People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1893 — MUST NOT QUIT. [ARTICLE]

MUST NOT QUIT.

-'•"“vtliem Pacific Employes Enjoined from Stopping Work. Milwaukee, Dec. 25.—A conflict is on between the receivers of the Northern Pacific railroad and its employes, including all the engineers, conductors, firemen, trainmen and switchmen and so on. The new schedule of wages adopted by the receivers, which implies a cut of 5 to 10 per cent in tbe employes’ pay, was rejected by the employes' representatives at a conference held in St Paul with General Manager Kendrick Monday, and the prospects are that on January 1, when the new seedule is to go into effect, 3,500 men employed all along the road will quit work. T]he outcome of the controversy was foreseen by the receivers, for as early as December 19 they applied for and obtained from Judge Jenkins, of the United States court of this city, an order authorizing and directing them to put into operation the new schedule of wages and restraining the employes and their unions from “combining and conspiring to quit, with or without notice, the service of the road, with the object of crippling or embarrassing its operation, and generally frow interfering with the officers and agents of the receivers or their employes in any manner by actual violence, intimidation, threats or otherwise.” The injunction was held back until Tuesday, the receivers having expected to arrive at an amicable agreement. When they found such an agreement impossible they telegraphed to their agents and attorneys all along the line \o have the injunction served by the U Sited States marshals on the proper mei\ind to make the injunction generally known. The order of the court restraining the Northern Pacific employes from “combining and conspiring to quit the service of the road” is an extraordinary document It is the first order of its kind, it is said, ever issued in the United States. A somewhat similar injunction was issued by a United States court in Michigan during the strike of the Toledo & Ann Arbor employes, but that injunction was issued after the strike was in progress. The grounds for the issuance of the present injunction are set forth in a long petition of the receivers, which was filed December 18. It appears from the petition that two days after their appointment (Aug. 17) the receivers, finding the road in a deplorable condition, ordered a reduction of salaries varying from 10 to 20 per cent, of all officials and employes whose pay per annum exceeded $1,200. That reduction went into effect at once and was cheerfully accepted. About a week afterward (August 25) the receivers ordered a reduction of 5 per cent on all wages running from SSO to $75 per month, and of 10 per cent, on wages averaging from $75 to SIOO per month. This order of the receivers did not go into effect at once. They concluded to investigate and revise the entire system of wages and the different schedules of pay, the task being imposed on the general manager. At a meeting of the receivers on October 28 resolutions were adopted abrogating the old schedules of pay, directing the general manager to prepare a new schedule for the engineers, trainmen and telegraphers and ordering a reduction of the wages of the other men as provided for August 25. The petition says that in the old schedules the employes were paid for services nob performed. In enumerating those who are enjoined from striking or ordering strikes the petition of the receivers mentions the names of thirty-two mer who have been the conference committee with the receivers, and asks that they be enjoined from ordering a strike, which the court grants. The petitioners say that the employes cannot carry on a strike without the pecuniary assistance of the different national organizations to which they belong. They therefore pray that these organizations, through their chief officers, such as P. M. Arthur, E. C. Clark, E. P. Sargent, D. G. Ramsey, S. E. Wilkinson and others, he enjoined from ordering and sanctioning the strike. The court grants this and these men are included in the injunction.