yardmen, even the equivalent of 48 hours' pay for 40 hours' work. So there are two reasons. That is one of them, that they use the manpower question. The other is that prior to our coming in here a smaller organization known as the switchmen's union, and the yardmaster's organizations were in negotiating with the management, went through the same processes we did at the White House, and they came out with a 6-day week and did not retain their 48 hours' pay for 40 hours' work. So far as the manpower question is concerned, they undertook to sell to us or to convince us that we should accept the same proposition, that is, that we go on a 6-day week for the time being for at least a year or a year and a half, and then if the manpower question warranted it, without the railroads being required to work us some overtime, they would consider putting it into effect on 90-day notice from our organizations on the individual lines. Then if we could not agree that the manpower situation was such as to warrant putting into effect the 5-day week, we would then call on Dr. Steelman, and he would determine whether or not the manpower situation was such as to justify the railroads in putting in the 5-day week or a 40-hour week for the men we represent. Nobody had to determine it for the nonoperating groups, and while all these groups have 120,000 men involved in yard service, who would fall within the 5-day request that we have made, the nonoperating groups had 264,000 men working 7 days a week when they went on the 5-day week, and they are still on it. So I have been unable to find any logical and justifiable reason stated by the carriers for denying to this small group of men, the only group that is left in the railroad industry, the same consideration as to the 40-hour week that everybody else in our industry has enjoyed since September 1949, and in all the industries where these yardmen switch, where they put in the empties and bring out the loads, they all get 40 hours a week and 48 hours' pay, and they have had increases on top of it.

Senator NEELY. Are not the services rendered by the members of your brotherhood as important as the services that are being rendered by those who enjoy the 40-hour week?

Mr. ROBERTSON. Well, sometimes we think they are more indispensable than the others.

Senator NEELY. Have you any doubt that they are as important? Mr. ROBERTSON. I haven't any doubt at all. You don't find any of them looking for a job switching in the yard.

One rule that the carriers have proposed to us that I have overlooked, and I would like to call attention to, is that they proposed to us, among other things, among the rules I have just read to you, that we agree to a moratorium on rules, rates, and working conditions for a period of 3 years. Of course, it was apparent on its face that that suggestion came from what has grown to be the practice in the country for the last 2 or 3 years, several years, and that is that there has been a move a foot between the carriers or industry generally, I will say, not the carriers, industry generally, and the employee organizations of such industries to find a means, I might say, of avoiding as far as possible these long, drawn-out conferences every so often because of an increase in the cost of living and technological changes in the industry, and so forth. So they hit upon the proposition of a moratorium. I think Mr. Wilson, president of General Motors, is responsi

ble for bringing forth the subject originally, and they agreed upon a moratorium for 5 years. In the meantime, they also agreed upon an escalator clause to automatically take care of the rising cost of living and to raise the wages automatically according to the fluctuations of the cost of living.

They agreed on another thing: The industrial people of this country some time ago made a survey of the increased production of the country, what it amounted to. Since we have been delving into and turning out all types of new machines back to the radio and washing machines and everything else, industry has made a survey of the entire country's production down over a period of 50 years. They agreed that it averaged in increased production and what they call increased prosperity of the country about 3 percent a year. Mr. Wilson evidently took his thought from that, and he proposed that as one of the reasons for delaying and avoiding these wage conferences and strikes, as far as possible, that they give the men, the employees, the benefit of this increased prosperity of the country, let them share in it, let them have a little more money with which to purchase some of these new goods and services and so forth that were being put out on the market. He felt that they ought to give them what they called an improvement wage, that should become a part of their moratorium, and during the life of the moratorium, they may be paid 4 cents annually automatically applied to their wages. They started at three, but their wages went up and later they gave them four. So in 1950 they made it 4 cents instead of 3 per hour.

The carriers proposed the principle involved in that moratorium to us, but they would not agree that we should have any improvement wage. So they took out of the moratorium rules of the industry generally the 4-percent improvement wage, that which would benefit the employees, but they wanted to tie our wages and our rules up for 3 years.

To show you how closely the carriers argued that fight with us in the White House, with the mediator, Dr. John Steelman acting as mediator, they not only wanted to tie up our wages and rules and working conditions for a period of 3 years, but feeling that we would have a stabilization policy in this country in the near future, we suggested that we wanted a reservation or an exception in any moratorium that we agreed to that would protect us, so that we would not be debarred from enjoying any rights or privileges that flowed from any national policy in this country, wage policy. We couldn't get that, either. We argued for 2 days to get something in there, and the best we could get was, if other employees enjoy any additional benefits that flow from the national stabilization policy, a year in next July it can be opened and Dr. Steelman will have something to say about opening it, and we will sit down and talk about whether or not any privileges permissible under the stabilization act should now be accorded to us.

Somebody would decide whether we were entitled to it or not. That was the kind of moratorium that was handed to us by the railroads. Of course, you can imagine why we wouldn't accept that.

Senator LEHMAN. May I ask a question, Mr. Robertson? I understood, although I have no authoritative information on the subject, that one of the objections that you had to taking up this question

of the change in rules at this time, leaving the final decision in the case of dispute to Dr. Steelman, was that you would be agreeing to certain things that might very easily affect the lives of your workers; in other words, this question of the terminals, that it would affect them. I was under the impression, leaving all question of wages out of the discussion for the moment, that you and your associates were willing to have a moratorium placed on the discussion of the rules and regulations at least for a limited period until they could be considered separately in each instance, rather than as a whole, because you felt that the proposal made by the carriers that these rules now be changed immediately without a careful consideration of each rule would work a great hardship on your men and on the men in the other brotherhoods. Am I right on that?

Mr. ROBERTSON. You are absolutely right, Senator Lehman, and we could not measure the degree of hardship because there are_no specific cases cited in the request for the rule made by the carriers. We could only estimate it as being the extreme. We don't know what the carriers might suggest to us on this interdivisional run proposition. They want a blanket rule to do whatever they want to do, whatever they think they should do in the interest of efficiency and economy. Of course, in years gone by we have had some types of interdivisional runs set up by agreement between the carriers and the committees, so it is not new. There is nothing new to have an interdivisional run where you run over two districts, part of one and part of another. We have done that down through the years. When I was firing away back in the early turn of the century, in the early 1900's, and running a locomotive, we had interdivisional runs. I both ran and fired them. So the principle is not obnoxious to us. It has been accepted for years. But the thing that we would not go along with was the carriers want a blanket rule to run these men wherever they see fit. These men helped build this industry with the contribution they have made to it, and now that the carriers have succeeded in developing a locomotive that will run from Chicago to New York and from Chicago to Los Angeles and from Chicago to San Francisco, they have the idea that the men ought to run that way, too. We still have our homes and families and we still have some of our children in school, and we have our roots in those home towns. We don't like to give somebody a blanket rule and wake up some morning and see posted on the bulletin that you are going to run clear through your home town 150 or 200 miles beyond. We don't like that, and we are not going to go along with it. We will give up our jobs and go some other place before we will contribute to this industry that sort of sacrifice.

Senator LEHMAN. Am I right in assuming that while you objected to the acceptance of any blanket change in the rules, you are perfectly willing to sit down with the carriers on the highest level possible and consider and discuss with them the change in any individual rule that might affect the carriers and the workers?

Mr. ROBERTSON. That is absolutely right, Senator. In fact, we proposed in the proposition I will come to a little later, which was brought to my attention by the good Senator from West Virginia, we proposed that very thing. We said that these proposed rules suggested by the carrier were so far reaching, and the news about what the effect would be of putting them into effect had been broadcast all over this country. Every switch shanty, every sandhouse, every

roundhouse, every depot talked about these rules, and our people rose up in Cleveland and said, you can tell them to keep their 10 cents and their 25 cents, whatever they want to give us for wage increases, we will keep our rules in preference, and we will stand up here and be shamed at by everybody else. Our people don't want to agree to those changes, but, as I say, the atmosphere around over the country has gotten so tense that we made a proposal that we would settle the wage question, settle the 40-hour week, put it into effect for these men in yard service, settle the wage question, and let us agree to push all these rules aside for 6 months, let's go home for 6 months or a year and come back here and take it right up, take up the discussion right where we left off, and they wouldn't agree to that either. I don't know whether they can or whether they can't. It just seems that the December 21 proposition was made, and somewhere, somehow, somebody seems to be insisting that that has to be it. That can't be it. Our people are never going to accept it and they might just as well know it now as any other time and go ahead and try to solve this thing like men should.

The CHAIRMAN. Did the Senator from Vermont have a question? Senator AIKEN. May I ask, Mr. Robertson, did your brotherhood have someone participate in the meeting that formulated the memorandum of December 21?

Mr. ROBERTSON. Yes, sir.

Senator AIKEN. As Í understand it, that was unanimously agreed to by those who participated in its formulation.

Mr. ROBERTSON. It wasn't agreed to at all. It was the best Dr. Steelman could get for us. I was there myself.

Senator AIKEN. I thought it was said it was unanimously approved. Did your representative recommend its acceptance by the brotherhood?

Mr. ROBERTSON. No, sir; he did not. I was the representative and I wasn't obligated to recommend it.

Senator AIKEN. I was wondering how you happened to agree to something which you knew you couldn't accept later on.

Mr. ROBERTSON. We didn't agree to it. We signed it.

Senator AIKEN. I think the word is "approved" in here somewhere. Is that the only way you could terminate the conference? Mr. ROBERTSON. Yes, sir; or walk out.

Senator AIKEN. As I understand it, you discussed it about 25 hours in continuous session.

Mr. ROBERTSON. Yes, sir. We had some sandwiches about 6 o'clock in the morning.

Senator AIKEN. Did you get nearer an agreement with the carriers at that meeting than you had at any time previously?

Mr. ROBERTSON. This represents the last step we took. Yes. My answer is "Yes."

Senator AIKEN. To what extent did the proviso in that memorandum by which they designated Dr. Steelman as arbitrator of any disagreement in the future influence the brotherhood in rejecting the memorandum as a whole?

Mr. ROBERTSON. It was one of the influencing factors, not the only

one.

Senator AIKEN. That memorandum, as I recall it, designated Di. Steelman as arbitrator, whether he was in or out of the Govern

ment.

Mr. ROBERTSON. That is right.

Senator AIKEN. He could go back to the Chase National Bank tomorrow and

Mr. ROBERTSON. I don't know where he would go. He probably would find a job somewhere.

Senator AIKEN. As I recall it, he was originally loaned by the bank to the Government. If he went back there tomorrow and you should have a disagreement and he were the arbitrator, that would put you in a rather peculiar position, wouldn't it?

Mr. ROBERTSON. Some, we think. Usually when you go to an arbitrator, you go to a man to start with who knows little or nothing about the facts of the case. He may know a lot about your industry and a lot about labor-management relations but as a rule he knows nothing about the facts.

Senator AIKEN. Dr. Steelman occupied the position of mediator at the time.

Mr. ROBERTSON. Yes, sir; he was.

Senator AIKEN. Do you know of any case where a mediator has served as arbitrator in subsequent disagreements on the same matter, the same subject?

Mr. ROBERTSON. No; it isn't done, because after all a mediator has a different function to perform than an arbitrator. When a mediator puts himself in position to decide cases, to make decisions, then he destroys his function as a mediator.

Senator AIKEN. Then you wouldn't call it at all ethical for a mediator to designate himself as arbitrator in subsequent disagreements, would you?

Mr. ROBERTSON. I wouldn't want to approach it on that subject alone. I think if the parties themselves wanted to select the President of the United States or Dr. Steelman or anybody else and make him their sole arbitrator, that would be their responsibility. Ordinarily a mediator wouldn't accept that kind of appointment but if they agreed upon him then I would say they were responsible.

Senator AIKEN. As I understand from your reply to Senator Neely's question, you are going to tell us just how far apart you are before you get through with your testimony.

Mr. ROBERTSON. Yes, sir.

Senator LEHMAN. Mr. Robertson, am I right in assuming or in concluding that when you and your associates, and the heads of the other brotherhoods, signed this tentative agreement, it was merely for the purpose of identifying, and that at the time of the negotiations and during the negotiations you made it clear that this was a tentative agreement subject to ratification by your general chairmen.

Mr. ROBERTSON. That is absolutely true.

Senator LEHMAN. Were you able during the course of your negotiations to communicate with your general chairman in order to discuss the agreement with them?

Mr. ROBERTSON. No; for two reasons, Senator. First, the general chairman of our brotherhood, who had finally to approve this or any settlement, were from all over the United States from all the railroads involved. We had a subcommittee with us, six of whom were selected