered railroad men on strike back to work. Here are presented the documents and the documentary account of what actually happened.

It will be noted that: (1) it was a threatened strike, not an actual strike; (2) Congress settled it by giving the railroad workers a settlement it knew they would accept, as they had already accepted the substance of the settlement in negotiation; and (3) the railroad executives had already rejected the proposal and, thus, had the settlement forced upon them.

There is no substance to the belief that Congress broke a strike of railroad men in 1917 by ordering them back to work. Such a strike never took place in 1916 or in 1917. Congress prevented a strike in 1916 by imposing a settlement which gave the workers what they had already accepted in the course of mediation as a basis for settlement and which had already been rejected, as a basis for settlement, by management.

I-a. (Source: Congress of the United States. In U.S. 39 Stat. 721, ch. 436, 64th Cong. (1916))

THE ADAMSON ACT

CHAP. 436.-An Act To establish an eight-hour day for employees of carriers engaged in interstate and foreign commerce, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That beginning January first, nineteen hundred and seventeen, eight hours shall, in contracts for labor and service, be deemed a day's work and the measure or standard of a day's work for the purpose of reckoning the compensation for services of all employees who are now or may hereafter be employed by any common carrier by railroad, except railroads independently owned and operated not exceeding one hundred miles in length, electric street railroads, and electric interurban railroads, which is subject to the provisions of the Act of February fourth, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven, entitled "An Act to regulate commerce," as amended, and who are now or may hereafter be actually engaged in any capacity in the operation of trains used for the transportation of persons or property on railroads, except railroads independently owned and operated not exceeding one hundred miles in length, electric street railroads, and electric interurban railroads, from any State or Territory of the United States or the District of Columbia to any other State or Territory of the United States or the District of Columbia, or from one place in a Territory to another place in the same Territory, or from any place in the United States to an adjacent foreign country, or from any place in the United States through a foreign country to any other place in the United States: Provided, That the above exceptions shall not apply to railroads though less than one hundred miles in length whose principal business is leasing or furnishing terminal or transfer facilities to other railroads, or are themselves engaged in transfers of freight between railroads or between railroads and industrial plants.

SEC. 2. That the President shall appoint a commission of three, which shall observe the operation and effects of the institution of the eight-hour standard workday as above defined and the facts and conditions affecting the relations between such common carriers and employees during a period of not less than six months nor more than nine months, in the discretion of the commission, and within thirty days thereafter such commission shall report its findings to the President and Congress; that each member of the commission created under the provisions of this Act shall receive such compensation as may be fixed by the President. That the sum of $25,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary, be, and hereby is, appropriated, out of any money in the United States Treasury not otherwise appropriated, for the necessary and proper expenses incurred in connection with the work of such commission, including salaries, per diem, traveling expenses of members and employees, and rent, furniture,

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