The Watson-Parker law, the latest scheme to hamstring railroad unionism.

AUSTIN -OINV1H-.

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OF
THE CNIVEV^

The
Watson-Parker Law

The Latest Scheme to Hamstring
Railroad Unionism

By Wm. Z. Foster
Price 15 Cents *

Published by

THE TRADE UNION EDUCATIONAL LEAGUE

156 W. Washington St., Chicago, III.

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TFXAS AT h\**£z2££2ESLmmm

Chapter 1. [

THE DECLINE OF RAILROAD TRADE UNIONISM
TN May 1926, the Watson-Parker ralroad bill became a
1 law with the full support of the big railroad magnates
andlne^Slroad trade "ion leaders. This law, claimed
Is a ^eat victory for labor, in reality registers a long
ttPn b^ckwlrd for railroad trade unionism. It supports
^"es many of the most dangers obs ac es
«nd tendencies blocking the development of effective
^LZ f K SSltaes and stimulates company unionism;
Tvirtualy fastens compulsory arbitration upon the
necks of railroad workers; it outlaws strikes; it intro-
duces the poisonous idea of the industrial court into the
raUroad Wastry; it intensiftes the tendency owards
Sass collaboration, which is degenerating the trade
unions into mere instruments to help the employers
make more profits and keep their workers docile The
Watson-Parker Law is a blow at the vital* of the rail-

"^TWs^aw mai-ks the latest phase of the disastrous
retreat which the railroad unions have been making
since 1920-21. In order to understand the nature of this
retreat the extent of it, and the causes that have brought

t aoont it becomes necessary for us to trace the ^
of railroad trade unionism for the past decade. Then
we will know what to do to remedy the situation:
l._A Period of Growth and Development
From the beginning of the world war in 1914 until

about 1920-21 there was a period of very rapid advance-

2

ment for railroad trade unionism. This advance took
place on every front. Ideologically and organizationally
the railroad unions grew very much stronger. They be-
came the healthiest and best section of the entire move-
ment. They held out splendid promise for the future.

Numerically, in these years, the unions forged ahead
swiftly. Before the war a dozen of the 16 craft unions
were mere skeletons. Only the four Brotherhoods had
a real organization. But during the war, especially after
the issuance of McAdoo's famous "Order No. 8", which
conceded the railroad workers the right to organize, all
the unions grew very rapidly. By the end of the war
they included in their ranks the vast majority of the
1,800,000 railroad workers. This drawing in of. at least
1,000,000 workers into the previously semi-moribund
unions had a profound effect in strengthening their
general fighting spirit.

In consolidating their ranks, which is of fundamental
importance, the railroad unions made real progress dur-
ing the period in question. For a number of years prior
to this time the unions had been slowly awakening to
the fact that their policy of isolation from each other,
of separate craft action, was futile. They began to learn
the necessity of joint action and organization by all
classifications of railroad workers.

2. — The Federation Movement

This manifested itself by a gradual growth of system
and national federations between various groups of the
unions. But during the war and for a short time after-
ward this movement towards solidarity of organization
and action took on tremendous force and significance.
A veritable network of federations sprang up, local, sys-
tem, divisional, national. Wage movements assumed an
ever-wider scope, until finally, in 1920, the unions all
united in one general federated movement, representing
every category of the 1,800,000 workers in the industry,
demanding better conditions. This resulted in the estab-

3

lishnient of a general national agreement covering all
railroad workers.

This entire movement towards a growing solidarity
(a detailed history of which can he found in the pam-
phlet, "The Railroaders' Next Step— Amalgamation",
published by the Trade Union Educational League) indi-
cated clearly that the great army of railroad workers
were travelling rapidly in the direction of welding all
their scattered trade union units into one mighty indus-
trial union*

3. — The Plumb Plan

Politically, the railroad unions also made unprece-
dented progress during these years. The masses of
workers, heading towards their first real break with
capitalism, wholeheartedly and enthusiastically endorsed
the Plumb Plan for the nationalization of the railroads.
So strong was the sentiment that even the strongest and
most reactionary of the railroad union leaders dared not
oppose it. The railroad workers backed up their endorse-
ment of the Plumb Plan by establishing a defiinite politi-
cal organization, the Plumb Plan League. Later this de-
veloped into the Conference for Progressive Political Ac-
tion.

This organization, the C. P. P. A., had the active sup-
port of fully 2,500,000 organized workers and farmers.
Saturated with labor party sentiment (which was be-
trayed by the leaders) and with revolt against the two
capitalist parties, the C. P. P. A. constituted the greatest
mass effort ever made by the workers in this country
for independent political action. The railroad workers
were the heart and soul of the whole movement.

In this era of flourishing growth, -organizationally,
politically and otherwise, the railroad unions became the
progressive wing of the whole trade union movement.
They enlivened and invigorated its entire structure. They
menaced the control and policies of the reactionary A.
F. of L. machine. At the 1920 convention of the A. P.

of L. the bloc of railroad unions gave Gompers the great-
est defeat of his career when, in spite of his desperate
opposition, they forced the endorsement of the Plumb
Plan. The railroad unions were infusing the whole labor
movement with a new spirit of progress.

4. — Defeat, Retreat, Surrender

Beginning in the latter part of 1920, the railroad
unions began to abandon all this promising progressiv-
ism. They started to wilt, to retreat in the face of the
companies' bitter attacks. And this retreat has gone on
uninterruptedly ever since, and with increasing tempo.
The retreat is on every front. The infamous Watson-
Parker Law is its latest and most disastrous manifesta-
tion. No longer can the erstwhile flourishing railroad
unions make even the slightest claim to militancy or pro-
gressivism. They are at the tail end of the backward
trade union movement.

The offensive of the companies began almost imme-
diately after the war ended. The first vital phases of
it were the return of the railroads from government to
private control and the establishment of the unlamented
Railroad Labor Board. This board, controlled from its
birth till its death by the railroad companies, immedi-
ately began to slash into the railroad workers' organiza-
tions and standards of living.

It abolished the national agreements, cut wages re-
peatedly, permitted the re-establishment of piece-work,
sanctioned the formation of company unions, abetted the
farming out of work from the union railroad shops to
the non-union contract shops. It worked ceaselessly in
furthering the companies' plans to break up the railroad
unions and to degrade the workers to their pre-war state
of slavery.

For the wonkers, this terrific attack constituted a
great crisis. Manifestly the fate of the unions was at
stake. Bold and courageous leadership and policies were
a life and death necessity. Correctly analyzing the situ-

ation, the Trade Union Educational League demanded
the closing up of the workers' ranks and the launching
of a great counter-attack by the entire body of railroad
workers against the companies. It summed up the situ-
ation in the historic slogan "Amalgamation or Annihi-
lation". The International Committee for Amalgama-
tion in the Railroad Industry carried on a wide agitation
in this sense.

But the reactionary railroad union leaders catego-
rically rejected this militant program, though the great
rank and file was for it. Instead, these timid leaders be-
-an a disorderly retreat before the attacks of the em-
ployers betraying the workers retail and wholesale in
their precipitating flight. In place of tightening up the
federations and unifying the workers' ranks, the leaders
weakened or broke up the federations. The four Broth-
erhoods turned tail on the rest of the unions, hoping to
save something for themselves by this treachery. > And
the more the workers weakened and retreated from the
companies' blows, the harder the latter rained these
blows upon them.

The situation came to a crash in July, 1922. The
seven shop unions, harrassed and attacked on all sides
and being gradually pulled to pieces by the employers
and the Railroad Labor Board, launched into a desperate
national general strike. This strike of 400,000 workers
was one of the stoutest blows for freedom ever struck
by the workers of this country. Its marvellous solidarity
surprised everyone and inspired the masses of railroad
workers in the nine unions not directly involved in the
strike. A flame of revolt blazed amongst the latter. They
were ready to try conclusions with the companies by a
great general strike. The T. U. E. L. called for a general
strike of all railroad workers. This would have brought
the companies to their knees in a few days and would
have resulted in a great victory.

5. — The Betrayal of the Shopmen's Strike

But the reactionary trade union leaders, intent only
on their runaway policy, would have none of the general
strike. They prevented, by duplicity and force, the unit-
ed action of the workers. They kept unions at work
which voted 95 per cent to strike. They betrayed the
whole body of railroad workers, shamelesslesly, disas-
trously, by keeping nine unions at work helping the com-
panies to break the strike. So long as history records
the great shopmen's strike, that long the craven treach-
ery of Lee, Fitzgerald, and the other leaders will be hated
by every progressive worker.

Result: Several months of bitter struggle by the
shopmen and then overwhelming defeat. This unprece-
dented defeat broke the backbone of railroad trade
unionism. The shop unions were wrecked; they now pos-
sess only a fourth of their former membership and a
mere fragment of their former power.

The Railway Clerks and the Maintenance of Way
workers, who were openly sold out by their leaders after
voting solidly for a strike, were demoralized and almost
destroyed. The Brotherhoods were also greatly weaken-
ed. Altogether, fully 700,000 members were lost by the
strike. The fighting morale of the unions was shattered.
Company unionism spread throughout the railroad sys-
tems, on the wreckage of the unions, like a malignant
cancer. The shopmen's strike of 1922, betrayed by
the leaders, resulted in the biggest and most disastrous
defeat ever suffered by the American labor movement.

In the face of this disaster the Trade Union Educa-
tional League again demanded the amalgamation of the
workers' forces and the development of an offensive all
along the line against the companies. It demanded the
launching of a great campaign to organize the unorgan-
ized. The masses of workers rallied overwhelmingly to
these slogans, but the reactionary leaders turned a deaf
ear to them. Their response was to slander and terror-

.MTIVilAI «u*»'

ize the left wing militants, to block by any means the de-
mand for amalgamation, and to redouble their retreat
before the advancing and victorious railroad companies.

Instead of amalgamating the unions, the leaders split
them up still more. The Brotherhoods pulled further
away from the shopmen and they dissolved the alliance
that had previously existed among themselves. The B.
of L. E. brdke with the B. of L. F. & E., and the shop
unions weakened the bonds with each other.

Thus, the whole structure of railroad federation,
which but two years before seemed to be leading rapidly
to the creation of one all-inclusive railroad union, col-
lapsed. And instead of adopting a militant policy and
thus regaining the lost ground, the railroad union lead-
ers surrendered still more to the employers. They plung-
ed deeper and deeper into the swamp of class collabora-
tion.

Chapter II.
CLASS COLLABORATION

rpHE expression "class collaboration" is one with which
railroad workers must become familiar. They should
learn its full sinister meaning. It expresses the present
growing tendency of the railroad trade union leaders to
cease fighting against the railroad companies and to sub-
ordinate the interests of the workers to those of the
employers.

Earl R. Browder, in his pamphlet, "Class Struggle
versus Class Collaboration," puts the question correctly:
"Are the unions to be developed into fighting or-
ganizations and to 'protect the workers against capi-
talist exploitation, or are they to become an integral
part of the capitalist system and thus assist the pro-
cess of exploitation in the vain hope of transform-
ing the greedy capitalists into kindly benefactors by
soft words? Are the unions to be organs of class
gfcrtiggle or of class collaboration?"

The Trade Union Educational League and the mili-
tant wing of the labor movement generally advocate the
policy of the class struggle. This is based on the fun-
damental clash of interest between the workers and the
railroad companies. If the workers get a larger share
of what they produce the employers will get less profits,
and vice versa.

The stronger the workers are organized industrially
and (politically the more they are able to limit capitalist
exploitation, to force better terms for themselves in in-
dustry in the questions of wages, hours, and working
conditions. Hence, the urgent necessity of building the
railroad trade unions into real fighting bodies by amal-
gamating them all into one great union, by organizing
the great masses of unorganized, by forming a labor
party, and by the establishment of a militant leadership
and policy.

A False Premise

But the present railroad trade union leaders will have
nothing of all this. They are ardent advocates of class
collaboration. They start from the false premise that
"the interests of Capital and Laibor are identical". They
accept capitalism as a permanent state of society. They
believe that strikes and lockouts are merely misunder-
standings between the two brothers, Capital and Labor,
who should love each other even if they do not. Their
policy is to eliminate these "quarrels" by "collaborating"
with the employers in every field; political, industrial, etc.

They seek to wheedle a few concessions from the
employers by meekly subordinating and surrendering the
workers to the companies, through giving them over to
the Republican and Democratic Parties, speeding them
in industry, filling their heads with capitalist economics
and patriotism, and through making them accept such
general conditions as the employers decide to enforce.
In this conception there is no place for real fighting
unions, fighting leaders, or fighting policies.

The slogans of the reactionary labor leaders are iden-
tical with those of the employers: conciliation, arbitra-
tion, collaboration. Hence, their bitter resistance to all
attempts to build the unions into real fighting organiza-
tions and to bring them into conflict with the employers.

Class collaboration is not an entirely new thing in
railroad trade unionism. Far from it; the unions have
always been afflicted with a certain degree of it, to the
consequent sacrifice of the workers' interests. But in
earlier years the unions also had considerable militancy,
as many bitter strikes testify. Since the end of the shop-
men's strike, however, this remnant of militancy has fad-
ed. The leadership, in its policy of hasty retreat, has
turned overwhelmingly to class collaboration, of which
many new forms have developed in the realms of politics,
finance, and industry.

2. — Class Collaboration in politics

In politics the retreat of the railroad trade union lead-
ers into the mire of intensified class collaboration has
been rapid and far-reaching since the beginning of the
employers' offensive and especially since the loss of the
shopmen's strike. They have completely abandoned and
repudiated the 'Plumb Plan for nationalizing the rail-
roads. In fact, this plan, which aroused the greatest en-
thusiasm among railroad men just a few years ago, is
now almost forgotten. The leaders have again recog-
nized the right of private individuals to own the greatest
and most vital of all public services, the railroads.

The Conference for Progressive Political Action has
been dissolved and the railroad leaders have again open-
ly and shamelessly avowed their allegiance to the two
old capitalist parties. They become more than ever the
militant champions of capitalist politics in the unions.
Wherever the workers display a determination to split
with the old parties and to form a labor party, these
worthies are always on hand to demoralize and break
up the movement and to keep the workers chained polit-

10

ically to the employers' parties. Their class collabora-
tion, "non-partisan" policy of "rewarding Labor's
friends' 5 reduces the workers to political zeros and sur-
renders the government and all its machinery, national,
state, and local, to the employing class.

More and more in their growing servility the railroad
union leaders are becoming the tools of American impe-
rialism. Except for a negligible few of them, their for-
eign policy is almost identical with that of the employers.
They oppose wildly the recognition of the Union of So-
cialist Soviet Republics. Through the Pan-American
Federation of Labor they are playing the game of the
American exploiters in Latin-America.

They are now maneuvering to enter the Amsterdam
trade union international in order to further the plans
of American imperialism in Europe. They follow our
capitalists' policy in China. The employers, in their ruth-
less scheme of world domination, could hardly hope for
more devoted supporters than the leaders of the trade
unions.

3. — Class Collaboration in Finance

In the field of finance the reactionaries have also wide-
ly extended and developed their policy of class collabo-
ration. Their plan is to amass the workers' savings and
to set up a series of big financial institutions which will
enable them to enter into close and profitable relations
with the employers. Thus they have created a whole
network of labor banks, labor investment corporations,
trade union life insurance companies, building societies,
etc. At present there are in existence 37 labor banks
(and many more in prospect) with $120,000,000 re-
sources, 11 labor investment corporations with $34,000,-
000, and the unions have heavy interests in at least
$100,000,000 more of investments.

These financial institutions are in no sense co-opera-
tives. They are firmly in the grip of the little cliques of
reactionaries who dominate the unions. The rank and

11

file has nothing whatever to say in the matter. The
whole system constitutes a veritable trade union capital-
ism. And the leaders, who are exploiting these rich
pickings for their own advantage, are fast becoming real
capitalists.

Effects of Trade Union Capitalism

Trade union capitalism is harmful to the unions for
many reasons. It degenerates the unions from fighting
organizations into business institutions. It links them
up directly with labor crushing "open shop" employers,
who often sit on the boards of directors of labor banks.
Trade union capitalism cultivates the illusion among the
workers that they can ihuy their way out of capitalism.
At the El Paso convention of the A. P. of L. in 1924 an
enthusiast for labor banking declared, "Labor banking
offers a peaceful way to the revolution. All talk of strug-
gle and organization is superfluous/'

Warren Stone declared his ambition was to give the
workers the coupon-clipping habit, to turn them into
capitalists via labor banking. Trade union capitalism
strengthens the reactionary bureaucrats' grip upon the
unions. It gives them control over vast sums of money,
and it creates a huge new bureaucracy of office holders,
which they can and do use to dominate their trade union
elections. They become financially and otherwise inde-
pendent of the ranik and file.

Trade union capitalism is also a source of corruption
— see the failures of the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh
banks. Throughout the labor movement the railroad
leaders are the backbone of this poisonous class colla-
boration growth, trade union capitalism.

Trade union capitalism began its rapid growth right
after the shipment strike in 1922. It is an integral part
of the general retreat policy of the conservative leaders.
As soon as it began to spread the T. U. E, L. warned
the workers against its inevitable baneful effects. Na-
turally the bureaucrats did not heed this warning, nor

12

did the masses understand the menace. But, finally, even
the ultra-reactionary A. F. of L, 1926 convention, as a
result of the generally demoralizing effects of trade
union capitalism, was compelled to speak a word of cau-
tion against it, saying:

"The development of labor banking has given rise
to other labor ventures in the investment, building
and security field. We are prompted also to sound
a note of warning against this increas^g tendency
to divert the attention of the trade unions from the
more primary need of trade union organization and
trade union functioning."

4. — Class Collaboration in Industry

The most immediately menacing form of class col-
laboration in industry is the so-called Baltimore and
Ohio Plan, so named because it was first applied on the
B. & O. railroad. This insidious policy was originated by
O. S. Beyers, Jr., an efficiency engineer, who won over
to it Wm. H. Johnston, President of the International
Association of Machinists. Like the other new forms of
class collaboration, the B. & O. Plan entered upon its
greatest period of development just after the conclusion
of the disastrous national strike of railroad shopmen.

The B. & O. Plan is a scheme whereby the unions
"co-operate" with the companies to speed up and cheap-
en production. By its very nature the plan necessitates
the abandonment of all real struggle against the com-
panies. Under it the workers and the employers become
"friends". The unions change their aim from winning
concessions of the bosses to working with them to in-
crease production; they degenerate into part of the em-
ployers' productive machinery.

When the workers drop their fight against the em-
ployers, naturally the latter, with a free hand, soon wipe
out the concessions that the workers have won by long
years of hard struggle. The unions cease being fighting
organizations, and the militancy of the workers is low-

13

ered. B. & 0. Plan unionism, being based upon the-prin-
ciples of increasing industrial efficiency and of killing the
militancy of the workers, is a blood relation to company
unionism.

Results of B. & 0. Plan Unionism

In return for increasing the employers' profits
through the B. & O. Plan the workers are supposed to
receive higher wages and steadier employment. But it
has not worked out so in practice. For the workers it
has been only another and more deadly speed-up system.
The B. & O. Plan has proved a very poor substitute in-
deed for a fighting, well-organized unionism. Hence the
workers are cold to it and vote against it wherever they
are given a chance in their unions.

But the employers and the conservative trade union
leaders are its warm partisans; the employers because
it means more profits and more docile workers for them,
and the union leaders because it enables them, with their
non-fighting policy, to hang on to a rag of an organiza-
tion, enough to pay them their fat salaries and to fur-
nish them funds for their labor banks and other trade
union capitalistic institutions.

The B. & O. Plan is spreading like a cancer. Start-
ing on the B. & O. railroad, it was soon introduced on
the C. & O., C. & N. W., Canadian National Railways and
various other important railway systems. It is now be-
ing established, in spite of the rank and file's protest, on
the C, M, & St. P. It is also being introduced into con-
tract shops by the I. A. of M. Already the B. & 0. Plan
stretches far beyond the confines of the railroad indus-
try. The whole labor movement is becoming permeated
with it in one form or another. Recent conventions of
the A. F. of L. have supported it in the shape of direct
endorsements and by the adoption of the so-called "new
wage policy", the "Monroe Doctrine of Labor", and other
similar schemes.

14

An International, Menace

The B. & 0. Plan has even spread internationally. It
menaces now the whole world organization of the work-
ers. The reactionaries in all countries take to it like
ducks to water. The conservative German trade union
leaders look upon it as an inspiration, and the right wing
of the British trade union movement is aiming to put
some form of it into effect in the near future. In other
European countries, the reactionaries will soon follow
suit.

Everywhere these worthies find, with their antiquat-
ed policies and organizations, that they are unable to
maintain themselves, much less make headway, in the
face of modern capitalism. Hence, refusing to accept
the left wing's fighting policy, they proceed to make
"peace" with the employers at the expense of the work-
ers. The B. & O. Plan is the golden way for them to do
this. The erstwhile progressive and militant American
railroad unions have the very doubtful honor of being
the originators of that menace to the international labor
movement, the B. & O. Plan.

Chapter III.
THE WATSON-PARKER LAW.

MOW we come directly to the latest and most disastrous
phase of the railroad trade union leaders' retreat
before the attacks of the companies, the passage of the
Watson-Parker Law. This infamous piece of legislation
is a logical and inevitable cap-stone to the whole struc-
ture of class collaboration which preceded it. It follows
naturally as a result of the same policy which produced
the failure of the four Brotherhoods to support the strik-
ing shopmen, the dissolution of the railroad federations,
the rejection of amalgamation and the refusal to organ-
ize the unorganized, the killing of the Plumb Plan and
the retreat back to the two capitalist parties, the inau-

15

guration of the B. & O. Flan and trade union capitalism.
It is the most complete surrender in the history of the
American labor movement.

The Watson-Parker Law is officially known as the
Railway Labor Act, and has for its stated purpose, "To
provide for the prompt disposition of disputes between
carriers and their employees, and for oilier purposes."
Before analyzing the law and showing how it operates
against the workers it will be well for us to examine its
formal construction and the procedure it sets up. Its
main features are as follows:

1. — Boards of Adjustment

Grievances and disputes shall, in their initial stages,
be handled in the regular way from the lower to the
higher company officials. In case of a disagreement, a
Board of Adjustment shall be organized. Such boards
may be set up by agreement between any carriers (de-
fined as any express company, sleeping car company,
or railroad subject to the Interstate Commerce Act) or
group of carriers and their employees. They shall be
composed of an equal number of representatives from
each side.

A majority of a board can make a decision, which
shall be final and binding. Any other mutually agreed
upon method of settlement of grievances is legal. Thirty
days' notice is required for a change of rates or condi-
tions by either employees or carriers.

2. — The Board of Mediation

The Board of Mediation consists of five members,
appointed by the President of the United States. "No
person in the employment of or who is pecuniarily or
otherwise interested in any organization of employees
or any carrier" may be a member of the board. The
members' salaries are $12,000 per year.

The stated chief functions of the Board of Mediation
are, (1) to mediate differences unsettled by the Boards

16

of Adjustment, (2) to try to bring about an agreement
to arbitrate in the event of a continued failure to settle
the trouble by mediation, (3) to interpret agreements
arrived at by mediation (4) to appoint the "odd" or de-
cisive members of the Arbitration Boards where they
cannot be agreed upon by the employees and the car-
riers. The intervention of the Board of Mediation may
be brought about by the application of one or both par-
ties to the dispute, or upon the initiative of the Board
itself.

3. — Boards op Arbitration

When an agreement is made to arbitrate a dispute, a
Board of Arbitration shall be established. This board
may be of either three or six members. If it is a board
of three, the companies name one member, the workers
one, and these pick the third. If it is a board of six, each
side names two, and these choose the additional two.
In the event of a failure to agree upon the "neutral"
members, the Board of Mediation shall appoint them.
They are supposed to be "impartial".

A majority of a Board of Arbitration is decisive. Once
an agreement to arbitrate is made neither side can with-
draw, except by mutual consent. Awards of Boards of
Arbitration are final and binding, except upon formal
appeal to the Federal Courts. Such appeals must be tak-
en immediately after the award is made and can only
be had on the basis that the arbitration proceedings are
irregular or that the award is in violation of the terms
of the agreement to arbitrate. Arbitration awards spe-
cifically do not restrict the right of "individuals" to quit
their employment. No specific penalties are stated for
organized violation of an arbitration award. Boards of
Arbitration interpret arbitration awards.

4. — The Emergency Board

Should direct negotiations, mediation, and arbitra-
tion fail to settle a dispute "which threatens substantially

17

to interrupt interstate commerce", the President of the
United States may, "in his discretion" create an "impar-
tial" board to investigate and report on the situation.
This is the Emergency Board. Such boards shall be
created seperately in each case.

The Emergency Board shall report its findings not
more than 30 days after the date of its creation, "After
the creation of such board and for 30 days after such
board has made its report to the president, no change
(strikes, lockouts, etc., W. Z. F.) shall be made by the
parties to the controversy in the conditions out of which
the dispute arose."

5 —The Federal Courts

In many sections of the Watson-Parker Law it is pro-
vided for federal court action to lend legal weight to the
actions of the various boards. Agreements to arbitrate
may be filed in either circuit or district courts, thereby
becoming legal and binding. The Boards of Arbitration
have the power of subpoena to compel the attendence
and testimony of witnesses, enforceable by court action.
Copies of all papers, proceedings, and evidence of arbi-
tration processes, together with the final arbitration
awards themselves, must be filed in the resident district
court.

Awards may be appealed to the district court, but
with this provision, "unless within 10 days after the fil-
ing of the award a petition to impeach the award
. . . shall be filed in the clerk's office of the court
. . . the court shall enter judgment upon the award,
which judgment shall be final and conclusive on the
parties."

The action of the district court becomes final and
binding on all parties unless a formal appeal is taken to
the circuit court of appeals, whose decision, in case of
an appeal, is conclusive. The law provides for the neces-
sary changes in the Judicial Code to give the courts the
right to enforce legally the Watson-Parker Law,

18

Chapter IV.
WHAT THE LAW MEANS

TTHE passage of the Watson-Parker Law was greeted
with a shout of approval by reactionaries in the labor
movement everywhere. They acclaim it as a great vic-
tory. "Labor", official journal of the railroad unions,
went into ecstacies over it. The general enthusiasm
among the trade union bureaucrats was exceeded only
by that of the capitalists. The recent convention of the
Railway Employees' Department of the A. F. of L. said
the following:

"With the enactment of the Railroad Labor Bill,
and a manifest desire on the part of the carriers and
employees to adhere strictly to the provisions of the
law, its spirit and intent, we believe that a great for-
ward -step has been made towards harmonious rela-
tions on the railroads."
This incredibly stupid sentiment was re-echoed in the
A. F. of L. convention itself, the report of the Executive
Council saying:

"Perhaps the most pronounced progress made
this year in eradicating the most subtle form of de-
nial of the right of freedom to collective agreements
is evidenced in the enactment of the Watson-Parker
Law. This law has abolished the Railroad Labor
Board and instead has set out in clear and unmis-
takable language the right of railroad and trans-
portation workers to voluntary collective bargain-
ing."
But while on the one hand claiming the law as a vic-
tory, the A. F. of L., visualizing certain disastrous ex-
periences in its operation in the near future, has to strike
at least a weak note of warning. It warns against the
danger of "slight imperfections" developing in the ap-
plication of the law. And President Green specifically
opposes the application of its principles to the workers
in other industries, Why, indeed? If the Watson-Parker

19

Law is so valuable for railroad workers why not also
for others?

The fact is that all this crying of victory is merely
throwing sand in the eyes of the workers. In reality
the Watson-Packer Law registers a big surrender by the
railroad unions to the companies. It condones and es-
tablishes in the railroad industry some of the very worst
features of the struggle between workers and employers.
Among these are compulsory arbitration, outlawing of
strikes, interference of federal courts in labor disputes,
company unionism, and the most injurious forms of class
collaboration between the union leaders and the com-
panies.

1. — Compulsory Arbitration

For many years the labor movement of this country
has bitterly contested every attempt of the employers,
and they have been many and persistent, to set up com-
pulsory arbitration. The workers have correctly brand-
ed such arbitration as a slave-making system. But the
Watson-Parker Law, disregarding this historic struggle,
practically fastens compulsory arbitration upon the rail-
road workers. This it does, not in so many words, but
none the less effectively, by setting up such a network of
machinery leading straight to arbitration that the
unions, under the present leadership, will be virtually
compelled to accept arbitration whenever the employers
see fit to force it upon them. Let us see how the thing
will work in practice :

Suppose a serious dispute arises between the unions
and the companies. It is not settled by direct negotia-
tions, and the companies, with their eye on an eventual
favorable arbitration, refuse to settle the dispute before
the Board of Adjustment, A crisis develops. Then the
Board of Mediation, backed with all the prestige of the
government, steps in and advises arbitration according
to the provisions of the Watson-Packer Law.

20

1 >

Public sentiment will be organized in favor of ar-
bitration. This the Mediation Board can do effectively
— the House Interstate Commerce Committee recom-
mending the adoption of the law says, "this board will
be able to mobilize public opinion to an extent impos-
sible to any permanent board or to any agency of the
government heretofore created for the purpose."

In the face of this barrage what will our conservative
leaders do? They voted for arbitration in the law, now
why not accept it in fact? They have definitely commit-
ted themselves to arbitration when they voted for the
law. But assuming that they might dare to resist the
demand of the Mediation Board for arbitration, then the
President will create an Emergency Board, with vague
and threatening powers.

At the End^-Defeat

This will still further mobilize public sentiment for
arbitration. Then the conservative leaders, confronted
by a hostile public opinion and tied up with the many le-
gal delays established by the Watson-Parker Law (and
believing in arbitration anyway), will submit their case
to a framed-up Arbitration Board.

In reality, the Watson-Parker Law establishes com-
pulsory arbitration in the railroad industry. In prac-
tice it will work out that minor disputes will be settled
in direct negotiations and those of a major character will
go to arbitration. This means that the companies now
have the workers "hog-tied'*.

Arbitration in general is bad for the workers. It kills
their fighting spirit, and the employers are always able
to get control of the "odd" or decisive arbitrators. Even
when the arbitrators are chosen entirely by agreement it
turns out so. This is because the only ones the employ-
ers will accept as decisive arbitrators except capitalists
come from classes standing between the workers and
the employers, usually so-called liberals. And when the
decision is made by these treacherous elements it is al-

21

ways in favor of those to whom they stand closest eco-
nomically, politically, and socially — the capitalists.
Even at the best the workers have a poor chance before
an arbitration board.

But the arbitration virtually made compulsory by the
Watson-Parker Law is of the very worst type. From the
beginning it is stacked against the workers. By the
very working out of the law the Boards of Arbitration
will be controlled by the employers. The final power of
selecting the decisive arbitrators rests with the ultra-
reactionary Mediation Board appointed by the president.
One can easily imagine which side will be favored by the
worthies selected by this capitalistic tribunal. The work-
ing of the law is simple : first It forces the workers into
arbitration, and then it makes them accept arbitrators
picked by the companies. A wonderful arrangement —
for the employers.

In the Clutch of Capitalist Courts

These hand-picked Arbitration Boards will arbitrate
not only wages and hours, but also upon the very life of
the unions themselves. Arbitrators habitually do this,
running beyond their specific powers. See for example
the "open shop" arbitration award handed down by the
notorious Judge Landis in the Chicago building trades
in a few years ago. If the unions think the new Boards
of Arbitration on the railroads are exceeding their dele-
gated powers they can take the matter on appeal to the
federal courts. A splendid prospect, surely!

In short, the awards are enforcable by the courts.
The menace of this kind of arbitration is pointed out by
the following statement, adopted by the A. P. of L. con-
vention in 1897, when that body still had some proleta-
rian militancy:

"Any Board of Arbitration with power to en-
force its award upon indiivduals ceases to be a
Board of Arbitration and assumes all the functions
of an industrial court; as such a revival of the Eng-

■ 22

I

lish quarter sessions wages and a reintroduction of
serfdom; also opposed to the 13th Amendment."

2. — Making Strikes Illegal

Aiming to prevent strikes, the employers of this
country have repeatedly tried to make them illegal.
Every such effort of theirs has met with desperate re-
sistance from the workers. But the Watson-Parker
Law, enthusiastically supported by the railroad union
leaders, goes far in the direction of making strikes on
the railroads illegal. The chief aim of the Watson-
Parker Law is to prevent strikes. This it does by two
general processes, (1) to force the unions into arbitra-
tion, and, (2) to make the arbitration awards and the
delays attendant upon arbitration legally binding, no-
strike provisions.

We have shown above how the workers will be
forced into arbitration under the Watson-Parker Law.
The provisions for enforcing no-strike regulations are
many and dangerous. The Watson-Parker Law is in
reality an anti-strike law. Legal barriers are raised
against strikes by the courts mixing into the matter.
The federal courts pass on the arbitration awards, mak-
ing them specifically "binding and final."

In case of need, the courts will find ways and means
to legally enforce these awards by jails, injunctions, etc.,
even though the letter of the law does not. actually pro-
vide such machinery of legal enforcement. Likewise,
the 60-day no-strike period from the time an Emergency
Board is created until a month after it reports will be
legally enforced. Unquestionably if the unions tried to
strike in this period (which of course would be used
frantically for strike preparation by the companies) the
courts would rule they had violated the law and proceed
violently against them.

Under the old Railroad Labor Board the decisions
were not mandatory, yet when the shopmen ventured to

23

disobey them and strike, they were immediately out-
lawed and the infamous Daugherty injunction issued
against them. The new Watson-Parker Law makes it
much easier to outlaw strikes.

An Anti-Strike Law

In fact, the law contains one definite anti-strike pro-
vision. Section 9, Paragraph 8 of the law says:

"Nothing in this act shall be construed to re-
quire an individual employe to render labor or serv-
ice without his consent, nor shall anything in this
act be construed to make the quitting of his labor
or service by an individual employee an illegal act,
nor shall any court issue any process to compel the
performance by an individual employee of such
labor or service without his consent."
This sinister paragraph while affirmatively conceding
the right of the "individual" to quit work, negatively
denies that right to groups of workers. In order to
stress that it is the individual and not an organization
that has this right, the word "individual" in the law is
written in Italics.

Under this provision, undoubtedly, the courts will
rule that the unions have no legal right to strike against
arbitration awards or during the compulsory no-strike
periods while mediation and investigation proceeds. Any
federal judge will issue an injunction against a striking
union in such circumstances. Think what would happen
if such an issue came before the United States supreme
court, which in a Kansas industrial court law case, has
just recently placed definite limitation on the right of
workers to strike.

The railroad union leaders have abdicated the right
to strike. They have robbed the workers of this great
weapon, insofar as it can be taken from them by such
action. The leaders do not want strikes any more than
the companies do. They have their B. & O. Plan and

24

trade union capitalism, which have nothing in common
with strikes. They work hand-in-glove with the em-
ployers to outlaw strikes.

Everywhere the capitalists see the situation in its
real light. The New Haven Register says, "The rail-
roads and their trainmen have bound themselves to ac-
cept arbitration and to abide by its awards. These
awards can be enforced by the courts, so that danger
of a strike is done away with." The New York Times
says, "A strike on the railroads is now inconceivable."

With the connivance of the trade union leaders, the
railroad owners have gone far to the achievement of
their set purpose of outlawing strikes on American rail-
roads.

3. — The Courts in Labor Disputes
Another determined policy of the employers, in their
long fight to hamstring labor by every possible means,
is to so arrange matters as to give the courts the right
to handle labor disputes. This is because they know
that the courts may be depended on systematically to
enslave the workers. Labor has always bitterly resisted
this tendency, fighting for the settlement of labor dis-
putes in direct negotiations with the employers.

A noted case in point was that of the Kansas indus-
trial court. This court undertook to pass upon the
merits of labor controversies and to outlaw strikes. But
the militant policy of the Kansas miners, under the
leadership of Howat, in striking regardless of its de-
cisions, eventually smashed it and put an end to this
scheme towards which the employers all over the coun-
try were looking hopefully as a solution of the "labor
problem."

Now, however, come the railroad union, leaders, total-
ly ignoring the long fight against giving the courts juris-
diction over wage disputes, and in their Watson-Parker
Law they go very far towards conceding the federal

25

courts this menacing power. The law recognizes in
principle and to a considerable extent in practice, the
right of the courts to interfere directly in the wage
struggle between the workers and the companies.

Introducing the Industrial Court

As outlined in the preceding chapters, the federal
courts enter in at many points in the procedure set up
by the new law. They register agreements to arbitrate ;
all evidence, papers, etc., of arbitration proceedings have
to be filed with them; they register arbitration agree-
ments and make them legal; appeals against such agree-
ments can only be made to the courts; the courts will
be called upon to enforce the agreements by injunc-
tions and otherwise.

Thus, the Watson-Parker Law introduces, with the
sanction of the labor leaders, the principle of the indus-
trial court. It throws wide open the door to the further
extension of this deadly institution. The courts will not
be slow to follow up the advantage given them by this
law. As is their wont, they will progressively seize more
and more power. The law gives them a yard and they
will take a mile.

What the employers could not accomplish with the
Kansas industrial court in open opposition to the labor
movement, they hope to achieve by such means as the
Watson-Parker Law, framed in full agreement with the
labor leaders, namely, the enslavement of the workers
through the federal courts.

4.— Stimulating Company Unionism

The Watson-Parker Law directly stimulates and rec-
ognizes company unionism. The company union move-
ment on the railroads, initiated by Atterbury on the
Pennsylvania in 1921, has made tremendous strides since
the end of the shopmen's strike. According to official
figures, 64 out of 117 railroads have established such

26

organizations. The purposes of the company unions are
to speed up the workers and to prevent the growth of
class consciousness and trade unionism among them.
They constitute one of the very greatest dangers con-
fronting not only the railroad workers, but also the en-
tire labor movement. The Watson-Parker Law feeds
this poisonous growth.

The Watson-Parker Law provides in a general way
that the workers have the right to organize, but it does
not say how. The clause runs:

"Representatives, for the purposes of this act,
shall be designated by the respective parties in such
a manner as may be provided in their corporate or-
ganization or unincorporated association, or by other
means of collective action, without interference, in-
fluence, or coercion exercised by either party over
the self-organization or designation of representa-
tives by the other."
This paragraph the labor leaders hail as a great vic-
tory, claiming that it is a "clear and unmistakable rec-
ognition of the right to organize trade unions." On the
other hand, Atterbury and the other advocates of com-
pany unionism are equally jubilant. They see in the
paragraph a legalization and protection of company
unionism. The Feb., 1926, number of the official journal
of the company union of shop workers on the Union
Pacific thus voiced the opinion of the company union-
ists regarding the Watson-Parker bill:

"A perusal of the provisions of the bill will show
that specific organizations are not named therein,
which was one of our principal objections to the
so-called Howell-Barkley bill. We thus see that the
existence of our independent organizations (com-
pany unions) has been properly safe-guarded and
that the various objections we had to the Howell-
Barkley bill will be disposed of by the proposed bill
in accordance with our contentions,"

27

.....^«»«*i Auniiw

What Will Happb^n?

Now what will happen under the operation of the
law? Simply this: The workers will try to organize
trade unions and the companies will build company
unions to blo-ck them. The courts will decide which
shall be recognized. A pleasant prospect, indeed! Who
can doubt that the courts will rule that the company
unions are voluntary organizations falling under the pro-
visions of the law?

Consider for a moment, Atterbury of the Pennsyl-
vania railroad. He is at once the great champion of
company unionism and the father of the Watson-F arker
Law. This is no contradiction. He knows the Wai son-
Parker Law for what it really is, a club to be used against
the unions. Who is foolish enough to believe that At
terbury has surrendered to his workers the right to or-
ganize genuine trade unions? Why, he even refused to
me£t with the shopmen's leaders when the bill was being
drafted by the joint committee of the companies and the
brotherhoods !

Atterbury understands that the Watson-Parker Law
enables the companies to still further cash in on the
great victory they won over the railroad workers at the
time of the shopmen's strike. The Watson-Parker Law
puts a premium on company unionism.*

But the trade union leaders are really not such fools
as to believe that this law eliminates company union-
ism. They know better. They aim to eliminate the
company unions proper by turning the trade unions into
company unions via the B, & O. Plan. And they pro-
pose to do it under the Watson-Parker Law. Already
they are bragging continually that through the B. & O.
Plan the companies can speed up the workers more and

#As this is written, the issue has arisen in concrete form with union
officials and company managers conferring at New York over Adjust-
ment Boards, the companies holding out for system boards on which
their company unions will have claim for representation.

28

gain greater profits than they c*an under the company
union system.

The ultimatum presented to the railroad workers by
the railroad companies through the Watson-Parker Law
is that they must accept company unionism, either
through the company unions directly established by the
companies or through degenerating the trade unions in-
to company unions via the B. L 0. Plan. The trade
union leaders have chosen the latter course.

5, — An Empty Victory

The conservative railroad union leaders are emitting
a great cry of victory because the Watson-Parker Law
has eliminated the hated Railroad Labor Board. But it
is only a Pyrrhic victory. The railroad unions have
merely jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. The
compulsory arbitration, outlawing of strikes, court in-
terferences, and company unionism of the Watson-
Parker Law will soon prove more disastrous to the work-
ers than even the old Railroad Labor Board. The only
reason the employers consented to the abolition of that
board, which served their purposes so well, was because
they knew that in the Watson-Parker Law they had de-
veloped a far more effective means for drawing the teeth
of railroad trade unionism.

This law lays a tremendous handicap on the workers
in the great struggles that are not far off in the future,
and it has been fastened upon their backs for an in-
definite time with the consent of their own leaders. The
battle to repeal the Watson-Parker Law is one of the
most urgent tasks and will be one of the bitterest strug-
gles ever undertaken by the railroad workers of this
country.

29

Chapter V,
THE COMBINATION BEHIND THE LAW.

A SINISTER feature in connection with the Watson-
Parker Law is the combination of capitalists and
trade union leaders formed to secure the passage of the
law and to support its application. This joint body of
"capital and labor," based an an intensified class col-
laboration, is the soil out of which the Watson-Parker
Law grew. It bodes no good for the workers.

The great railroad and other capitalist interests hail
the Watson-Parker Law. Representatives of 199,000
miles of railroads, including the Pennsylvania, New York
Central and many other big systems, heartily supported
it, while representatives of only 36,000 miles voted
against it.

The present reactionary congress passed it over-
whelmingly: Senate, 69 for, 13 against; House, 381 for,
13 against. Coolidge, arch-agent of Wall Street, signed
the bill without delay. The National Civic Federation
gave the law its blessing, and the capitalist press gen-
erally greeted with applause its passage by congress.
The capitalist class properly see in the Watson-Parker
Law a defeat for the workers and a victory for reaction.

The trade union bureaucrats also greeted the law en-
thusiastically. The whole body of railroad union offi-
cials, with those of the four brotherhoods in the lead,
gave the law their endorsement. The railroad journal,
"Labor," bubbled over with joy at the "victory." The
convention of the Railway Employees' Department of
the A. F. of L. also endorsed the law. And the A. P. of
L. convention in Detroit followed suit. The conserva-
tive trade union press everywhere approves the new rail-
road law. So both the capitalist and the labor leaders
are quite satisfied. Their interests are furthered and
safe-guarded at the expense of the workers,

30

1. — Some Kailroad History

In order to gain an insight into the real meaning of
the close co-operation set up under the Watson-Parker
Law between the railroad companies and union officials
it is helpful to look back a few years in railroad history
and observe the rise, the purposes and the end of a
similar movement which manifested itself under the
name of the American Railway Employees' and Invest-
ors' Association.

The American Railway Employees' and Investors'
Association was formed in Chicago after the settlement
of the 1907 western wage movement. The public leader
of the movement was P. H. Morrissey, then head of the
Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen. The real backers
were the railroad companies. The organization was
formed "quietly," without the knowledge of the union
membership, at a conference of the heads of the brother-
hoods and of various big railroads.

It was organized with a definite constitution and en-
listing a dues paying membership, in addition to accept-
ing the membership of railroad unions and railroad com-
panies. The A. R. E. & I, A. was headed by a joint com-
mittee of railroad company officials and railroad trade
union leaders. Stone, Lee, Garretson, Carter, and the
other big chiefs of the brotherhoods of the time, were
deeply in the scheme

2.— "A Spirit of Mutual Interest

The purposes of this organization were expressed in
its constitution as follows:

"Art. 1, Sec, 1.: The purposes for which this or-
ganization is formed. By all lawful methods to cul-
tivate and maintain between its members such a
spirit of. mutual interest and such concern on the
part of all of them for the welfare and prosperity
of American railroads as will best promote their suc-
cessful and profitable operation. To publicly pro-

31

vide means and methods for obtaining consideration
and hearing from all legislative bodies and commis-
sions empowered to enact laws, rules, and regula-
tions affecting the conduct and operation of the
railroads/*
The real meaning of this was the building of a great
lobby, backed by the railroad companies and the leaders
of 1,600,000 railroad workers, to fight for the interest of
the railroad companies, by blocking hostile legislation
(much of which was proposed by the unions themselves)
securing increased freight and passenger rates, etc. In
return for their support of the companies' profit-grab-
bing schemes, the workers were supposed to get favor-
able consideration in the matter of wages.

In furtherance of the plan, a great organization drive
was started to at once increase railroad rates. The
A. R. E. & I. A. placed a dozen organizers in the field,
held many big mass meetings, and put numbers of union
officials on the payroll. For the bosses everything
seemed rosy.

But the scheme came to a grand crash in the 1909
convention of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen.
Morrissey and Lee tried to secure the endorsement of
the American Railway Employees' and Investors' As-
sociation, but the delegates, led by A. A. Roe and others,
perceiving the poisonous betrayal of their interests in
the movement, rose against it en masse and killed it.

Lee, the new head of the B. of R, T., was forced to
quit the A. R. E. & I. A. Morrissey's influence among
railroad workers was ruined. Stone, Garretson, Carter,
et al, ran to cover and the whole thing blew up complete-
ly. Thus ended, ignominously, this great effort at in-
tensified class collaboration on the railroads.

3.— The A. R. E. & I. A. Reborn

The collapse of the American Railway Employees'
and Investors' Association was a sad blow to Lee and

32

his fellow class collaborationists But the idea behind
the scheme was too good to be so easily abandoned. Lee
nursed it, waiting for a more favorable opportunity to
bring it to maturity on the railroads.

His chance came in 1925. Profiting by the general
demoralization of the railroad unions under the attacks
of the companies and the retreat policy of the union
leaders, Lee came forth with a call for a general con-
ference of railroad officials and railroad union leaders,
to take place in Cleveland on June 29th, for the avowed
purpose of securing legislation to end strikes on the
railroads. In this maneuver Lee was, as ever, merely
the mouthpiece and agent of the railroad companies.

The Trade Union Educational League immediately
denounced Lee's proposed conference and launched a
vigorous agitation against it. Then Lee, mindful of his
bad experience with an aroused membership, in the case
of the A. R. E. & I. A., moved more cautiously. Appar-
ently he abandoned the scheduled conference, because
June 29th came and went and no such conference was
held.

4. — Betrayal Arranged Secretly

But what had happened was merely that the move-
ment had been transferred from daylight into dark, from
publicity to secrecy. Lee's conference, and others, went
ahead under cover. Totally without the knowledge of
the masses of railroad workers, not to speak of their
consent, the union leaders surrendered the interests of
the rank and file by developing the Watson-Parker Law
in collaboration with the railroad companies.

"Labor" of May 15, 1926, naively spills the beans about
these secret conferences of the union leaders with the
companies, when it says, quoting Senator Watson's
speech on the Watson -Parker bill:

"The Railway Labor Act was the outcome of
conferences during the summer .and fall of 1925 be-

33

tween representatives of practically all the rail-
roads and the 20 railroad labor organizations."

The railroad men of America will ask in due season
when and where these conferences were held, and who
gave the union leaders the authority to sit into them
and to tie the railroad workers hand and foot, as has
been done by the Watson-Parker Law. And they will
find ways and means to make their misleaders pay dearly
for this treachery.

In these secret conferences between the company offi-
cials and the union leaders, the foundation was laid for
a collaboration based upon essentially the same prin-
ciples as those underlying the discarded American Rail-
way Employees' and Investors' Association. But this
time the thing is done more skillfully. Now there is no
formal organization, open and public for everyone to see
and shoot at. Everything is under cover and hidden.
Secret conferences, private understandings, and passive
agreements, are the methods of the new combination.
It is the A. R. E. & I. A. renovated and brought up to
date

5. — The New Alliance

Conservative railroad trade union officials are al-
ways servile to the interests of the companies. But in
this new alliance with the bosses their servility sinks to
new depths. The first fruit of this alliance is the Wat-
son-Parker Law. Other poisonous developments will
soon flow out of it. The whole scheme means the pro-
tection of the interests of the companies at the expense
of the workers.

It means openly or covertly supporting the companies
in their demands for higher rates, shielding them from
hostile legislation, extending and entrenching company
unionism, speeding up the workers at their work, break-
ing up of militant strike movements against the employ-

34

ers, and the general worsening of conditions for railroad
workers.

The Watson-Parker Law is bad, but what is worse,
and what the railroad workers must smash at all costs,
is the close alliance between the companies and the union
leaders which gave birth to the Watson-Parker Law.

Chapter VI.

PUTTING THE LAW INTO EFFECT.

^S the Watson-Parker Law goes into effect, it is al-
ready showing how it works against the interests of
the railroad workers. The first important step in its op-
eration was the appointment of the board of mediation
by President Coolidge. Naturally his appointees to this
board, destined to play such an important role in estab-
lishing conditions on American railroads, are all ultra-
reactionaries. The board is packed against the workers
from the start. It consists of the following five mem-
bers :

1. — Coolidge's Board op Mediation

Samuel E. Winslow: A prominent "open shop" capi-
talist of Massachusetts, noted for his opposition to or-
ganized labor and to every form of progressmsm. This
"impartial" gentleman is chairman of the board.

Carl Williams: Representative of wealthy stock-
growing and general farming interests in the southwest,
a confirmed reactionary.

G. W. Hanger: Former member of the discredited
Railroad Labor Board, a willing servant of the railroad
companies, by profession an economist.

E. P. Morrow: Also formerly of the Railroad Labor
Board, corporation attorney, once governor of Kentucky
and noted for crushing coal miners' strikes with troops.

Hymel Davies: Hanger-on and general tool of Cali-
fornia big business interests, company union advocate

35

and expert, helped to drive the t W. W. out of western
towns during the war, labor-mediator for the department
of labor.

There is the keyboard under which the Watson-
Parker Law operates. It is thoroughly capitalistic from
end to end. There is not a labor man or even ' 'friend"
of labor in the whole five. So far as personnel is con-
cerned, the make-up of the board of mediation is even
worse than that of the hated Railroad Labor Board.
What chance has the workers' cause in the hands of such
a capitalistic crew?

2. — The Conductors'-Trainmen's Arbitration.

Already a number of wage movements have taken
place under the Watson-Parker Law. Some were settled
by the boards of adjustment. These were the cases of
the weakened Shopmen's, Clerks' and Trackmen's or-
ganizations on various railroads. Although the railroads
are now making by far the greatest profits in their his-
tory (the Wall Street Journal predicts that the net op-
erating return of the Class 1 railroads in 1926 will reach
the unprecedented figure of $1,260,000,000) they arbi-
trarily hand the workers in these unions paltry increases
in wages of from one to three cents per hour. The union
leaders weakly accept these petty concessions, and then
fill the union journal with peans of victory and glorifi-
cation of the new era of "co-operation" under the Wat-
son-Parker Law.

But the railroad companies are not able to so easily
dispose of the demands of the 90,000 conductors and
trainmen on the roads east of the Mississippi and north
of the Ohio Rivers. These workers are in a position to
insist more firmly upon their demands. The companies
cannot simply hand them what they please through a
board of adjustment and then make them like it, as they
have done with the other unions. These workers stand
tlieir ground a little.

88

Then the companies proceeded to put their will into
effect another way, through the virtually compulsory
arbitration established by the Watson-Parker Law. When
the board of adjustment failed, the board of mediation
was called in. When it also failed, an arbitration board
was organized. Let the railroad workers look upon the
personnel of the board set up to arbitrate the conduc-
tors-trainmen's demands and then learn a lesson of what
is in store for them under the new railroad law.

Companies Do the Deciding.

The arbitration board is composed of six members,
as follows: two chosen by the companies, two by the
unions, and two "neutrals" selected by these four. The
representatives of the companies are R. V. Massey, gen-
eral manager of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and W. A.
Martin, vice-president of the Erie Railroad. The repre-
sentatives of the unions are E. P. Curtis, general secre-
tary of the O. R. C, and D. L. Cease, editor of the Train-
men's Journal. The two "neutrals" are W. D. Baldwin,
president of the Otis Elevator, and W. E. Clark, formerly
grand senior conductor of the O. R. C, but now a rail-
road attorney. The latter was appointed by the board
of mediation, as the other men agreed upon as a neutral
by the first four arbitrators, X H. Pindley, associate edi-
tor of the New York Times, refused to serve.

Even the most casual glance at this arbitration board
shows that it is safely in the hands of the companies.
They have four of the six members in their pocket. Of
the two "neutrals," Otis, head of the frantically "open
shop" Otis Elevator Company, will do their bidding com-
pletely, and the other, Clark, a typical labor faker, is also
their man. Otherwise he never would have been ap-
pointed by Coolidge's ultra-reactionary board of medi-
ation.

The companies have the thing sewed up completely.
The arbitration board will bring in just such an award

37

as the employers dictate. The workers' representatives
are a minority of two, and, even assuming they would
really fight, which they will not, they are helpless in the
face of four arbitrators defending the companies' cause.
The probable outcome of the arbitration will be a few
cents hourly increase in wages. This, the rich com-
panies, making unheard of profits, can easily concede.
But the award will be only a mere fraction of what the
workers involved could have obtained were they part of
a great railroad industrial union pursuing a policy of
militant action,

3. — A "Great Advance" Backward

This is the Watson-Parker Law in practice. It gives
the employers the upper hand at every point. It en-
ables the companies to dictate terms off-hand to the
workers. In the boards of adjustment if the workers
refuse to accept the petty concessions proposed by the
companies, they have the poor alternative of taking their
case to the arbitration boards which are bound to be
stacked against them on a two-to-one basis by reason
of the power vested in the reactionary board of media-
tion to appoint the "neutral" arbitrators. On pain of
having their strikes outlawed, the workers must go into
this framed up arbitration and accept its company-made
decisions.

It is this monstrous arrangement, which ties the rail-
roaders hand and foot and sells them out to the com-
panies, that the railroad union leaders are responsible
for and that they are now so widely advertising as a
great advance over the old Railroad Labor Board. The

As this pamphlet goes to the printer, news reports state that the
above mentioned Arbitraion Board has given the Conductors and Train-
men a raise of only seven and a half per cent. They asked for a 20 per
cent raise, so got only one-third of their demand. The writer is thus
proven correct in forecasting the result. The framed-up appearance of
"conflict" on the board with the "representatives of the public" voting
for the award and the company men voting against it can be discounted
as a frame-up, because the companies won heavily by the award on
both wages and working conditions.

38

Watson-Parker Law, backed by the railroad trade union
bureaucracy is a gigantic betrayal of the great mass of
railroad workers.

Chapter VII.
WHAT MUST BE DONE.

T^HE railroad workers are passing through a crisis. The
companies are on the advance, the unions are on the
retreat. The reactionary trade union leaders, who have
no higher goal than to provide well-paying positions for
themselves, have given up all semblance of a fighting
policy and have joined hands with the employers in a
maze of class collaborationists The interests of the
rank and file are deeply betrayed and sacrificed.

Prompt and vigorous action must be taken to remedy
the situation. The workers must build their unions into
powerful organizations and equip them with an honest,
fighting leadership. Sweeping aside the B. & O. Plan,
trade union capitalism, Watson-Parkerism, co-operation
with the two capitalist political parties, and other forms
of class collaboration, they must adopt a militant policy
against the companies. This will put an end to the long
disastrous retreat and begin a victorious offensive.

1. — Demand a General Wage Increase.

The first essential for a great advance of the railroad
workers is the development of a national demand for a
general increase of wages for all classes of workers on the
railroads. Now is the opportune time for such a sweep-
ing, all-trades-movement. The industry is booming and
the workers, recovering rapidly after their long depres-
sion following the 1922 shopmen's strike defeat, are in
a mood to fight.

Railroad business is now at the greatest volume in
its history, and it is rapidly increasing. The companies
are making fabulous profits. Never have they enjoyed

39

such prosperity. "Labor" of Sept. 11th, gives the fol-
lowing figures for the seven months ending July 31st,
and the succeeding three months have bettered this
showing :

Total operating expenses 2,622,298,154 2,694,801,738

Total operating expenses 2,622,298,154 2,694,801,783

Net railway operating income 539,184,046 611,853,632

Rate of return on book value 4.56% 5.06%

Rate of return on- tentative

value 5.06% 5.71%

The great army of railroad workers does not experi-
ence any such prosperity. The workers' function, ac-
cording to the employer's conception, is to slave and
starve while the capitalists grow rich and fat. Driven
on by new and more intensive speed-up systems and
confronted with a rising cost of living, their wages have
actually decreased in the period of the past several
years.

Annual Wage Cut |250 From 1920 Scale.

In a recent bulletin the International Railroad Amal-
gamation Committee, which has for the past several
years led the struggle for progress among the railroad
workers, thus sums up the situation:

"Total railroad wages paid in 1920 were $3,742,-
486,936, as compared with $2,900,107,384 in 1925.
This is a loss per year of $842,379,552, or about
22i/ 2 %, The average year's pay of a railroad em-
ployee in 1920 was $1,820, and in 1925, $1,570, or a
loss of $250 per year. Over 400,000 railroad em-
ployees had total earnings for the year 1925 under
$1,000, while 523,000 averaged less than $1,200, and
202,920 section laborers received the insignificant
sum of $877. These are little better than starva-
tion wages."
This is an intolerable situation: the exploiters roll-
ing in luxury and the actual producers living in want.
In no uncertain terms the vast army of railroad workers

40

must protest and insist unitedly upon immediate and
substantial wage increases. The restoration of the 1920
scale is the minimum to be demanded. The wage de-
mand must be made simultaneously from all classifica-
tions of railroad workers.

The recent convention of the Railway Employees'
Department of the A. F. of L. failed to organize such a
general wage movement. It was decrepit and reaction-
ary. Consequently there are now only scattered move-
ments of isolated sections of railroad workers. These
the companies easily dispose of with small concessions.
While better than no movements at all, these weak ef-
forts do not meet the situation. There must be a na-
tion-wide wage movement of all railroad workers, from
the engineer to the section hand, and from Maine to
California. That would be irresistible.

2, — Organize the Unorganized.

To back up the proposed national wage demand, as
well as to protect the railroad workers' interests gen-
erally, it is fundamentally necessary to organize the more
than 1,000,000 workers now unorganized on the rail-
roads. The situation is more than ripe for the accom-
plishment of this great task. The industry is operating
at an unprecedented rate, and relatively few railroad
workers are unemployed. The workers are ready for a
great forward move. All that is required is to take ad-
vantage of the favorable situation.

The recent Railway Employees' Department Conven-
tion did practically nothing towards the solution of this
key problem of organizing the unorganized. The re-
actionary officialdom, headed by Jewel, who misled the
railroad shopmen in their disastrous defeat in 1922, con-
tented themselves with adopting a platonic resolution on
organization.

Since leaving the convention, they have done nothing
further about it. Their attention was fastened upon the

41

B. & O. Plan, trade union capitalism, and other forms of
class collaboration. They looked to the Watson-Parker
Law for salvation. It is such weak and unreliable lead-
ership that has undermined the railroad unions and
subjugated them to the employers.

At the present there are a few spasmodic organiza-
tion campaigns going on, including those of the switch-
men, telegraphers, etc. These must, of course, be
pushed, but besides, every effort should be made to start
a general joint campaign of all the railroad unions.
Headed by a national committee and forming local com-
mittees in all railroad centers, such a campaign would
inevitably make real headway in the rebuilding of the
weakened railroad unions.

3, — Smash the Company Unions.

A central task in building up an effective railroad
trade unionism, is to demolish the company unions.
These organizations are widespread on the railroads.
They check the growth of trade unionism and class con-
sciousness. They create among the workers the illusion
of democracy in the industry. They are a convenient
means for the employers to speed up the workers and to
put wage-cuts into effect. They are a menace to the
growth of the labor movement and they must be elimi-
nated.

The great weapon against company unionism is a
militant organization campaign, based upon the econom-
ic demands of the workers. Under the Watson-Parker
Law, the employers have a free hand to organize com-
pany unions, and they will take full advantage of it.
This makes it all the more necessary to smash the com-
pany unions by a widespread and active campaign to
establish trade unions. Of themselves, the reactionary
bureaucrats will do nothing to eliminate company union-
ism. Their "remedy" for the evil is to degenerate the
trade unions into company unions, via the B. & O. Plan

42

route. Only when pressed by a determined and thorough-
ly organized opposition in the unions will they fight the
company unions.

The struggle against company unionism thus has
two phases: (a) to prevent the direct establishment of
company unions by the employers, and (b) to prevent
the degeneration of the trade unions into company
unions by their leaders.

The company unions must be fought from within as
well as from without. It is well to make direct propa-
ganda against the company unions and to build trade
unions in open opposition to them. But in many cases,
especially where the company unions have a mass fol-
lowing, and where there is a foment among the workers,
to penetrate these organizations and to precipitate with-
in them questions of the workers' economic demands
and the formation of trade unions.

In many company unions, on the railroads as well as
in other industries, such a policy, intelligently carried
out, has brought about the destruction of these boss-
controlled organizations and the formation of genuine
trade unions. The question of breaking up the company
unions and supplanting them with trade unions, must
occupy a major share of the attention of railroad
workers.

4. — Fight the Watson-Parker Law.

It is necessary that the organized left wing and pro-
gressives start a movement to repeal the Watson-Parker
Law. This should show the railroad workers the menace
of this law and stimulate them to demand its abolition.
The disastrous effects of the law will not become fully
apparent immediately. With the railroad industry boom-
ing and labor relatively employed, wage increases must
be conceded. The employers will give these under the
machinery set up by the Watson-Parker Law. Hence,
even though these increases are only a fraction of what

43

might be won by an aggressive policy, the illusion will
be created that the new law is at least partially suc-
cessful.

But when the present period of industrial activity
ends and wage cuts and union-smashing become the
first order of the day, then the arbitration boards estab-
lished under the Watson-Parker Law will so clearly
demonstrate their company character that every rail-
road worker will understand. Then the demand for the
repeal of the law will be every bit as insistent as was
the cry for the abolition of the Railroad Labor Board.
Before many months have passed the railroad union
leaders, who fastened this Old-Man-of-the-Sea on the
back of the railroad labor, will be more than eager to
explain away their treachery.

Meanwhile, the railroad workers must ward off the
worst effects of the Watson-Parker Law. A militant
stand on their part can do much to nullify this law.
First and foremost, they must break down its compul-
sory arbitration. This can be done by their refusing
resolutely to accept the arbitration of disputes not settled
by the boards of adjustment and by their carrying out a
policy of strikes. In view of the commitment of the
unions to the Watson-Parker Law by the reactionary
leaders, such a policy will be difficult, but the hard alter-
native is to surrender to arbitrators hopelessly preju-
diced against the workers from the start.

It will also be necessary to disregard court decisions
under the Watson-Parker Law which undertake to es-
tablish wages, hours, or working conditions or to re-
strict the right to strike. Court decisions in connection
with this law, recognizing company unions and thus
denying the workers the right to organize, will also be
disregarded in the struggle. But the full menace of the
Watson-Parker Law will not be eradicated until the law
is wiped off the federal statute books and the policy and

44

leadership of (ho unions which gave rise to it are defi-
nitely repudiated.

ft.— Fight for Amalgamation.

The question of amalgamation remains of burning
importance to railroad workers. The score of discon-
nected craft unions must be combined into one indus-
trial organization, and this built up until it includes all
railroad workers. The need for such an amalgamation
is greater now, if possible, than on the eve of the 1922
shopmen's strike, when the Trade Union Educational
League correctly put forth the slogan of " Amalgamation
or Annihilation." Since that time, the companies have
become much richer and far better organized, while the
unions have been badly weakened. On the railroads
craft unionism is a hopelessly futile system of labor or-
ganization.

The real obstruction to the amalgamation of the
many railroad unions into one, is the reactionary bureau-
cracy. With the possible exception of a few classes of
skilled workers, the masses of railroad workers want
amalgamation. But the union leaders do not. They
fear it would cause them to lose their present fat posi-
tions. To remove this reactionary leadership, in con-
vention and referendum elections, as the case' may be,
and to replace it with a progressive officialdom, is a task
that must not be neglected in the general fight to fuse
the craft unions into one great industrial union.

6.— Abolish the B. & O. Plan.

The left wing and progressive elements in the rail-
road unions must mobilize the organized masses to fight
against the dangerous B. & O. Plan and the many vari-
ations of this plan built around the central principle of
the workers co-operating with the employers to increase
production. The struggle to reject the B. & 0, Plan
must be carried on in every shop, local union and trade

45

union convention. The railroad workers must be edu-
cated regarding the destructive effects of the B. & O.
Plan.

But the fight must go further than merely resisting
and eliminating specific B. & O. Plan arrangements. The
whole tendency towards class collaboration, of which
the B. & O. Plan is the glittering example, must be de-
feated and the labor movement placed upon a class
struggle basis. This means carrying through militant
movements to support the workers' economic demands,
for the organization of the unorganized, for a labor
party, for a better leadership, against arbitration, etc.
It means building the unions into real fighting organi-
zations.

7. — Combat Trade Union Capitalism.

As pointed out earlier, trade union capitalism, which
includes labor banking, workers' investment corpora-
tions, trade union life insurance companies, etc., is a
form of class collaboration with deleterious effects upon
the unions. It must be combatted.

The campaign against it should take several aspects:
(a) to destroy by education the illusion, bred of trade
union capitalism, that the workers can buy themselves
free of capitalist wage slavery; (b) to separate the vari-
ous labor banks, etc., from direct connection with the
union, thus restoring the unions to their proper func-
tions as fighting organizations and making the leaders
more responsive to rank and file control; (c) to reor-
ganize the labor banks, etc., from their present undemo-
cratic forms to genuine co-operatives; (d) to break their
direct connections with orthodox capitalistic institutions
and to restrict their financial operations to legitimate
activities among the workers; (e) to fight aggressively
against the establishment of any more such organiza-
tions on their present capitalistic basis by the trade
union bureaucrats. Before long the workers will begin

46

to understand the evils of trade union capitalism and
will be prepared to check and abolish them.

8. — For Nationalization and a Labor Party.

The railroad workers must be re-taught that it is
utter folly to permit great public services, like the rail-
roads, coal mines, packing houses, power plants, etc.,
to remain in the hands of private capitalists who use
them selfishly to exploit the toiling masses. The move-
ment for nationalization, well begun by the Plumb Plan
but abandoned by the reactionary trade union leaders
in their great retreat before the advance of the railroad
companies, must be resumed. The railroad workers
should take the lead in the fight for the nationalization
of the industries.

They must also again take up the struggle against
the two capitalist political parties and for independent
political action. But this time it must assume clearer
organizational forms and objectives than those of the
Conference for Progressive Political Action. It must
stand squarely for the formation of a Labor Party, based
on the trade unions, a mass party, which shall enter
into alliance with the poorer farmers and make with
them a joint struggle against the capitalists.

The railroad workers must begin to look forward to
the end of the capitalist system with all its misery and
suffering, and to the eventual setting up of a system
of society and government in which the workers and
poor farmers will be the controlling elements.

9. — In Conclusion.

The foregoing is the program necessary to counter-
act the Watson-Parker Law, and the class collaboration
movement of which it is an expression. The great body
of railroad workers, except for a few favored categories
of those skilled and strategically situated, are deeply
discontented. They are only awaiting good leadership

47

in order to cast aside their passivism and to engage in
battle against the companies. The left wing and pro-
gressives, joined together in a united front based on the
above program, must give them that leadership.

In every railroad shop, local union, local federation,
system federation, national union, there should be circles,
groups and committees formed to fight for this pro-
gram of elementary needs of the workers in the unions.
The reactionary leaders are strongly entrenched and they
can always rely upon the assistance of the companies,
but both together can be defeated by an aroused and
properly led rank and file.

The 1,800,000 railroad workers possess tremendous
potential power. Today, misled by their leaders, their
vitality sapped by class collaboration, divided against
themselves by craft unionism, their unions diminished
numerically by defeat, the railroad workers are weak and
disspirited. But there is no room for defeatism or dual
unionism. Beneath the present situation are the foun-
dations for a great organization. When the time comes,
and it avIH come, that the vast armies of railroad work-
ers, honestly and courageously led, are united in one all-
inclusive industrial union, animated by a real fighting
policy, they will be invincible.

THE END.

Railroad Workers

If you agree with the above program, write to:
The Trade Union Educational League,
156 W. Washington St., Rm. 37,
Chicago, III.

48

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