THE World of Labour

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 884, 9 December 1916, Page 12

THE World of Labour

TiJADKS AND LABOUR COUNCIL HALL. • MEETINGS FOR WEEK. SA'i'UiDAY- -Trades Council and Executive Committee; Bakers and Pastrycooks' Urrfon. SUNDAY—CUristadelphians' Mission, 11 ii.ni.; Public Lecture-ill Social Hall, 7 p.m. MONDAY—Amalgamated Society of Engi.nocrs. No. 1 Branch; Amalgamated Society of Carpenters' Union;• Aerated Water Workers' Union. TUESDAY—Grocers' Assistants' Union. WEDNESDAY Canterbury Carpenters' Union; Brlckmalcers and Clayworlters' Pnton; Public Lecture in Social Hall, 8- p.m. FRlDAY—General Labourers' Finance Committee. AN EIGHT-HOUR VICTORY.

INDUSTRIAL CHAOS AVERTED. While the coal miners of Australia were paralysing the trade of the country in their struggle to secure the eight-hour day the Railway men of the United States were able to secure the same great reform without inflicting such a disaster on their country—namely through the direct intervention of the American Congress. *

For many years the 8-hour day > had 1 been in the forefront of the 'Railway men, but during the past year the demand for it became so insistent, that ballot was taken over the four Bailwaymen's Unions as to whether a strike should lake place, in the event of it being definitely refused by. the railway companies. The ballot resulted in favour of the strike but while it (the ballot) was in progress the companies were not idle, and carried out a methodical system of intimidation. Notices were issued stating that employees who remained continuously in the service would be

placed first on the list for promotion and would hereafter be regarded as ' the senior employees of the company. The notices also intimated that'employees joining the strike left the company by such action: lists • were also taken round for the men to sign, indicating that they would not be a party to the strike. Thons> artds upon thousands of them signed ■ thelists apparently fearing discharge if they refused to do so, but still the intimidation failed, over 94 per cent, voting in favour of the strike should such a course prove necessary. Companies Obstinate.

Still the companies refused to give way, and the United States was threatened with the greatest industrial upheaval and commercial •paralysis in its; history. President Wilson, however, declared in favour of the men, and induced Congress to authorise the eight-hour day by legislation. The men thus secured a bloodless victory. In this connection the term "bloodless" is certainly not an exaggeration of language, as American strikes are almost invariably accompanied by violence and bloodshed. The cause of this is a combination of vicious .-circumstances:.on the one hand the I.YV.W. flourishes in the States, and whether the organisation is or is not directly affected by a particular strike, the LW.W-ites are be in evidence preaching their gospel of sabotage and.destruction of property. But the I.W.W. has its complement on the capitalist side, and one of the most

common methods resorted to is to :S£nd.anicmg the strikers hired thugs, instructed to incite the men to violence in order thai all the machinery and power of the law including the State militia may be used against them,-and public opinion also pre-

A Column for Workers

Conducted by D. G. SULLIVAN

judiced and poisoned. With such elements present, it is not surprising .that so many American strikes result in disorder and bloodshed, and the potential evils resulting from a great railway strike would be sufficiently terrible to make understandable the anxiety, of President and Congress to prevent its development. It was in gratitude for the President's action on this question, the American Federation of Labour departed from its time-honoured policy, of not associating itself with any political party, and at the election just over declared in favour of President Wilson: the fact probably gave the President his majority in the contest with Judge Hughes, and an additional four years of office. Mr Wilson's address to Congress on the eight hours question was as follows: — PRESIDENT WILSON'S APPEAL TO CONGRESS.

"Gentlemen of the Congress,—l have come to you to seek your assistance in dealing with a very grave situation which has arisen out of the demand of the employees of the railroads engaged in freight train service that they be granted an eighthour working day, safeguarded by payment*, for an hour and a half of service for every hour of work beyond the eight. "The matter has been agitated for more than a year. The public.has been made familiar .with the demands of the men and the arguments urged in favour of them, and even more familiar with the objections of the railroads and their counter demand that certain privileges now enjoyed by their men and certain bases of payment worked out through many years of contest be reconsidered, especially in their relation to the adoption of an eight-hour day. The matter came some three -weeks ago io a final issue and resulted in a complete deadlock between the parties. The means provided by law for the mediation of the controversy failed and the means of arbitration for which the law provides were rejected. The representatives of the railway executives proposed that the demands of the men be submitted in their entirety to arbitration, along with certain questions of readjustment as to pay and conditions of employment - hich seemed to them to be either c >sely associated with the demands c. to call for reconsideration on their own merits; the men absolutely declined "arbitration, especially if any of their established privileges were by* that means to: be drawn again in question. The law in the matter put no compulsion upon them. The four hundred thousand men from whom the demands proceeded had voted to strike if their demands were refused; the strike was imminent; it-has since been set for the 4th of September next. It alfects the men who man the freight trains on practically every railway in the country. The freight service throughout the United States must stand still until their places are filled, if, indeed, it possible to fill them at all. Cities will be cut off from their food supplies, the whole commerce of the nation AVill be paralysed, men of every sort and occupation will be thrown oui of employment, countless thousands will in all likelihood be brought, it may be, to the very point of starvation, and a tragical national calamity brought on,, to be added to the other distresses of the time, because no

basis of accommodation or .scltlc-j merit has been found.

The Spirit of the Time

"It seemed to me, in considering the subject-matter of the controversy, that the whole spirit of the time and the preponderant evidence of recent economic experience spoke for the eight-hour day. It has been adjudged by the thought and experience of recent years a thing upon which society is justified in insisting as in the interest of health, efficiency, contentment, and a general increase of economic vigour. The whole presumption of modern experience would, it seemed to me, he in its favour, whether there was arbitration or not, and the debatable points to settle were those which arose out of the acceptance of the eight-hour" day rather than those which affected its establishment. I, therefore, proposed that the eight-hour day be adopted by the railway managements. and put into practice for the present as a substitute for the existing 10hour basis' of pay and service; that I should appoint, with the permission of the Congress, a small commission to observe the results of the change, carefully studying the figures of the altered operating costs, not only, but also the conditions of labour under which the men worked and the operation of their existing agreements with the railroads, with instructions to report the facts as they found them to the Congress at the earliest possible day, but without recommendation; and that, after the facts had been thus disclosed, an adjustment should in some orderly manner be sought of all the matters now left unadjusted between the railroad managers and the men. , A Proposal Declined.

"I unhesitatingly offered the friendly services of the administration to the railway managers to see to it that justice was done the railroads in the outcome. I felt warranted in assuring them that no obstacles of law would be suffered to stand in. the way of their increasing their revenues to meet the expenses resulting from the change so far as the development of their business and of their administrative efficiency did not prove adequate to meet them. The public and the representatives of the public, 1 felt justified in assuring them, weFe disposed to nothing but justice in such cases and were willing to serve those who served them. .

The representatives of the Brotherhood accepted the plan; but the representatives of the railroads declined to accept it. In the face of what I cannot but regard as the practical certainty that they will be ultimately obliged to accept the eight-hour day by the concerted action of organised labour, backed by the favourable judgment of society, the representatives of the railway management have felt justified in declining a peaceful settlement which would engage all the forces of justice, public and private, on their side to lake care of the They do not care to rely upon the friendly assurances of the Congress or the President. They have thought it best that they should be forced to yield, if they must yield, not by counsel, but by the suffering of the country. While my conferences with them were in progress, and when to all outward appearance Ihose conferences had come to a standstill, the representatives of the Brotherhoods suddenly acted and set the- strike for the 4th of September. "The railway managers based their decision to reject my counsel in this matter upon their conviction that they must at any cost to themselves or to the country stand firm for the principle of arbitration which the men had rejected. I based my counsel upon the indisputable fact that there was no means of obtaining arbitration. The law supplied none; earnest efforts at mediation had failed to influence the men in the least. To stand firm for the principle of arbitration seemed to me futile, and something more than futile, because it involved incalculable distress to the country and consequences in

some respects worse than those of war, and that in the midst of peace." In response to the appeal of the President, what is known as ,the Adamson Bill was passed in the House on September 1, and the same Bill by the Senate on September 2. The Brotherhoods agreed to forgo time and a quarter for all time worked over eight hours a, day. Once again has Labour's organised economic" strength, administered not by firebrands but by strong, sane, common-sense men, proved its most powerful and formidable weapon in the struggle for decent conditions of work.