The Great Strike on the 'Q' Part 3

They shall not be required to knock fires.

Hostlers to be provided at all terminal points.

In all cases where engineers and firemen have to watch their engines, they shall be paid at the full rate per hour.

_Article XII._

SECTION 1. Engineers and firemen taking light engines over the road, or dead-heading over the road on company business, will be paid pa.s.senger rates; and where light engines are taken over the road, a flagman is to be furnished.

In case engineers or firemen are to attend court, or on any company business, engineers to receive four dollars per day and expenses, and firemen two dollars and forty cents per day and expenses.

SEC. 2. That no engineer or fireman be required to pull any train without a conductor, or a man to take charge of said train.

_Article XIII._

Engineers and firemen will run, first in, first out, and, as far as practicable, on their respective divisions; and where engines are pooled, not to be governed by train department.

_Article XIV._

Rights to regular runs, when ability is equal, will be governed by seniority. Engineers and firemen having regular runs up to the Agreement of 1886 will not be affected by this Article.

_Article XV._

No more extra engineers or firemen will be a.s.signed than is necessary to move the traffic with promptness and dispatch, and should any engineer or fireman feel himself aggrieved by the a.s.signment of too many men, he can proceed as in Article I, but will receive no pay for loss of time.

Galesburg Division engineers and firemen will not be required to run east of Aurora.

_Article XVI._

No road engineer or fireman will be expected to do regular yard work at terminal stations. In the event of their being called upon to do said work, the engineer shall receive forty (40) cents per hour, and the fireman twenty-four (24) cents per hour.

_Article XVII._

No fines shall be a.s.sessed against engineers or firemen.

_Article XVIII._

That engineers and firemen and their families be given transportation when applied for, and that some arrangement be made to pa.s.s Brotherhood men over the road.

_Article XIX._

SECTION 1. That where time is not allowed, the Master Mechanic shall cause the trip report to be returned to the engineer or fireman sending it in, stating why the time is not allowed, as soon as practicable.

SEC. 2. All officers, engineers and firemen will observe strict courtesy of manners in their intercourse with each other.

_Article XX._

All road engines will be provided with cracked coal suitable for firing, and the company shall do all outside cleaning, and where engines are pooled, the company to do all the cleaning.

_Article XXI._

Engineers and firemen shall not be required to go out when they need rest, and they are expected to judge for themselves whether they need rest or not.

_Article XXII._

It is understood that there will be no more examinations or tests, except such as are agreed upon by the General Manager and the General Grievance Committee.

_Article XXIII._

That on the adoption of this schedule, it shall be kept posted in a conspicuous place in all register rooms on the line of road.

All previous schedules and contracts shall be considered void.

(Signed) S. E. HOGE, _Chairman Engineers_.

J. H. MURPHY, _Chairman Firemen_.

It will readily be seen that the engineers and firemen request that the compensation be fixed by the mile, as that is the method adopted by nine-tenths of the railroads in the United States.

The Burlington officials have said that this compensation was sought by the Brotherhoods without regard to other conditions or circ.u.mstances.

This position of the company will not bear inspection. For instance: in cases of high-cla.s.s runs which they have cited, taking only a few hours for the trip, engineers and firemen have been compelled to care for their own engines; in fact, keep up the repairs of the engine, thereby saving to the company the cost of a hostler, and keeping the engine in constant use without the aid of the machinist. It was not sought by the Brotherhoods to create these high-cla.s.s runs; on the contrary, the desire was to do away with them. Article XI. of the foregoing schedule plainly says that hostlers must be provided at terminal points, and where absolutely necessary for the engineer and fireman to perform this duty, that they be paid the full rate per hour. It was evidently the desire of the men to force these so-called high-cla.s.s runs off the schedule, while the company desired to retain them. It is also seen that while the Brotherhoods asked for compensation according to the miles run, the trip pay could still have been continued, providing that the company did not require them to do the work of roundhouse men and machinists. The only question involved here is, that this company should pay as much per trip of equal length as is paid by the other important lines of the country. If the desire had been to pay the men honestly and fairly, it was immaterial whether the compensation be by the trip or mile. To ill.u.s.trate: If a pa.s.senger engineer runs one hundred miles, this schedule calls for three dollars and fifty cents. This rate is paid by the C., R. I. & P., A., T. & S. F., Wabash, and in fact ninety per cent. of the great railway systems in the United States. The Burlington, not desiring to pay upon a basis that would make a fair comparison of wages with those of other companies, abandons the mile schedule, and simply says: "We will pay you three dollars for the trip;" in other words, three cents per mile for the same service for which other roads pay three and one-half cents.

It is true that the Brotherhoods have demanded in this schedule "a considerable average increase of pay," but the public must understand that they did not demand this increase from the Burlington over what is paid by its compet.i.tors in business. Had the Burlington conceded this increase of pay, it would only have been called upon to pay precisely what its neighbors and rivals have been paying for years. A large average increase of pay must be made before the employes of this road are placed upon an equal footing with those of other roads. For many years the Burlington road had the advantage of a first-cla.s.s equipment of enginemen at rates of pay far below what its compet.i.tors have been compelled to pay for the same service.

In strict justice, these men might have demanded rest.i.tution, but they only asked for honest treatment in the future. They did not ask for the abolishment of cla.s.sification based upon merit, age or experience. The proposition is substantially this: If an engineer is compelled to pull the best train on the Burlington road, he should have the best pay. It is not material whether he has been an engineer one year or ten years--competency alone is the requisite.

When the company places a man in charge of one of its great express trains, and intrusts to his skill and judgment the lives and property of its patrons, by that very act it certifies that he is a first-cla.s.s engineer, and ent.i.tled to receive pay accordingly. A first-year man is not necessarily a man of inferior ability; the company would not risk its own property and reputation, nor would the public risk their lives, with third-rate men. Why, then, should the company insist on paying them third-cla.s.s wages? It is injustice, imposition, and avarice! The man who is able to perform the work of a first-cla.s.s engineer should receive first-cla.s.s pay, whatever that may be; and he is a slave who accepts less.

On the other hand the company takes this position: It places a man in a position which requires at his hands the skill, knowledge and ability of a first-cla.s.s engineer. The first year it pays him much less than a first-cla.s.s engineer's wages; the second year it slightly advances his wages, but still keeps them below that of the first-cla.s.s; the third year he is paid their highest wages to an engineer (which is still less than that paid by other roads), having done the same character and quality of work for three years. The result is that the company is continually gaining from the men who are in their first and second year's service a large per cent of wages. It thus gains all the percentages in this scheme, because a number of men who work the first or second year do not remain long enough in the employ of this company to be ent.i.tled to the wages that are paid to the men who have served their third year. These first and second year men who resign to accept better positions on other roads, enter other occupations in life, or are crippled, killed, or discharged by the company, are replaced by other first and second year men, and the company is thus enabled to keep a large percentage of employes at greatly reduced rates of wages. No objection could be offered to paying those who had been employed on the road a long time an extra gratuity if so desired, nor could complaint be made if, in its generosity, the company wished to pension men who had served it faithfully a number of years; but when this gratuity (?), this generosity (?), is only a small portion of the sum stolen from the same employes, the men were only human and failed to appreciate the kindness intended.

One of two things must be true: either that the engineers were first-cla.s.s men ent.i.tled to first-cla.s.s pay, or that the public was deceived when it was asked to travel upon or risk property on trains run by second and third grade, and, consequently inferior men. The latter could not be maintained by the company. Every General Manager in the Western country knows that the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy road was equipped with first-cla.s.s men in these departments, second to none anywhere. This is clearly proven by their general eagerness to re-engage the former employes of this company. Mr. Jeffrey, General Manager of the Illinois Central road, and Chairman of the General Managers' a.s.sociation, stated that in the future all vacancies upon his line would be held for the ex-employes of the Burlington road. Nor is Mr. Jeffrey an exception in this matter; the C., R. I. & P., C., S. F. & C., C. & N.-W., C. M. & St. P., Wisconsin Central, M. & N. W., C., A. & St. L., together with the Eastern lines, are rapidly receiving these men into their employ.

What has been said in relation to the engineers applies also to the firemen, because upon all the roads the fireman's wages is based upon those of the engineer, and he receives from fifty-five to sixty per cent of the wages that is paid to the engineer; therefore, a shaving down of the engineer's pay means also a shaving down of the amount paid to the fireman, so that on all sides the peculiar system adopted by the Burlington road robs both cla.s.ses and enriches its own treasury.

In the circular issued by the company it says: "The company reserves the right to ascertain by whatever examinations it may think advisable, whether its employes of all cla.s.ses are capable of fulfilling the duties they undertake, and the public also demand that the railroad company shall take every precaution to employ only those men who can safely perform the work entrusted to them." This was one of the main points at issue. When the company had made such examinations, and found that an engineer or fireman was capable of taking charge of an engine, and that he was competent to fill the company's obligation to the public, what right, in justice, had they to ask that the man accept a lower grade of compensation? He performed the same service rendered by the older men, or those who had been longer on the road, and, in justice, should have received the same pay. If sent out on freight runs, he performed harder service, and a service that required skill and judgment equal at least to the pa.s.senger engineer, and should have been paid accordingly in strict sense of justice and equity.