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Show MUHD WORKERS v KICK AT NEW SCALE Employees of Southern Railway Rail-way Strike; Machinists Planning Walkouts. WASHINGTON, May 28. Scores of protests reached the railroad administration adminis-tration headquarters today against small wape increases granted by Director General Gen-eral McAdoo's recent order. Word came from Alexandria, Va., that between 3U0 and 400 shop employees of the Southern railway had quit work for the day to emphasize em-phasize their dissatisfaction over the new scale. Notice of the demonstration at Alex-andrla Alex-andrla was greeted at the railroad administration ad-ministration with the comment that all protests and suggestions for modification of the wage order should be . presented 1'ormally to the director general for consideration con-sideration by the board of railroad wages and working conditions, which will meet here within a week to take up just such cases. Officials said strikes will avail nothing at this time except to hinder railroads and cause public ill feeling toward to-ward the strikers. Keports came that other union prgani-Jffons, prgani-Jffons, particularly machinists,, were planning walkouts. It has been conceded by some officials offi-cials that higher wages than those allowed al-lowed by the director general's order might have to be paid shipmen, including includ-ing machinists, sheet metal workers, blacksrqiths, electricians, boiler makers and car men, owing to the high scale of wages in shipyards and other industries employing large numbers of these workmen. work-men. The new wage order established a minimum of 55 cents an hour for "machinists, "ma-chinists, blacksmiths, boilermakers and other shop mechanics who have been receiving re-ceiving the same hourly rate." Confusion Confu-sion has been created over the interpretation interpre-tation of this provision, since the hourly rate varied greatly in different shops and parts of the country. Another class of employees who may have to be paid more are the maintenance mainte-nance of way laborers, who are being lured with higher pay to other work. For this reason, the new board of railway wages will be instructed to make all possible pos-sible haste to consider wage adjustments. |