Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-06-04 | Page 10 | Railway Shop Workmen Ask Higher Wages

RIB SHOP mm a n WEES Administration Asked Not to Effect New Scale Without Granting Upward Up-ward Revision. HINT THAT STRIKE MAY BE ALTERNATIVE Half Million Employees Represented in Request Made of Federal Authorities. WASHIXGTOK. June 3. Representatives Representa-tives of 500,000 railway shopmen today asked the railroad administration not to put into effect the new wage scale without with-out upward revision for their crafts, saying say-ing gTeat dissatisfaction would be created creat-ed and intimating that it might be impossible impos-sible to avoid many strikes. Appearing before the board of railway wages and working conditions at its first hearing, spokesmen for the six shop trades, declared they have found it difficult diffi-cult to work out a wage scale on the basis of the director general's order, and that extreme disappointment existed among all men who had read it- They urged speedy action to revise the scale in order to prevent employees from going to shipyards within the next week or two. The lure of the snipyards is so great, thlabor representatives said, that thousands thou-sands of railroad machinists, carmen and other shop employees for weeks have been nersuaded to stay with the railroads only with the greatest difficulty. They feared a general exodus of employees if the new wage order is put Into effect immediately. Men would find, they said, that increases were much less than had been expected. Demands Renewed. The shopmen renewed their demands a3 presented to the railroad wage commission commis-sion for a minimum of 75 cents an hour for machinists, blacksmiths, sheet metal . 0 workers, electricians, carmen with four years or more experience, and boiierraak-ers, boiierraak-ers, and a minimum of 56Vi cents for carmen car-men with less than four years' experience; expe-rience; an eight-hour standard day: six days' work a week, and time, and one-. one-. ( half for overtime. These demands repre sented an increase of about 40 per cent above existing wages. ; They toid the board that, with higher wages, longer vacations, exra pay for undesirable un-desirable work and many bonuses in shipyards ship-yards forced them to consider Director General McAdoo's wage order as "unjust, unfair and inequitable" as applied to them. The scale would wipe out all the wage reforms, particularly the elimination elimina-tion of differentials, effected since December, De-cember, 1915. Recommendations Presented. These recommendations were presented by J. F. Anderson, representing the International In-ternational Association of Machinists; G. C. Vandornes of the Brotherhood of Blacksmiths Black-smiths and HeiDers; Otto E. Hoard of the Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers; John .7. Purcell of the Brotherhood of Electrical j Workers; J. S. Wilds of the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen, and B. M. Jewell of , the Brotherhood of Boilermakers and Iron : Shipbuilders and Helpers. The hearing will be resumed tomorrow. G. H. Sine, chairman of the boa.rd, ex- , plained that Director General McAdoo is anxious "to see justice done to all rail- ; road men" and ur?ed patience on the part of a'l employee?. Other representatives of railroad labor will be heard later.