History of a Law

September 16, 1963

When Congress, in the last week of August, under the threat of a nationwide railway strike, passed a law imposing compulsory arbitration, and when the President, on the afternoon of Aug. 28, signed the bill with the threatened strike less than six hours away, a few oldsters may have recalled another ominous day 47 years ago—Sept. 2, 1916 when Congress, under the threat of such a strike, passed the Adamson Act (giving the rail unions a basic eight hour day, with pro rata for overtime), while the union leaders sat in the gallery holding their stop watches over the lawmakers.

After the passage of the present compulsory arbitration law (by 90 to 2 in the Senate and 286 to 66 in the House) grave misgivings were expressed by many liberals. Would the precedent spread? How could it be prevented from spreading? What is the future of collective bargaining? What will happen to the freedom of workers and of management?

But, on the other hand, many asked, was not compulsory arbitration the only alternative to an “unthinkable” nationwide railroad strike? Hadn’t everything else been tried? Hadn’t four and a half years of bargaining proved fruitless?

FOUR YEARS TO NOWHERE

The answer to the last question is clearly Yes. On Nov. 2, 1959, the railroads, charging that union feather-bedding rules were costing them $600 million a year, proposed work rules changes. They got nowhere with the unions. Under the Railway Labor Act of 1926, a Presidential Railroad Commission was set up. It studied the work rules for thirteen months, and presented its report on Feb. 28, 1962. The railroads accepted the proposed settlement. The unions flatly rejected it.

Then the National Mediation Board offered to arbitrate. The railroads accepted the offer, but the unions refused. On July 17, 1962, the carriers served notice under the Railway Labor Act that the commission’s recommendations would be put into effect in 30 days. The unions filed suit challenging the railroads’ action, and successively lost in the Federal district court, the appeals court, and the Supreme Court. On April 2, 1963, the railroads served notice that in six days they would make effective the work-rules changes that the Supreme Court had affirmed their right to do.

The next day President Kennedy named Emergency Board No. 154 to recommend a settlement. On May 13 the board brought in a report accepting the philosophy of the Presidential commission, but making further concessions to the unions. The railroads accepted the recommendations; the unions rejected them. Later they rejected suggestions made by Secretary of Labor Wirtz, though the carriers accepted them.

37-YEAR RECORD

The story goes much further back. The Railway Labor Act was passed in 1926, nine years even before the Wagner Act, to try to prevent nationwide railroad strikes by imposing procedures close to compulsory arbitration. But in order to prevent strikes from being called the Presidential boards have nearly always decided heavily in the unions’ favor—leading, among other things, to the present fantastic featherbedding rules. In November 1941, a Presidential board awarded the operating unions a wage increase of 7½ percent, and the non-operating unions an average increase of 13½ percent. The awards were rejected by both groups. Thereupon President Roosevelt reconvened the board and ordered it to try again because of (unspecified) “new evidence.” The board took the hint, and obligingly revised its awards upward by about 10 percent. The new awards were accepted.

On April 25, 1946, the engineers and trainmen turned down an award of a Presidential board for a wage increase of 16 cents an hour. On May 22, President Truman proposed that the 16 cents an hour be hiked to 18½ cents. The unions still demurred, and struck on May 23. President Truman had seized the roads on May 17. He asked Congress for temporary authority to induct strikers into the army, to take out anti-strike injunctions, and to cancel strikers’ seniority rights.

Isn’t it about time we re-examined the Railway Labor Act?