Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 76, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 April 1917 — EIGHT HOUR QUERY [ARTICLE]

EIGHT HOUR QUERY

WHAT RAILR OAD EMPLOYEES ACTUALLY OPERATE TRAINS? Official Interpretation Anxiously Awaited by Nearly 1,500,000 Employees — Eight-Hour Law Raises Puzzling Question. What persons employed by the railroads are actually engaged in the operation of trains? An official interpretation of this question is” anxiously awaited by nearly 1,500,000 railroad employees. But just who is the proper federal official to make this interpretation, no one seems to know at this time. Officials of the interstate commerce commission say they have no authority in the matter. The whole trouble is due to the passage of the eight-hour law. This law contains a provision which says that the eight-hour day shall apply to all persons “actually engaged in any capacity in the operation of trains used for the transportation of persons or property on railroads,” But it is very vague as to how to ascertain just what employees aye “actually engaged.” A. B. Garretson, chief of the conductors’ brotherhood, says that the new law applies to telegraphers and yard switchmen. That is his personal opinion of the matter. Some of the railroad officials here say they are not so sure that it applies to the telegra-

phers. A member of the interstate commission sized up the matter iu the following statement: “The whole question centers around an Interpretation of the words facto* ally engaged in any capacity in the operation of trains.’ Just who will make that interpretation I do not know. Fda unt believe the interstate commission has the power to do it. The whole trouble is due to the hasty preparation of the law. Some branch of the government should have been given power under the law and then there would have been no trouble. “According to the way I read the law, I do not believe the commission to be appointed by the president has the authority to interpret it. But some official of the government has got to decide who are actually engaged in the operation of trains, or else there will be more trouble between tiie railroads and their em- - . ■ The various classes of railroad employees and their numbers are as follows : Class of Employees— Number. General officers “’IS Other officers •••••• •••••• General office clerks * Station agents ••••■•• Other station men Conductors Other trainmen v' ‘S’iS Carpenters “Mg Other shopmen Section foremen •■••••• Other trackmen Switch tenders, crossing tenders and watchmen Ji.Bia Telegraph operators and dispatchEmployees—account floating . equip- . «TYAftt- . . . . .-i . All other employees and laborers.. 232.249 Total 1,710,296