The increase of brotherhood influence which such legislation represents was accompanied by a consolidation in power.At first the Brotherhoods operated by railway systems or as individual orders.Later on they united into districts, all the Brotherhoods of a given district cooperating in their demands.Finally the cooperation of all the Brotherhoods in the United States on all the railway systems was effected.This larger organization came clearly to light in 1912, when the Brotherhoods submitted their disputes to the board of arbitration.This step was hailed by the public as going a long way towards the settlement of labor disputes by arbitral boards.
The latest victory of the Brotherhoods, however, has shaken public confidence and has ushered in a new era of brotherhood influence and Federal interference in railroad matters.In 1916, the four Brotherhoods threatened to strike.The mode of reckoning pay--whether upon an eight-hour or a longer day--was the subject of contention.The Department of Labor, through the Federal Conciliation Board, tried in vain to bring the opponents together.Even President Wilson's efforts to bring about an agreement proved futile.The roads agreed to arbitrate all the points, allowing the President to name the arbitrators; but the Brotherhoods, probably realizing their temporary strategic advantage, refused point-blank to arbitrate.When the President tried to persuade the roads to yield the eight-hour day, they replied that it was a proper subject for arbitration.
Instead of standing firmly on the principle of arbitration, the President chose to go before Congress, on the afternoon of the 29th of August, and ask, first, for a reorganization of the Interstate Commerce Commission; second, for legal recognition of the eight-hour day for interstate carriers; third, for power to appoint a commission to observe the operation of the eight-hour day for a stated time; fourth, for reopening the question of an increase in freight rates to meet the enlarged cost of operation;fifth, for a law declaring railway strikes and lockouts unlawful until a public investigation could be made; sixth, for authorization to operate the roads in case of military necessity.
The strike was planned to fall on the expectant populace, scurrying home from their vacations, on the 4th of September.On the 1st of September an eight-hour bill, providing also for the appointment of a board of observation, was rushed through the House; on the following day it was hastened through the staid Senate; and on the third it received the President's signature.*The other recommendations of the President were made to await the pleasure of Congress and the unions.To the suggestion that railway strikes be made unlawful until their causes are disclosed the Brotherhoods were absolutely opposed.
* This was on Sunday.In order to obviate any objection as to the legality of the signature the President signed the bill again on the following Tuesday, the intervening Monday being Labor Day.
Many readjustments were involved in launching the eight-hour law, and in March, 1917, the Brotherhoods again threatened to strike.
The President sent a committee, including the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Labor, to urge the parties to come to an agreement.On the 19th of March, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of the law, and the trouble subsided.But in the following November, after the declaration of war, clouds reappeared on the horizon, and again the unions refused the Government's suggestion of arbitration.Under war pressure, however, the Brotherhoods finally consented to hold their grievance in abeyance.
The haste with which the eight-hour law was enacted, and the omission of the vital balance suggested by the President appeared to many citizens to be a holdup of Congress, and the nearness of the presidential election suggested that a political motive was not absent.The fact that in the ensuing presidential election, Ohio, the home of the Brotherhoods, swung from the Republican to the Democratic column, did not dispel this suspicion from the public mind.Throughout this maneuver it was apparent that the unions were very confident, but whether because of a prearranged pact, or because of a full treasury, or because of a feeling that the public was with them, or because of the opposite belief that the public feared them, must be left to individual conjecture.
None the less, the public realized that the principle of arbitration had given way to the principle of coercion.
Soon after the United States had entered the Great War, the Government, under authority of an act of Congress, took over the management of all the interstate railroads, and the nation was launched upon a vast experiment destined to test the capacities of all the parties concerned.The dispute over wages that had been temporarily quieted by the Adamson Law broke out afresh until settled by the famous Order No.27, issued by William G.
McAdoo, the Director General of Railroads, and providing a substantial readjustment of wages and hours.In the spring of 1919 another large wage increase was granted to the men by Director General Hines, who succeeded McAdoo.Meanwhile the Brotherhoods, through their counsel, laid before the congressional committee a plan for the government ownership and joint operation of the roads, known as the Plumb plan, and the American people are now face to face with an issue which will bring to a head the paramount question of the relation of employees on government works to the Government and to the general public.
