The conductors and trainmen on the Eastern roads were next to move "in
concert" for increased wages. The roads refused and the brotherhoods
decided by a good majority to quit work. This threatened strike
occasioned the passage of the so-called Newlands bill as an amendment to
the Erdman Act, with increased powers to the government in mediation and
with more specified conditions relative to the work of the arbitration
boards chosen for each occasion. Whereupon both sides agreed to submit
to arbitration.
The award allowed an increase in wages of seven percent, or less than
one-half of that demanded, but disallowed a plea made by the men for
uniformity of the wage scales East and West, and denied the demanded
time and a half for overtime. The men accepted but the decision added to
their growing opposition to the principle of arbitration.
Another arbitration case, in 1914, involving the engineers and firemen
on the Western roads led the brotherhoods to come out openly against
arbitration. The award was signed only by the representatives on the
board of the employers and the public.
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