Share the Work Plan

A worthy plan to ease the railroad manpower shortage came last week from, of all places, the powerful Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen. Their idea: to register all railroad men periodically unemployed at off-peak times on their own roads, for emergency work on nearby railroads where lack of manpower threatens to delay movement of war shipments. Under the scheme the workers would retain their seniority standing with their old railroad but would work under the pay rates and regulations of the railroad temporarily hiring them.

Brotherhood president, tough, New Dealish Alexander Fell Whitney, first worked out this plan in Chicago where he put several thousand laid-off yardmen to work on railroads desperately short of switchmen. ODT figures that next year the railroads will need 450,000 new employes to handle increased traffic, replace those gone to war. Whitney's plan would help cut this number.

By last week the plan had attracted so much attention that Whitney hurried to Washington to discuss its details with ODT and railroad officials. Whitney thinks the plan might be made nationwide, extended to include all other railway labor, and would be workable within other industries.

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