Under private management, as was seen, the four
brotherhoods alone, the engineers, firemen, conductors, and trainmen
enjoyed universal recognition, the basic eight-hour day (since 1916),
and high wages. The other organizations of the railway workers, the
shopmen, the yardmen, the maintenance of way men, the clerks, and the
telegraphers were, at best, tolerated rather than recognized. Under the
government administration the eight-hour day was extended to all grades
of workers, and wages were brought up to a minimum of 68 cents per hour,
with a considerable though not corresponding increase in the wages of
the higher grades of labor. All discrimination against union men was
done away with, so that within a year labor organization on the railways
was nearing the hundred percent mark.
The policies of the national railway administration of the open door to
trade unionism and of recognition of union standards were successfully
pressed upon other employments by the National War Labor Board. On March
29, 1918, a National War Labor Conference Board, composed of five
representatives of the Federation of Labor, five representatives of
employers' associations and two joint chairmen, William H.
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