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The Missing Cushions. Ironically, in view of all the struggling the unions did during those four years, the rules revisions scheduled to go into effect next week are much tougher than the railroads themselves feel they need to be. Rifkind's report recommended that the release of unneeded workers be cushioned with long advance notices and generous severance payments, plus retraining, with the railroads paying 75% of the cost. In accepting the Rifkind report, the railroads agreed to supply all the recommended cushions. But the long battle in the federal courts was fought over management's original 1959 proposals, which lack most of the cushions. Having won the court battle, management decided that to switch to the Rifkind recommendations would give the unions an opportunity to challenge them and begin a new round of delays in the courts.
The rules revisions scheduled to go into effect would: 1) get rid of the firemen on diesel locomotives; 2) alter the antiquated wage-base formula; 3) give management virtually unlimited right to introduce technological changes; 4) wipe out the distinction between the work performed by road crews and yard crews, thus permitting interchange of labor without duplication of effort; 5) allow management to stipulate the number of men needed on train crews. By far the most important of these management goals are the first two: the wage base and the firemen.
Wages & Work. The old-fashioned wage-base formula was set up in 1919, while the Government was running the railroads. Based on average train speeds a lot slower than today's, the formula essentially established 100 miles of travel as the basis for a full day's pay. The railroads want to change that base to 160 miles a day, say the change would save them $128 million a year. When Judge Rifkind finished studying the thicket of existing wage practices, he cracked: "Whoever invented that system belongs to the Rube Goldberg Club." Items:
∙An engineer and a fireman traveled the 430-mile round trip from Breckenridge, Minn., to St. Paul, working a total of 9 hr. 20 min.; yet each got 4.3 days' pay—$88.84 for the engineer, $77.45 for the fireman.
∙A passenger-train engineer making the 225-mile run between Washington and New York in four hours was in the terminal three more hours, collected more than $48 — or 21 days' pay.
∙Six two-man engine crews were required to make the 1,044-mile streamliner run from Richmond to Miami. Between them, the crews collected a total of 20.9 days' pay for an 18-hr. 40-min. trip.
∙A yard crew came on duty in Baker, Ore., two hours early to unload cattle for an hour and a half. They then worked their regular shift, getting off an hour early, then came back for another three hours. The gang put in 11½ hours of actual work; yet each man collected 32 hours' pay. To compound the complexity, a yard crew in La Grande, Ore., claimed that they should have been called in to Baker for the extra work. On that basis, each man from La Grande succeeded in collecting three days' pay—figured on the distance he would have traveled to Baker (one day's pay) if he had gone, the day's work he would have done if he had been there, and the distance (one day's pay) he would have traveled home if he had gone to work in Baker.