4. The Adamson Act, 1916

This law, approved September 3, 1916, was an attempt to settle a labor dispute by direct congressional action. When the dispute failed of adjustment under the provisions of the Newlands Act, President Wilson called both parties to confer with him and proposed that the principle of the 8-hour day be accepted while the question of time and a half for overtime was investigated by a commission to be appointed by him. The suggestion was acceptable to the employees, but the railroad officials would not grant the 8-hour day before an investigation was made.

A Nation-wide strike was announced to begin on September 4, but the President secured a promise that the strike would be called off if Congress enacted an 8-hour law in line with his proposal. He then recommended in a special message to Congress that the 8-hour day for train operatives be established by law, that a commission be created to observe the operation of the 8-hour law, and the Congress approve an increase in rates by the Interstate Commerce Commission if increased costs under the new law made this necessary. An additional recommendation proposed that the Newlands Act be amended to make it illegal to call a strike or order a lock-out prior to an investigation of the dispute by a Government commission.

Only the first two recommendations were embodied in the law that was adopted. Beginning January 1, 1917, 8 hours was "to be deemed a day's work and the measure or standard of a day's work for the purpose of reckoning compensation for service. A commission of three was ordered appointed by the President to observe the operation and effects of this provision during શ period of 6 to 9 months; and pending the report of the commission and for 30 days thereafter, wages for the 8-hour day "shall not be reduced below the present standard day's wage, and for all necessary time in excess of 8 hours such employees shall be paid at a rate not less than the pro rata for such standard 8-hour workday.”

Statements of brotherhood officials and railway executives indicated that apparently neither party was anxious to have this law enacted. But the dispute could not be resolved under the Newlands Act, and the law was frankly adopted as an emergency measure to head off the strike that threatened to stop commerce throughout the Nation. As such an emergency measure, its constitutionality was later upheld by the Supreme Court (Wilson v. New, 243 U. S. 332).

In the end, however, the dispute was actually settled not by the Adamson law, but through the good offices of a committee of the Counsel of National Defense in March 1917, just before we entered the World War. A lower court had declared the Adamson law unconstitutional, and the men again threatened to strike. President Wilson appointed the Council committee and it induced the carriers to concede the basic 8-hour day as provided in the Adamson law. Νο doubt the passage of the law helped in this settlement of the controversy, but nevertheless it was through mediation by the committee that the final settlement was secured.

5. Labor relations under Federal control, 1917-20

It was while the railroads were under Federal control during the war that principles, policies, and methods were developed for overcoming the weaknesses of mediation and arbitration as they appeared under the Newlands Act. A Division of Labor was set up by the Railroad Administration for handling the problems of labor relations and from time to time the Director General of Railroads issued orders setting forth policies and regulations, and creating agencies for dealing with disputes.

Since 1908 when the Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional the provision in the Erdman Act which prohibited discharge or discrimination against employees for union membership or labor-organization activity, there was no law guaranteeing the right of railroad employees to organize without interference by the carriers. The Director General restored this right by an order declaring that "no discrimination will be made in the employment, retention, or conditions of employment of employees because of membership or nonmembership in a labor organization." This guaranteed wage earners against interference by the carriers with the organization efforts of the employees; and not only did the well-organized train-service brotherhoods grow in membership, but many classes of employees heretofore weak in membership developed strong organiza

Order No. 8. Director General of Railroads, February 21, 1918.

tions during Federal control of the roads, and were recognized and dealt with by the Railroad Administration.

Since the Government was now the employer, new methods of fixing and adjusting wages had to be developed. A commission of four members was appointed to make a general investigation of wages in the railroad industry and to make recommendations to the Director General. On the basis of the report of this investigation General Order No. 27 was issued, readjusting rates of pay for all classes of employees, establishing the basic 8-hour day for purposes of compensation, and providing certain general rules governing conditions of employment. This order also created a Board of Railroad Wages and Working Conditions, whose duty it was "to hear and investigate matters presented by railroad employees or their representatives affecting inequalities as to wages and working conditions

rules and working conditions for the several classes of employees * * and other matters affecting wages and conditions of employment referred to it by the Director General." The Board's authority was only advisory. It submitted its recommendations to the Director General.

Subsequently, the Director General entered into national agreements with some of the labor organizations that represent various classes of employees. These agreements covered rules, hours of service, and working conditions, and after wage awards were made by the Board of Wages and Working Conditions, provision was made for incorporating awards as wage schedules in the agreements. Such national agreements were made during the first year of Government operation with the older train service brotherhoods, extending to the whole transportation system the main rules and working conditions of the agreements formerly made with separate carirers. Later similar national agreements were negotiated and signed with the shop crafts organizations, stationary firemen and oilers, clerks and freight handlers, maintenance of way employees, and signalmen.

Another innovation was the creation of railway boards of adjustment with authority to make decisions in "all controversies growing out of the interpretation or application of the provisions of the wage schedule or agreements which are not promptly adjusted by the officials and the employees of any one of the railroads operated by the Government." These boards of adjustment were established by agreements of the regional directors and the execution of the labor organizations, which were adopted and put into effect in orders of the Director General (Orders Nos. 13, 29, and 53). There were three of them: Board of Adjustment No. 1, for the train service employees; Board No. 2, for the shop crafts; and Board No. 3, for the telegraphers, switchmen, clerks, and maintenance of way employees. Half the members of each board were selected and paid by the railroads and half by the employees' organizations.

No dispute or individual grievance could be considered by any of these boards unless it was first "handled in the usual manner by general committees of the employees up to and including the chief operating officer of the railroad." If a controversy could not be settled in this manner, then the chief executive of the employees' organization and the chief operating officer of the railroad were required to refer the matter to the Division of Labor, which in turn presented the case to the appropriate adjustment board for a hearing and decision.

The orders, policies, and practices of the Railroad Administration laid the basis for many of the provisions later embodied in the Railway Labor Act. 6. The Transportation Act of 1920 and the Railroad Labor Board

When the railroads were returned to private ownership in 1920, the Transportation Act of that year made provision, in what was known as title III, for the settlement of disputes between carriers and all classes of their employees. At that time there was much industrial unrest, labor disputes and strikes were tying up industries throughout the country, and it was feared that the transportation system might be similarly affected when Federal control was terminated. A wide variety of proposals for dealing with railway labor relations were urged upon Congress, including compulsory arbitration and the prohibition of strikes. Title III emerged from all the discussion, and it represented compromises and accommodations of many views. The provisions of title III and those concerning the United States Railroad Labor Board which it created were vague in their purposes, capable of a multiplicity of interpretations, and uncertain in their legal authority. They reflected an oversimplification of the problems of labor relations, as if disputes and strikes were the only evils involved and if these could be removed by decisions of a board or a series of boards on which all interests,

including the public, were represented. Stripped of its verbiage, the Esch-Cummins law, as the Transportation Act was commonly referred to, really provided only two things with respect to labor: (1) That all disputes should be considered first in conference between representatives of the carriers and of the employees and an effort made to dispose of them; (2) if they could not be so disposed of, they were to be referred to the United States Railroad Labor Board for "hearing and decision."

The duty was imposed on the carriers and their employees "to exert every reasonable effort and adopt every available means" of avoiding interruption of commerce by reason of any dispute between them. "All such disputes shall be considered and, if possible, decided in conference between representatives designated and authorized so to confer" by the respective parties. Carriers and their employees might, if they so desired and agreed, set up boards of labor adjustment, with authority to decide disputes involving grievances, rules, or working conditions which failed of settlement in conference. But it was not made obligatory to set up such adjustment boards.

The United States Railroad Labor Board of nine members was appointed by the President in three groups, each with three members; a "labor group" to represent employees, a "management group" to represent the carriers, and "a public group" to represent the general public interest. This Board was not authorized to mediate or adjust disputes. Its duty was to hear, and as soon as practicable and with due diligence decide, disputes involving grievances, rules, or working conditions, not settled in conference, or by a board of labor adjustment where such existed; and it was given sole jurisdiction of disputes involving changes in rates of pay not settled in conference.

To some extent these provisions were a reversion to the original law of 1888 which had been discarded in subsequent legislation. That act, it will be recalled, provided for investigations of disputes by a commission which was to make a report and recommendations. Similarly, the Railroad Labor Board was required to "investigate and study the relations between carriers and their employees," . its hearings in particular cases were like the hearings the temporary investigating commissions were authorized to hold by the early act, and its decisions were nothing more than recommendations, for they were not enforceable on either party and, in actual practice, were often flouted. The underlying idea in both acts was that the pressure of public opinion would serve to enforce the recommendations.

Very few of the principles and policies tested by experience under previous railway labor legislation were included in the title III of the act of 1920. Mediation was not provided for, although, if there is any one conclusion on which both carriers and employees will agree from the experience of the legislation prior to, as well as since, the act of 1920, it is the usefulness of mediation and its high degree of effectiveness. True, the Newlands Act establishing the Board of Mediation and Conciliation was not repealed by the Esch-Cummins law, but the Board's authority was restricted so that it "shall not extend to any dispute which may be received for hearing or decision by an adjustment board or by the Railroad Labor Board." As a matter of fact, the Board of Mediation and Conciliation ceased to function when the Railroad Labor Board began operating. Not only was the success of mediation thus ignored, but the obvious lesson of the Adamson Act appears likewise to have been overlooked. Neither employers, employees, nor the general public were satisfied with that attempt to settle a labor dispute by direct decision of the Government, yet a governmental body, the Railroad Labor Board, was given authority to decide what wages and salaries should be paid to all classes of employees, including subordinate officials, in a privately owned industry. An attempt was made by Congress to prescribe standards by which just and reasonable pay was to be arrived at, but these were necessarily couched in the most general terms capable of many interpretations." Although the carriers were obligated by the act to confer with representatives and organizations of employees, neither interference in the designation of such representatives nor coercion to quit union activity or membership was prohibited.

3 In determining the justness and reasonableness of such wages and salaries or working conditions the board shall, so far as applicable, take into consideration among other relevant circumstances: (1) The scales of wages paid for similar kinds of work in other industries, (2) the relations between wages and the cost of living. (3) hazards of the employment, (4) training and skill required, (5) the degree of responsibility, (6) the character and regularity of the employment, (7) inequalities of increases in wages or of treatment, the result of previous wage orders or adjustments (sec. 307 (d)).

7. The Railway Labor Act of 1926 and amendments of 1934

Dissatisfaction with the Railroad Labor Board grew the longer it operated, so that by the end of 1925 both the carriers and the employees were agreed in their desire to have it repealed. A joint committee of management and railroad brotherhood representatives supported a bill which was enacted into law and entitled "The Railway Labor Act of 1926."

In the framing of this law the experience and the lessons learned from previous legislation were thoroughly canvassed by representatives of the parties directly affected, the railroads and their employees.

The duty to exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements, to settle all disputes in conference by conciliation if possible, and the right of employees and carriers alike to designate individuals or organizations as representatives, without interference, influence, or coercion were all included in this act. Provision was made for setting up boards of adjustment for interpreting agreements, and a United States Board of Mediation was set up for mediating disputes involving changes in wages, rules, or working conditions.

Failing in mediation, the Board was required to attempt to induce the parties to submit their dispute to arbitration, as already described; and if this failed, an emergency board could be appointed.

The main changes which the amendments of 1934 made in the original act were (1) creation of the National Railroad Adjustment Board, but system or regional boards of adjustment established by agreement of legally authorized representatives are not prohibited; (2) the settlement of representation disputes by the Mediation Board without the intervention of the carrier; and (3) clarification of the right to organize and to bargain collectively, and provision of penalties for interference with this right on the part of carriers or their agents. Aside from these changes, the Railway Labor Act remains, in its essentials, the same as it was enacted in 1926.

8. Bankruptcy and Emergency Transportation Acts, 1933

Early in 1933 Congress amended the uniform Bankruptcy Act and in connection with these amendments, certain labor provisions were included. These labor provisions are contained in section 77 (0), (p), and (q) of the amended act (Public, No. 420, 72d Cong., approved March 3, 1933).

The first subsection provided that "no judge or trustee acting under this act shall change the wages or working conditions of railroad employees, except in the manner prescribed in the Railway Labor Act," or as set forth in a wage agreement entered into in 1932 by the railroad labor organizations and the class I railroads.

The second prohibited such judge or trustee from denying or in any way questioning the right of employees to join labor organizations of their choice and made it "unlawful for any judge, trustee, or receiver to interfere in any way with the organizations of employees or to use the funds of the railroad under his jurisdiction, in maintaining so-called company unions, or to influence or coerce employees in an effort to induce them to join or remain members of such company unions.”

The third subsection prohibited judges, trustees, or receivers from requiring employees to sign "yellow-dog" contracts and if such contracts had been in effect prior to the receivership. an appropriate order must be issued to the employees stating that the contracts had been discarded and were no longer binding on them in any way.

The effects of these amendments to the Bankruptcy Act were (1) to make all roads in receivership subject to the provisions of the Railway Labor Act; and (2) to protect the right of employees on all such roads to organize and to be free from interference or coercion in the matter of their organization. At the time these were adopted, the Railway Labor Act of 1926 had not yet been amended to provide these specific protections.

On June 16, 1933, the Emergency Railroad Transportation Act was approved and section 7 (e) of this act provided that "carriers, whether under control of a judge, trustee, receiver, or private management, shall be required to comply with the provisions of the Railway Labor Act,” and the provisions of section 77 (o), (p), and (q) of the Bankruptcy Act were also extended to all carriers.

These provisions in the Bankruptcy and Emergency Acts were apparently merely steps in the direction of guaranteeing to all railroad employees the right to organize and bargain collectively, which later were included in the amended Railway Labor Act. For, after the amendments to the Railway Labor Act had

been adopted and all roads in receivership were made subject to it, the provisions of paragraphs (o), (p), and (q) of section 77 were omitted from the Bankruptcy Act when this was again amended in August 1935.

9. Amendment of 1936, extending the Railway Labor Act to cover domestic airlines

By an amendment to the Railway Labor Act, approved April 10, 1936, Congress extended the provisions of the act to cover "every common carrier by air engaged in interstate or foreign commerce, and every carrier by air transporting mail for or under contract with the United States Government, and every air pilot or other person who performs any work as an employee or subordinate official of such carrier or carriers ***." A title II was added to the act containing the provisions applicable to air carriers and their employees; the original act as amended in 1934 applying to the railroads was made title I.

All of the provisions of title I, except those of section 3, were extended to cover the air carriers and their employees, and "the duties, requirements, penalties, benefits, and privileges prescribed and established by the provisions of title I" were made to apply "to said carriers by air and their employees in the same manner and to the same extent as though such carriers and their employees were specifically included within the definition of 'carrier' and 'employee,' respectively, in section 1 thereof."

Section 3 of title I, which was not made applicable to air carriers and their employees, provides for a National Railroad Adjustment Board to decide all disputes growing out of grievances or out of the interpretation or application of agreements between the railroads and their employees. In place of this, title II provides for the establishment of boards of adjustment by agreement between employees and air carriers, and makes provisions for the creation of a permanent National Air Transport Adjustment Board when, in the judgment of the National Mediation Board, it shall be necessary to have such a permanent national board in order to provide for the prompt and orderly settlement of disputes growing out of grievances or out of the interpretation or application of agreements between air carriers and their employees.

By section 401 (L) of the Civil Aeronautics Act' which became law in June 1938, air carriers are required to comply with title II of the Railway Labor Act as a condition of holding certificates of public convenience and necessity. The Civil Aeronautics Act also specifically requires that none of its provisions shall be interpreted so as to restrict the rights of employees of air carriers to obtain by collective bargaining more favorable wages or working conditions. The portions of the Civil Aeronautics Act which deal with the collective bargaining rights of air-carrier employees and which refer to the Railway Labor Act are quoted as follows:

(3) Nothing herein contained shall be construed as restricting the right of any such pilots or copilots, or other employees, of any such air carrier to obtain by collective bargaining higher rates of compensation or more favorable working conditions or relations.

(4) It shall be a condition upon the holding of a certificate by any air carrier that such carrier shall comply with title II of the Railway Labor Act, as amended. 10. Amendment of 1951 authorizing agreements providing for union membership,

et cetera

On January 10, 1951 (Public Law 914, 81st Cong.), the Railway Labor Act was amended by adding to section 2 thereof, as paragraph "eleventh" language which removed certain prohibitions in paragraphs fourth and fifth of section 2 as enacted in 1934 relative to closed shop, deduction of dues, et cetera.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Bickers, I would like to congratulate you on your very forceful and eloquent statement here this morning. I am greatly impressed by you and also by the Chairman of the Board who appeared here several times during the course of the hearings. I think that your Board is giving an excellent demonstration to the people of this country of the operations of the democratic method in handling a problem of this kind. You certainly have a very excellent history, and I certainly agree with you that it will be a

4 Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, Public, No. 706.