U.S. Railwayman To Strike On Wage Issue

Northern Advocate, 16 December 1943, Page 5

U.S. Railwayman To Strike On Wage Issue

(Roc. 1.30 p.m.) NSW YORK. Dec. 15 The nation’s five railway operating brotherhoods have announced a strike to enforce demands for wage increases. Thermions said that 97 per cent, of the brotherhood’s members voted for the strike, which is a protest against frozen wages and the rising cost oi living'. Members of yard and service brotherhoods, numbering 350,000. will leave then jobs on December 30. A progressive strike plan calls for a stoppage of work on other selected groups of railroads on each succeeding three days. The brotherhoods president in a statement said: “We approve of this strike and are thoroughly aware of its immediate effects, but wc believe that in the long run such action on the part of a large and powerful labour group will redound both to the military success of the war and also the present and post-war welfare of the com anon people. “The strike vote reflected a deep and spreading dissatisfaction with the economic management of the war. The brotherhood had asked for wage increases oi three dollars daily. The Emergency Board awarded four cents hourly. “Against Injustice’’

The president added that the move fundamentally is a strike against gross injustice in the administration of the war economy affecting wage-earners and also salaried people. It is a strike against inflation for the privileged few and deflation for the many. This is an action to halt policies throwing this country into a major economic crisis, with the consociuent destruction of public morale, far mere hurtful to the war effort than any temporary work stoppage in protest of it "We do not believe that swollen railroad earnings, larcenous profiteering, soaring prices, and depressed real wages, are necessities of the war effort. Frantic and cheap appeals to patriotism issued by officers of war mobilisation and stabilisation cannot obscure this issue.”