CONTENTS. Page. Railway employees in the United States, by Samuel McCune Lindsay, 1023-1114 The Negroes of Litwalton, Va.: A social study of the "Oyster Negro,” by 1115-1170 Digest of recent reports of State bureaus of labor statistics: Maine.. 1171-1173 1173, 1174 Maryland. Michigan North Dakota. Fifteenth Annual Report of the State Board of Arbitration and Concilia tion of Massachusetts. 1174-1177 1177, 1178 1178 Digest of recent foreign statistical publications.. 1179-1194 1195-1206 Laws of various States relating to labor enacted since January 1, 1896.... 1207-1216 III Several important special papers which relate to the problems of railway employment have already been published in the Bulletin of the Department of Labor. Brotherhood relief and insurance of railway employees" was discussed by Prof. Emory R. Johnson, of the University of Pennsylvania, in Bulletin No. 17, for July, 1898, and in an earlier article (a) by the same author on "Railway relief departments," an account was given of what the roads are doing in the same direction for their employees. Dr. Walter E. Weyl has published quite an extensive review of "The condition of railway labor in Europe," (b) and in Bulletin No. 31, for November, 1900, an article by Dr. Luigi Einaudi discusses "The condition of railway labor in Italy." There is also in Bulletin No. 29, for July, 1900, a brief statement on the subject of Hours of labor and of rest of railway employees in Prussia," made to the Department of State by Hon. Richard Guenther, United States consul-general at Frankfort-on-the-Main. In addition to these special contributions there is scattered throughout the pages of the Bulletin much material, especially in the digests of court decisions and in the labor legislation, which affects the interests and b See Bulletin No. 20, January, 1899. a See Bulletin No. 8, January, 1897. welfare of railway employees. Probably railway labor, as an oceupation, affects the interests of more persons in the United States than any other single branch of employment except agriculture. This fact alone should entitle it to greater consideration than it commonly receives. There are, however, many other reasons why facts relating to the condition of railway labor in the United States are peculiarly welcome at this time. It is one of the most hazardous of occupations, and yet one on which the prosperity of the country becomes increa-ingly dependent. It has led almost all other classes of labor in meeting the problems peculiar to the wage-earner when he becomes conscious of the class feeling. Organized labor has fought its chief battles, won its greatest victories, had its severest defeats, and learned its best lessons within the scope of railroad employment. The problems of old age, the question of the "dead line" in occupations, or age where diminishing efficiency sets in, and the need of provision for the uncertainties of life have nowhere presented themselves with greater clearness and been met with greater determination than in the relations of employer and employee in the realm of railway labor. It is not the purpose of this paper to review with any degree of completeness the condition of railway labor in the United States. That is a topic too broad for proper treatment within the scope of a single paper, and one for which the materials are scarcely yet available. It is possible, however, to discuss with some measure of completeness a few facts and some problems concerning railway employees in the United States. After showing the numbers and classes of railway employees, from the reports of the Interstate Commerce Commission, the qualifications demanded in railway service, some facts relating to wages and hours of work, and some of the vexed questions concerning extra work and extra pay will be discussed. This will constitute one general division of this article, under the title Requirements and rewards of railway employment;" a second general section, entitled "Railway labor as a life work," treats of the permanency of occupation, the systems of discipline, the question of blacklisting, and the pensioning of employees; a third and last general division covers in part the personal relations of employer and employee in the field of railway labor, treating of the general condition of railway laborers as reflected in their organizations, and the efforts of employers to improve the personnel of the service. A large portion of the information upon which this article is based was obtained by direct correspondence and personal interviews with the representatives of 40 of the leading railway corporations of the United States, and with the leaders of the representative organizations of railway employees. The 40 railway mentioned operate 112.353 miles, or 58.2 per cent of the total mileage of the United States, as given in the Interstate Commerce Commission's Report for the year ending June 30, 1900, and employ 633,023 employees, or 62.2 per cent of the total number of railway employees. A series of questions relating to railway labor was sent out by the author to 62 railway corporations, selected with especial reference to their geographical distribution and their relative importance in the railway industry of the country. The answers received covered the facts for about two-thirds of the corporations originally selected. The questions asked, together with most of the replies received, are published in the report made by the author of this article to the Industrial Commission, printed in the Reports of the Commission, on the subject of transportation. (a) Much valuable testimony from railway presidents, chiefs of railroad brotherhoods, and from well-informed specialists will be found in the Report of the Industrial Commission, Volume IV, Transportation. REQUIREMENTS AND REWARDS OF RAILWAY NUMBERS AND CLASSIFICATION OF RAILWAY EMPLOYEES. From the Thirteenth Annual Report of the Interstate Commerce Commission on the Statistics of Railways in the United States, it appears that on June 30, 1900, there were 1,017,653 employees of all classes engaged in railway transportation. This gives an average of 529 employees per hundred miles of line, and an increase of 88,729 employees, or 34 employees per hundred miles of line, as compared with the previous year. It shows also a considerable increase in the total number of employees and in the number per hundred miles of line over any year of the previous period of 10 years. The year 1893 comes next in intensity of traffic as measured by the number of employees per 100 miles of line. But at the same time, with this increase of employees per hundred miles of line, there was an increase in the amount of work performed by each employee. The figures for 1893 show for the freight service the movement of 107,129 ton-miles of traffic per employee, while the figures for 1900 show 139,143 ton-miles per employee. It would seem from these returns that the year 1893 may be considered the high-water mark in railway employment prior to the period of depression. It would appear that something has been learned by the necessities of hard times, and that railway employment is more intense now than formerly, which is probably an advantage both to employees and to the public, since the former are paid largely by piece work, and the latter gains by reduction in total cost. a See Report of the Industrial Commission, Volume XVII, pages 709–1135. |