A sort of Landmark

Four years ago, as part of an all-out cost-cutting program, the Southern Pacific Co.'s tough President Donald Russell (TIME cover, Aug. 11) began to thin out the ranks of S.P. telegraphers. The move made economic sense: in a day of central traffic control, telegraphers are increasingly only a nostalgic reminder of railroading's romantic past. But last week, after 3 1/2 years of off-again on-again negotiations, which finally wound up in Labor Secretary Arthur Goldberg's Washington office, the telegraphers whistled Russell to a stop. Rather than face a strike in which the telegraphers would almost certainly have been joined by the other railroad brotherhoods, Russell signed an open-end contract that could saddle the S.P. with a telegraphic staff for the next 50 years and virtually guarantees any qualified S.P. telegrapher who wants it a lifetime job.

Though Russell had already pared the number of S.P. telegraphers from 1,538 in 1957 down to 946 this year, the new contract establishes 1,000 telegraphers' jobs as the S.P.'s base and allows no more than 2% (or 20 jobs) to be eliminated each year. Since the turnover in S.P. telegraphers due to retirement or promotion normally runs 5% a year, this means that Russell will actually have to hire new telegraphers to maintain the minimum number of jobs permissible in the next few years. And if the S.P. does fire a telegrapher during that period it will be obliged both to replace the discharged man and pay him severance amounting to 60% of his normal wage for up to five years.

Secretary Goldberg happily hailed the contract as "a landmark" in the settlement of labor issues raised by mechanization and automation, but it was at best a landmark of questionable value. The chiefs of the other railroad brotherhoods immediately vowed to seek similar concessions, and the precedent was sure to be noted with avid interest in other industries where automation is eliminating jobs.

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