Rail Dickers

For almost two years the great railroads of the land have held to their 1929 pledge to President Hoover not to cut wages during Depression.* Last week occurred the first major crack in their solid front. New York Central admitted that it was dickering with its 115,000 employes (December 1929: 170,061) to accept voluntarily a 10% pay reduction for one year. Reason: the Interstate Commerce Commission's refusal to grant the carriers a flat 15% freight rate increase.

Strongest of all unions are the "Big Four" Brotherhoods--Engineers, Firemen, Conductors, Trainmen--with 17 smaller rail groups. Their membership blankets the U. S. and Canada. First move to reduce the Brotherhood pay scale came last month in Canada where Canadian National and Canadian Pacific began negotiating directly with their employes for a voluntary wage cut. Last week the poll of C. N. and C. P. workers still remained untabulated. Upon its result largely depended the attitude of Brotherhood men in the U. S. toward pay cuts.

Brotherhood leaders in Cleveland expressed surprise when informed that N. Y. C. was negotiating directly for a lower wage scale. Technically, railroads contract with the national organizations for their union labor. The reduction must be voluntary, under the law. If the railroads attempt to force a cut on employes, the entire issue will be thrown into the lap of the U. S. Board of Mediation for settlement.

Other Labor developments of the week included the following:

Ford Cut. Dramatic was the scene at the White House in 1929 when Henry Ford rushed forth from a conference with the President to announce that, instead of cutting wages, he would up them $1, to $7 per day. Now the Ford wage scale is back again to the $6-per-day level. The company's "emergency dollar'' in 22 months added $35,176,101 to the payroll.

Improvement, Small but perceptible was an improvement in employment noted by the U. S. Department of Labor for September. More jobs, longer hours were found in coal mining, shoemaking, tobacco production, textile manufactures. Stagnant as the month preceding were the steel and motor industries.

Hopeful Green. Because October unemployment failed to show an abnormal rise. William Green, patient president of the American Federation of Labor, expressed a belief that more people were working on part time, a grain of hope.

*Fortnight ago small Gulf, Mobile & Northern R. R.. not bound by the usual labor contract, peacefully effected a 10% wage cut.

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