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LABOR DISPUTE BETWEEN RAILROAD CARRIERS AND FOUR OPERATING RAILROAD BROTHERHOODS

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 1951

UNITED STATES SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE,

Washington, D. C.

The committee met at 10 a. m., pursuant to recess, in the Old Supreme Court Room, the Capitol, Senator James E. Murray, chairman, presiding.

Present: Senator Murray.

Also present: William H. Coburn, chief clerk of the committee; Tom Shroyer of the professional staff of the committee; and Ray R. Murdock, counsel to the Subcommittee on Labor-Management Relations. The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order.

Mr. Daniel Loomis will proceed with his testimony.

TESTIMONY OF DANIEL P. LOOMIS, CHAIRMAN, ASSOCIATION OF WESTERN RAILWAYS, CHICAGO, ILL.-Resumed

Mr. LOOMIS. On Thursday, last, Mr. Kennedy stated before this committee that he had told me February 24 that Dr. Steelman was not acceptable to him as the arbitrator. I do not mean to impugn Mr. Kennedy's veracity in any respect. It simply comes down to a question of what one man thinks he said and what another man thinks he heard. But I shall have to repeat that at no time up until last Thursday had Mr. Kennedy told me or said in my presence that Dr. Steelman was not acceptable to him as the arbitrator.

At the February 24 meeting, as I previously testified, he raised questions as to the proposed clarifying language defining Dr. Steelman's functions under the agreement of December 21, 1950, but he did not oppose the phrase, "Steelman or his nominee."

Since the last hearing, the consumers price index for February 15, 1951, has been announced. That index governs the cost-of-living adjustment to be made on April 1, 1951. The index stands at 184.2, which means that under the memorandum of agreement of December 21, 1950, with its base index of 176, the operating employees involved in these proceedings would receive an additional cost-of-living adjustment on April 1 of 8 cents per hour. This makes the total increases to be effective as of April 1, 1951, under the memorandum of agreement 18 cents per hour or $1.44 per basic day for road service employees and 33 cents per hour or $2.64 per basic day for yard service employees. Furthermore, while the amount of course varies with individuals, the average back pay for yardmen, which has accrued from October

1, 1950, to April 1, 1951, including overtime and allowances, is approximately $170 per man. This is the back pay which has accrued under the memorandum of agreement of December 21, 1950, and does not take into account the 12-cent increase which they are already receiving under the Army's General Order No. 2.

One other fact should be pointed out. These increases will exceed the 10 percent permitted under existing stabilization regulations, but if the memorandum of agreement of December 21, 1950, is in fact an agreement as stated by the carriers, no stabilization approval is necessary, since the agreement was made prior to January 25, 1951.

Turning now to the arbitration clause of the memorandum of agreement of December 21, 1950

Mr. MURDOCK. Mr. Loomis, may I ask just one question there?
Mr. LOOMIS. Yes, sir.

Mr. MURDOCK. Would these increases in your judgment be added to the increase already granted by the Army, or what would be the relationship between them?

Mr. LOOMIS. No. In my judgment the increase already granted by the Army was 122 cents. The 122 cents was an interim increase which would be credited against the increase provided in the agreement.

Turning now to the arbitration clause of the memorandum of agreement of December 21, 1950, and the discussion of the proposal of February 24, 1951, I first want to point to the statement of Senator Morse which appears in volume 10 of the record at page 958. Senator Morse said:

Of course, as Mr. Loomis pointed out this morning, the proposal that a nominee would have to be acceptable to both parties in and of itself included the possibility of an indefinite stalemate, and I can think of no arbitration agreement that would be worse than an arbitration agreement that provides for no procedure for breaking a deadlock on the appointment of the arbitrator. I remember we had one of the great parts of the west coast tied up once for days over just such an agreement as that. There was no provision for breaking the deadlock. That is the end of the quotation.

The carriers are in thorough agreement with that statement. I am authorized to state that the carriers are willing to leave the question of who shall be the arbitrator to the President of the United States and will accept anyone named by him.

Mr. MURDOCK. In other words, you are now willing to accept the proposal of the BRT at least to the extent that Dr. Steelman would no longer be either the arbitrator or the person authorized to nominate the arbitarator.

Mr. LOOMIS. We are willing to accept any one named by the President, whether it is Dr. Steelman or somebody else.

In the testimony last week reference was made to some air-hose agreements, one on the New York, New Haven, & Hartford. The facts with respect to the New Haven are as follows:

Rule 96 in the New Haven agreement with the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen reads:

Train and yard men will not be required to couple or uncouple steam, air, or signal hose when car inspectors or steam heat men are available, nor shall they be required to handle on repair tracks cars which have no draw bars unlesschained together by car inspectors.

The New Haven had a large number of claims for an extra day's pay where yardmen were required to couple air hose. That was for 16 hours' pay for only 8 hours on duty, but because they coupled some air hose during the 8 hours on duty they demanded an extra day or 16 hours' pay.

The New Haven also had some claims for roadmen, because their rule, contrary to the rules in effect on most carriers, read "Train and yardmen," which means road or yardmen.

In 1947 the New Haven entered into an agreement with the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen settling the yard claims and providing, instead of an extra day's pay, for the payment of an arbitrary of 1 hour. The road claims, however, continued to accumulate. They were not settled by the 1947 agreement.

However, in November 1950 agreement was reached to dispose of the road claims. It was embodied in a letter from Mr. J. F. Doolan, vice president of the New Haven, to Mr. J. J. Hammill, general chairThe pertinent paragraph outside of particular dockets reads

as follows:

It was agreed in disposition of these cases as to points where car inspectors were employed and on duty at the time, the claims would be paid on the basis of the memorandum of agreement of November 28, 1947, covering coupling and uncoupling air hose by members of yard ground crews. Such payment as to these roadmen eligible for payment on the basis of that memorandum of understanding would be for 1 hour or 4 hours, as the case might be. It was further understood that in the event of any change in the memorandum of agreement of November 28, 1947, as a result of the national negotiations now pending, or as might be later made through the processes of the Railway Labor Act, a similar change would be made in its application to roadmen.

Mr. Hammill replied on November 14, 1950, the pertinent sentence reading as follows:

The disposition of the claims as outlined is agreeable to the undersigned. What that comes down to is that while the New Haven made an escape agreement to pay an hour in lieu of claims for a full day for these roadmen, they also provided in the agreement that it would be governed by whatever came out of the national negotiations.

In the case of the Seaboard Airline, that carrier also had a large number of claims for a full extra day's pay or 16 hours' pay on coupling air hose. A memorandum of agreement was signed on December 15, 1950, providing for an arbitrary of an hour in lieu of the claims for a full day's pay. On that date, December 15, the director of personnel of the Seaboard Airline, Mr. C. A. McRee, wrote Mr. L. M. Chester, general chairman, Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, with respect to the agreement, and his letter includes the following paragraph:

We are agreeable to the conditions set out therein, with the further understanding that if a rule covering the subject is formulated as a result of national handling that is now in progress at Washington in connection with carriers' counterproposal to your request of March 15, 1949, it will be substituted in lieu of the agreement allowing arbitrary for coupling or uncoupling air hose signed December 15, 1950.

Mr. Chester replied on December 25:

Receipt is acknowledged of your letter of December 15, 1950, file P-398, in connection with the modification of article 20, paragraph (b), of the trainmen's schedule. The conditions outlined in the second paragraph of your letter

which is the one I read

are acceptable to this committee.

So the Seaboard also made only an interim escape agreement depending on the national negotiations.

The third carrier mentioned was the Great Northern Railroad, which as the committee probably knows, operates from St. Paul to Seattle on the west coast, and into British Columbia. The yardmen on the Great Northern Railroad are represented by the Switchmen's Union of North America. Up to the signing of the agreement with the Switchmen's Union of North America in October, the Great Northern had paid an arbitrary of 1 hour all over its system for coupling air hose. That was changed to 95 cents as provided in the switchmen's union agreement. At one point on the railroad, Allouez, which is an ore-loading port near Duluth, the switchmen complained about the reduction in the arbitrary, that the coupling which they did was on a long trestle, with poor footing, that some danger was involved, and that that was worth more than the general coupling of air hose in an ordinary yard. Mr. Glover, the president of the switchmen's union and an officer of the Great Northern went to Allouez together and surveyed the situation and agreed that it was an unusual situation different from general conditions on the rest of the system and agreed to restore the hour. The Great Northern, however, still pays the 95 cents to the rest of its system, some 10,000 miles in length. I would like to comment briefly on the data submitted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the Department of Labor, which was submitted as a committee exhibit, but I don't recall the number.

Mr. MURDOCK. Committee exhibit 11.

Mr. LOOMIS. In the first place, the data do not touch the problem of what industry did when the 40-hour week was adopted. It does show what industry did after the war when hours were being reduced. It has no bearing on the question of what was done when the 40-hour week was originally adopted.

Taking first, however, the two sheets showing general increases in selected companies or associations, 1939 to 1950

Mr. MURDOCK. That is marked "table 1"?

Mr. LOOMIS. Table 1, yes.

If you total up the increases you find the following: In wool and textiles and in making this addition I have taken where it shows under 1942 to 1945, 5 to 712 cents, I have taken the 74 in making the calculation-textiles shows an increase of 842 cents total since 1939. I have not taken cotton textiles because there is no way of determining what the percentage increases from 1939 to 1941 amounted to. United States Steel shows a total of 78 cents. General Motors, 691. Chrysler Corp., 71. Ford Motors, 722. Swift & Co., 67. Armour & Co., 6612. General Electric, 672. Aluminum Co. shows for the CIO 81%, for the A. F. of L., 75%. United States Rubber, 6612. Firestone, 6212. B. F. Goodrich, 6012. Goodyear Tire & Rubber, 6312.

Newspaper printing shows 130.4 for the publishers, ITU, AFL. And for the IPPA shows 131.7. Bituminous coal shows $5.75 per day, and with the $1.60 added would be $7.36.

The longshoremen on the Pacific showed 97 cents and on the North Atlantic 95 cents. Western Union Telegraph shows 4112, but there are no adjustments for 1939 to 1941.

On Table 1-A, class I railroads, if you include the memorandum of agreement of December 21, 1950, roadmen would show 722 cents. Mr. MURDOCK. That is including the memorandum of agreement. Mr. LOOMIS. That is including the 10 cents, but not the cost-ofliving adjustment which would be effective April 1. It would be 7212 with the 10 cents, and of course with the other 8 it would be 802.

Yardmen with the December 21 agreement adjustment would be 91 cents, and with the 8 cents due April 1 would be 99 cents as compared to the industry figures which I have just given.

If you turn to table 2, the hours and earnings in class I railroads. and 32 selected manufacturing industries, you find that the weekly earnings of class I railroads and I understand that means nonsupervisory, the nonsup there-weekly earnings from January 1945 to January 1949 increased $13.14. There are only five of the industries shown which show a slightly greater increase. There is of course no way to weight the average, but if you take a simple average of the industries, excluding the railroads, the average increase in weekly earnings is $7.522 as compared with the railroad increase of $13.14.

Using again simple average, because there is no way of weighting it, the average hours worked in January 1949 for the industries shown, excluding the railroads, averaged 41 hours. If you took the railroad average hourly earnings figure of $1.333, multiplied it by 41 and compared that result with the weekly figure for January 1945, you get an increase in weekly earnings of $7.58 on a 41-hour week as compared with the average for the industry of $7.5212.

I think the net result of the showing by the Department of Labor is that the railroads have kept abreast of other industries and rank well up in the increases granted and in the maintenance of earnings. Mr. MURDOCK. Are you speaking of weekly, or hourly, or both? Mr. LOOMIS. Both.

Mr. MURDOCK. It is true, isn't it, Mr. Loomis, that in the table 2 under the column January 1949 there are only two industries shown which have a lower average hourly earning than the railroads, those two being the condensed and evaporated milk and cottonseed oil?

Mr. LOOMIS. I think that is true. Of course in that connection you have to remember that January 1949 was before the nonoperating increase of September 1949 which averaged 232 cents. To make any comparison you would have to look at the present situation. Insofar as the increases granted over the period: Table 1 and table 1-A show that they have kept pace. You also would have there the question of the make-up of the labor force. You have large numbers of trackmen and laborers in the railroad industry that are included in these figures that you do not have in other industries.

Mr. MURDOCK. It is true, is it not, Mr. Loomis, that in this same table No. 2 under the column January 1945 there were five industries. which had a lower average hourly earnings than the railroad industry?

Mr. LOOMIS. I haven't checked it.

Mr. MURDOCK. They being the gypsum, condensed and evaporated milk, paper and pulp, roofing materials, and cottonseed oil industries. Mr. LOOMIS. I am just running through it hastily, and that appears to be correct.

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