Pay Boost for 1,225,000

The nation's 1,225,000 railroad workers last week got a pay boost of 4-c- an hour retroactive to Dec. 1, 1952. Though it will cost the railroads about $120 million a year, it was the reason for the raise more than the sum involved that riled their tempers. The reason: increased "productivity" by the rail workers, the first such pay award ever made to them on Government authority.

The award was made by Paul Guthrie economics professor at the University of North Carolina and former member of the Wage Stabilization Board. He had been appointed by Harry Truman last December to settle the long pay haggle between 19 rail unions and 125 eastern, western and southeastern railroads. In his decision, Mediator Guthrie cited no specific ways in which rail workers had increased their productivity, simply held that rail workers are entitled to benefit from the better productivity of the whole U.S. economy. What made the decision even more surprising is the fact that the feather bedding railroad brotherhoods have stubbornly fought all major productivity improvements in their industry (e.g., a superfluous "fireman" is required on all diesel engines; in 1950, federal mediators ruled out demands for a second "fireman").

Actually, said the railroad men, the 4-c- (which will hike the average rail wages to $1.90 an hour) was just another way of granting a flat raise. In agreements with the various brotherhoods in 1951-52, the roads had okayed a 22- 1/2-c--to 37-c--an-hour wage increase. This, said the carriers, more than compensated for any productivity pay given in other industries. Of more long-range importance, Mediator Guthrie's award was bound to have a great effect on all collective bargaining. With the precedent set, there was no reason why any union could not demand productivity raises, whether entitled to them or not, thus destroying the whole value of such raises.

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