INQUIRY OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION. The commission commenced its inquiries on August 23. Its findings are given elsewhere,' but the testimony offered before it brings out more fully than the condensed summary there given the men's grounds of complaint. Naturally there was some difference in these, according to the company by whom a given witness was employed. The secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants thought the chief objections to the scheme of 1907 were, in effect: Irritating delay in acceptance of petition of men's grievances. Slow and cumbersome machinery for settling such grievances. Enormous cost to the trade-unions of arbitration proceedings. (Eleven cases cost the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants £30,000 [$145,995].) Claim of the companies to be sole interpreters of the awards. DELAY IN ACTING UPON COMPLAINTS. Concerning the first and second items, it was explained that a petition from the workers concerned was the first step in bringing any matter before the employers, but there were no definite rules. as to the number or proportion of signatures such a petition must have before the directors would consent to receive it. Consequently when a petition was presented it might be sent back as being insufficiently signed, and the men would have to collect more signatures, not knowing at all how many were needed. When a petition was received, an answer was not obligatory until two months had elapsed. If the answer were unfavorable, there were numerous opportunities for delay in calling the meetings of the successive boards. "Taking the companies all round, the lapse of time from application to settlement extended to 15 and 18 months." And meanwhile the grievance against which the original petition was directed was continued in full force. CLAIM OF COMPANIES OF RIGHT TO INTERPRET AWARDS. Another grievance which produced perhaps even more irritation was the claim of the companies to be the sole interpreters of the awards given. The men felt that if there was a difference of opinion as to the meaning of an award there should be a discussion between the two sides of the central board as to its real import, or else the arbitrator should be appealed to, while the companies took, in effect, the ground that their reading was the only tenable one, and that neither discussion nor appeal was in order. Consequently it was only after long delays, if at all, that the men succeeded in getting 1 See Appendix I, pp. 100-109. 31326°-Bull. 98-12-7 disputed points discussed or referred back to the arbitrator. One case was instanced in which an award was given in February, 1909, to become effective in April. The men's side of the central board asked in February for a reference back to the arbitrator that the terms might be interpreted. This the company refused, and when, later on, difficulties arose over the various meanings put upon the award they insisted the whole procedure of the conciliation scheme. should be invoked, i. e., that the men should present petitions and send deputations, that the sectional boards should be called into play, that the questions should be passed up to the central board, and only after its action might the arbitrator be called upon to say what he meant, which point was reached and an interpretation given in January, 1910, nearly a year after the award was made. Many of the grievances brought before the boards, the witnesses declared, were not settled yet, although awards had been given. Such matters might be easily settled if the representatives of masters and men could be brought together for free discussion. Other witnesses brought forward additional complaints. The scheme of 1907 was not sufficiently inclusive, some thought; it dealt only with wages and hours, but there were many grievances which did not come under these heads-fines, suspensions, deductions, and withholding of advances and promotions. Furthermore, complaint was made that the companies sometimes varied the awards or evaded them by so changing conditions of work that men failed to get the benefits the awards were supposed to give.1 Another complaint was that while the companies came before the different boards fully informed as to every circumstance, the men's side had no practicable means of getting the information they needed; and that the companies might, and in some cases did, refuse to furnish this, so that the men's representatives had to work with incomplete knowledge. For instance, the wages of certain classes of workers varied considerably from place to place on the same roads. Cases were cited in which, when applications from these workers were brought before the conciliation boards, the companies refused to give any information as to rates of pay, so that the men's side of the boards either had to work in the dark or send to every place where such workers were employed and learn by individual questioning what wages each got-a process so slow, expensive, and difficult as to be practically impossible. The men themselves did not always know the conditions of their employment." 1 Officers of the companies admitted that in some cases such changes had been made, but claimed that these were matters of management, which the agreement of 1907 left entirely in their hands. * Minutes of Evidence taken before the Royal Commission appointed to investigate and report on the working of the Railway Conciliation and Arbitration Scheme of 1907, pp. 45 and 46; p. 52, q. 1299; p. 82, q. 2030; p. 228, qq. 5980 and 5981. Again it was felt that arbitrators' awards were made binding for too long a period. Many of the awards given were to last through 1914, and no matter what changes might occur meanwhile in cost of living and general rates of wages, the men were estopped from even asking for any improvements until the expiration of the period fixed. Still another objection was the difficulty of getting arbitrators sufficiently familiar with railroad work to understand and adjudicate fairly the questions brought before them. "One of our greatest difficulties," said one witness, discussing the decision of a certain arbitrator, "was to get him to understand the work of the various grades. There is a great number of grades in many of these arbitration cases which in their ordinary work differ one from the other. I am afraid that has lost, in a number of cases, really the point at issue." Other witnesses declared in effect that the men were afraid to risk arbitration because of this drawback. Judges and other prominent men who had no practical experience in railroading could hardly be expected to understand its intricacies, and the men felt that by bringing cases before such arbiters they were more likely to lose than to gain.2 REFUSAL TO RECEIVE OFFICIAL REPRESENTATIVES OF THE MEN. There were other minor points of annoyance and irritation, but the greatest difficulty of all was the attitude of the companies toward the unions. In principle, and to a very large extent in practice, they declined to recognize that organizations of any kind existed among the men. They were willing to deal with individual men in their employ, or with a group of men acting as a delegation, but they refused in toto to receive anyone as a representative of the men unless he were actively employed in their service. This, the men felt, put them at a very unfair disadvantage. In any negotiations between them the companies were represented by highly trained experts, familiar with every detail of the company's business, and thoroughly skilled in the art of presenting a case. On their part the men could only put forward one of their own number, a man who, as engineer or guard or fireman or other worker, was employed from 8 to 12 hours a day at one detail of the company's service, and had only such time as was left after his day's work for familiarizing himself with the general situation, collecting the data needed for backing up his case, and preparing himself to set forth his arguments effectively. Moreover, he was necessarily hampered by the fact that he was arguing with his own employers, and that if he created a bad impression upon them his future pros 1 Minutes of Evidence taken before the Royal Commission appointed to investigate and report on the working of the Railway Conciliation and Arbitration Scheme of 1907, p. 231, q. 6019. London, 1911. 2 Idem, p. 161, q. 3922; p. 214, q 5473; p. 188, q. 4682. pects, if not his present position, might be seriously injured.1 If the men tried to meet this situation by paying their chosen advocate a salary, so that he might be free to work up their case and present it unhampered, he immediately ceased to be an employee of the company and was therefore no longer eligible to represent them, either in informal conferences with the employers or before the conciliation boards. If a case went to arbitration, he might appear before the arbitrator, but up to that stage the men must be their own advocates. There was some disagreement among the men as to the stage at which it should be permitted to call in a trade-union official as spokesman. A few thought this should be permissible as soon as a man felt he had a grievance, but the majority agreed that it would be better to have a first interview between the men and their superiors alone. If the matter were settled in this interview, well and good, but if not, the man or men concerned should have a right to another interview, in which they might be represented by their tradeunion officials or anyone else whom they chose, and they should be equally free in their choice of a representative if the matter went to conciliation. Most of the witnesses also thought that this right of representation should not be confined to matters of hours and wages only, but should extend to the numerous other questions over which trouble was always likely to occur. ALLEGED VICTIMIZATION OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE MEN. The witnesses for the men complained of numerous cases in which those who had taken an active part in trying to secure better conditions had been victimized, i. e., dismissed or reduced in grade or 1 I spent 30 years with a railway company myself. During that period I occupied the position of a representative on behalf of the men on several occasions, and while I am prepared and I always like to do justice to everyone-to say that the company permitted me to exercise a reasonable freedom in the position that I occupied, nevertheless, though not being unduly a nervous man, I always felt a certain amount of temerity when advocating the men's claims. I think that it would appeal to everyone that when you are arguing an economic question with your own employers, it is just possible for you perhaps to argue it a little more vigorously than they care for, and as a consequence it is bound to have an effect upon the advocate, no matter who the individual may be. (Minutes of Evidence taken before the Royal Commission appointed to investigate and report on the working of the Railway Conciliation and Arbitration Scheme of 1907, p. 7, q. 132. London, 1911.) 2 We say that in the event of a deputation of the men waiting upon the management to discuss questions of conditions of employment, they should be accompanied, if they desire, by a representative of their trade-union. I do not mean by that, and the society does not mean, that if any individual man at a station has got some point of difference or grievance against his particular company he must immediately report it to the society, and the society insist upon accompanying that man to the management. Where we have recognition we insist upon the practice that the men themselves should first make local representations to their own immediate official, but in the event of their failing to obtain satisfaction, if it is a question, say, where there is a large number of men involved and a deputation is appointed from a station, if they request, and only at their request, and not at the request of the union, they shall be accompanied by a representative of the society. (Minutes of Evidence taken before the Royal Commission appointed to investigate and report on the working of the Railway Conciliation and Arbitration Scheme of 1907, p. 608. London, 1911.) given less desirable work or otherwise penalized. The companies' witnesses denied that such victimization ever took place, and declared that in the specific cases cited by the men the penalty was inflicted for other causes and was in no wise connected with the sufferers' efforts to secure better conditions. SUMMARY OF COMPLAINTS OF THE MEN. It will be seen that the complaints of the men centered around two points-first, the absence of any recognition of their unions and the closely connected refusal of many of the companies to treat with the men as equal parties in the conciliation proceedings, and, second, the alleged violation by the companies of the spirit and intent of the pact by delaying its working most unreasonably, by claiming the right to be sole interpreters of the awards when given, and by varying conditions of work after awards had been given, so that those who would otherwise have profited by these awards gained no advantage from them. The men felt that they had very serious grievances in the matters of long hours, low wages, and oppressive conditions of work, and that the agreement of 1907 had been so perverted from its true purpose that it was merely an ingenious device for preventing any remedial action. ANSWERS OF THE RAILWAY COMPANIES. The representatives of the railway companies who testified before the commission denied the charges of delay and bad faith in the working of the scheme of 1907, and on their side complained strongly of the recent strike as a breach of the agreement. They also claimed that they had signed the agreement on the understanding that the question of recognition was not to be raised during its existence,1 and for the men to bring forward that demand at the present juncture was a violation of their bargain which showed the futility of entering into negotiations with the unions. For the most part they were fairly well satisfied with the scheme of 1907, though they suggested various changes which would make it work more satisfactorily. OPPOSITION TO RECOGNITION OF THE UNION. Most of the railway officials were absolutely and unalterably opposed to recognition of the unions in any shape or form. Various minor reasons were assigned for this attitude, such as the difficulty of dealing with the numerous organizations among which the unionists were divided, the fact that the majority of railroad workers. 1 The managers of the North Eastern Railway had not signed the agreement of 1907, but had conciliation methods of their own which involved full recognition of the union. Their grievance was the sympathetic strike, which brought their men out in August, although they had no personal reasons for striking. |
