Railway strike

“ As Labour proposes on the first opportunity to nationalize the railways, the relationship between the men and the companies is important. Under an Agreement of November 6, 1907, Conciliation Boards consisting of representatives of the companies and the men engaged in the manipulation of traffic had been appointed to deal with questions of hours and wages and working conditions. A railway strike occurred in 1911, and it was stated that one of the reasons for the strike was the dissatisfaction of the railway men with the working of the Railway Conciliation Scheme. ”

“ One blow below the belt the Government did strike in arbitrarily commanding the withholding from the strikers of a whole week’s pay which they had earned by their service prior to the stoppage, and which it was the custom of the companies always to keep in hand for a week by way of security against theft or embezzlement. This had never been done in any previous railway strike. ”

“ A railway strike is always a serious matter, and in a short time the Government came to the active support of the railroads. At one time over fourteen thousand soldiers, deputy marshals, deputy sheriffs, and policemen were on duty in Chicago. During the period of the strike twelve persons were shot and fatally wounded. A number of riots occurred, cars were burned, and, as a result of the disturbances, no less than seven hundred persons were arrested, accused of murder, arson, burglary, assault, intimidation, riot, and other crimes. ”

“ They agree to return to work in a body at once, provided they shall be restored to their former positions without prejudice, except in cases, if any there be, where they have been convicted of crime. This proposition looking to an immediate settlement of the existing strike on all lines of railway is inspired by a purpose to subserve public good. ”

“ The English Strike London, August 28.
There was a great strike of railway men in England last week, the news of which was sent over the world. As a subject of conversation and discussion it has taken the place of ordinary sights and tourist stunts. A very large per cent of the railway employés went out, there was rioting in several places, the soldiers were called upon, there was almost war in spots, and several people, innocent by-standers usually, were killed. ”

“ Threats of a general railway strike caused much alarm, and led the Government to intervene. The negotiations carried on at the Board of Trade were based mainly on the possibility of arranging some system of conciliation by means of which further disputes would be avoided ”

“ On the side of labor, it is the cherished right to strike.' Whether the source of this right be found in a particular provision of the Railway Labor Act [20] or in the scheme as a whole, it is integral to the Act. State courts may not enjoin a peaceful strike b covered railway employees, no matter how economically harmful the consequences may be. ”

“ Provided that the blow be sufficiently swift and powerful, there is no reason why within a few hours, or at most days from the commencement of hostilities, the nerve system of the country [41] inferior in air power should not be paralysed.
A modern state is such a complex and interdependent fabric that it offers a target highly sensitive to a sudden and overwhelming blow from the air. We all know how great an upset in the daily life of the country is caused at the outset of a railway strike even. ”

“ Severe fighting between the Armenians and the Mussulmans continues in the Caucasus region; leading officials and merchants are assassinated at Batoum, and revolutionary manifestoes in favor of a republic are circulated broadcast.
The Countess of Warwick begins an automobile tour of Great Britain for the purpose of assisting the various labor candidates for Parliament.
A general railway strike begins in Italy, the workmen being dissatisfied with the treatment proposed to be given them under the bill creating State management of railways. ”

“ Debs: "We did believe it, or the American Railway Union would never have been organized. We see now that it cannot because all the organized forces of society and of the government are arrayed against it. When a strike inconveniences no one, no one is particularly interested in it and it gradually dwindles down to the little end of nothing. But when a strike does inconvenience the public, as railroad strikes must of necessity do, the organized forces of society and the government, a practically impregnable force, and properly so, is arrayed against it. ”

“ Hosts of Pennsylvania miners went out along with the railroad men. The railway strike itself was largely sympathetic, the ten per cent. reduction in wages assigned as its cause applying to comparatively few. The next decade witnessed continual troubles of this sort, though rarely if in any case so serious, between wage-workers and their employers in nearly all industries. The worst ones befell the manufacturing portions of the country. Strikes and lock-outs were part of the news almost every day. ”

“ You will speedily discover that the strike of a few of our railway employés is simply being used by the mob violence, which some of your people are permitting or encouraging, to effect other purposes, which, if successful, will destroy many of your leading local interests. The strike on our road at Pittsburgh was inaugurated without any notice to or conference with the officers of our company as to the existence of a grievance. ”

“ Let the officials deal with the employes without reference to organizations. Let the spirit of conciliation, mutual concession, and compromise animate and govern both sides, and there will be no trouble in reaching a settlement that will be satisfactory to all concerned.
"This done let the railway companies agree to restore all their employes to their situations without prejudice and the trouble will be ended. The crisis will thus be averted, traffic will resume and peace will reign. The railways are not required to recognize the American Railway Union. ”

“ The man who keeps on doing what a court of equity has forbidden him to do does commit one.
A conspicuous instance of the efficacy of an injunction was furnished by the great Chicago railroad strike and boycott of 1894, initiated by the American Railway Union. Mob violence followed. More than a thousand freight cars were burned. Trains were derailed, passengers fired at, and lives lost. ”

“ So, when a railroad strike prevents thousands of travellers not owning any railway stock, not having any part or influence in railway management, from reaching their destination, the strikers may be absolute scoundrels in their disregard of the rights of their fellow-men;{319} nevertheless it is entirely true that their own wages may have been ground down to starvation basis, and consequently the men have a right to complain. ”

“ Such interference would be compounded if the disputants were-as they frequently would be subjected to various and divergent state laws. Railway (and airline [16] ) labor disputes typically present problems of national magnitude. A strike in one State often paralyzes transportation in an entire section of the United States, and transportation labor disputes frequently result in simultaneous work stoppages in many States.
The Railway Labor Act's entire scheme for the resolution of major disputes would become meaningless if the States could prohibit the parties from engaging in any self-help. ”

“ Messages from various provincial centres showed that more than 335,000 workers other than railwaymen had been thrown out of employment by the strike.
Mr. Lloyd George, who had begun by calling the men conspirators and anarchists, ended by calling them into his drawing-room. The strike turned all England into a nine days' wonder. While the unions remained solid to a man, and the railway stations were closed and guarded, the roads witnessed a return to something like stage coach conditions, but with motors instead of horses. ”

“ But it would also have to try and keep the railroads running, and for that it would be necessary to not only man the railway stations with soldiers, not only to make drivers, firemen, guards, and signalmen of soldiers, but also to protect every train with the proper amount of soldiers ”

“ In April, 1904, occurred a General Strike of the railway employees of Hungary, which surprised the world through its unexpected outbreak. Without any organisation whatever 50,000 employees quitted work at the same time. At 12 o'clock midnight prompt all trains stopped on the road, and all station masters, of whom a large number were officers of the reserve troops, took part like a man. ”

“ Like all other large employers of labor, street railway companies are not immune from having their employes go out on strike. When street railway employees, or those of other transportation companies are organized, a strike is liable to be called at any time, and often upon the least provocation. It is highly important that managements have advance information of any proposed strike, and of any grievances of any employees, whether well founded or not. ”

“ There is great waste of material from the destructive violence of infuriated mobs. In 1877, the great railway strikes of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and the Pennsylvania and Erie Systems, resulted in the destruction of sixteen hundred cars, one hundred and twenty-six locomotives, and five million dollars worth of property. A report made in 1895 by the United States Commissioner of Labor (covering a period of twelve years and six months, that is, from January 1, 1881, to June 30, 1894) on strikes in the United States, gives the following suggestive statistics. ”

“ The railway does not carry merely soldiers, ammunition and other war material against which it may be allowable to use violent measures; it also conveys a great number of wounded, doctors, hospital attendants, and other perfectly harmless persons. Is a peasant or franc-tireur to be allowed to endanger hundreds of those lives by removing a rail or laying a stone upon the line? Let the French see that the security of the railway trains is no longer threatened and the journeys made by those hostages will be merely outings, or our people may even be able to forgo such precautionary measures. ”

“ In order to disrupt the movement on railways and disrupt regular traffic behind enemy lines, arrange railway accidents by all means: undermine railway bridges, blow up or burn station facilities, and blow up, burn and shoot locomotives, wagons, and tanks at stations and siding. ”

“ When the employés—brakemen, trainmen, conductors, and engineers will agree not to run a railroad in this country, that is the end of traffic, and they can starve out whole communities. They discovered that fact, and then it was on Saturday evening, that labor sympathizing with those people, they partook of the strike, and helped to burn cars and carry on the work of destruction. ”

“ The railroaders there are organized in one great industrial union, one card, taking into membership the stenographers, train dispatchers, freight handlers, train crews and section crews. Everyone who works on the railroad is a member of the organization; not like it is in this country, split up into as many divisions as they can possibly get them into. There they are all one. There was a great general strike. It resulted in the country taking over the railroads. But the government made the mistake of placing politicians in control, giving politicians the management of the railroads. ”

“ For these reasons, among others, troop movements by rail at the theatre of war, and especially in the enemy's country, are attended by a degree of risk which may render it desirable to abandon the use of the railway for the time being.
Railways are especially liable to destruction by the enemy, and, although the arrangements made in advance may permit of speedy repairs or reconstruction, the interruption of traffic for even a day or half a day may be a matter of grave importance during the concentration of the army or at some critical moment. ”

“ They have rendered possible the carrying off of plunder from an occupied territory to an extent which would be impossible if the invaders had to depend on ordinary road vehicles for their means of transport.
They have brought fresh risks and dangers upon civil populations, the maintenance of lines of rail communication being a matter of such paramount importance to an invader that the severest measures may be adopted by him towards the community in general as a means of terrorising them and ensuring the security of the railway lines. ”

“ Shifter was allowed to run, and they would move the cars away. I may say, just here, that on inquiry, many men who were connected with the railroad shops here, men that I knew, that always said they had orders that there was a general strike pending, and they were to stop any local or freight trains, and that other trains with the mails, were to go on, and that they had no disposition to give any trouble, and frequently I was appealed to, that we should use our influence to keep the military away; that if the troops were brought on there would be violence. ”

“ But no doubt there will be trouble in getting the trains through; it is impossible to guard such an enormous length of line. The utmost that can be done will be to have detachments posted at all the bridges whose destruction would cause serious delay. We can hardly doubt that rails will be pulled up and culverts destroyed, for this can be done by two or three men working at night. But of course each train going up will carry a few rails and a couple of balks of timber, tools, and three or four railway men, and the repairs can be executed with only a very short delay. ”