This was particularly true in the case of the shop-craft men. They seem to have been the real offenders in the situation. With the position of the men in the train service, the members of the brotherhoods, I can have little else than great sympathy. Their plight at this moment is deplorable. At the best, they catch the hard end of railroading, the long, unconscionable hours, the stress of bad weather, the nights away from home, all the other difficult conditions of life upon the road. I do not believe that there have been many times when these men have been seriously overpaid. The score is far more apt to lie upon the other side of the table.
True it is that even in these branches of railroad service the unreasoning form of national agreement has crept in. I can remember not so many years ago up in northern New York when if a switch-crew was sent down to one of the paper-mills to get a box-car it was paid two hours' pay for two hours' work. That was fair pay--and it was not. A switch-crew even in dull times could hardly exist on the prospect of getting no more than two hours' pay out of twenty-four. Gradually the pay for such a job--any job at all--was set at a minimum of half a day. That seemed fair. A little later this minimum, no matter how small the job, was set at a full day's pay. Even that might have been fair were it never abused. Let me illustrate.
Here is a yard-crew kicking around in Watertown yard. The first thing that happens in a brisk day is that an engine derails somewhere south of the junction. It is not a serious mishap, and the yard-crew, acting as a wrecker, cleans it up in ninety minutes or thereabouts and gets a full day's pay. An hour later that same crew has to take a box-car two miles down the Cape Branch to a paper-mill, another ninety minutes perhaps, and another full day's pay for every man Jack of the crew. They sit around for three hours in the yardmaster's cabin and settle all the affairs of the New York Central railroad. In two or three more hours a careless switcher sends two flat-cars off the end of the siding up at Sewall's Island. Our little crew is again a wrecker. It goes up to the Island, puts the derailed cars on the track again,--another ninety minutes of actual work,--and draws a third full day's pay. Three days' pay in eight or nine hours is not bad. I should like to be able myself to turn the trick.