Not only should permanent employees be entitled to retain their position during good behavior, but they should also look forward to the continual bettering of their condition. That is, apart from promotion, seniority in the service should carry with it certain rights and privileges. Take the case of conductors, brakemen, engineers, machinists, and the like; there seems to be no reason why length of faithful service should not carry with it a stipulated increase of pay. If conductors, for example, have a regular pay of $100 a month, there seems no good reason why the pay should not increase by steps of $5 with each five years' service, so that when the conductor has been twenty-five years in the service his pay should be increased by one-quarter, or $25 a month. The increase might be more or less. The figures suggested merely illustrate. So also with the engineer, the brakeman, the section-man, the machinist. A certain prospect of increased pay, if a man demeans himself faithfully, is a great incentive to faithful demeanor. This is another fact which it would be well not to lose sight of.

There ought likewise to be connected with every large railroad organization certain funds, contributed partly by the company and partly by the voluntary action of employees, which would provide for hospital service, retiring pensions, sick pensions, and insurance against accident and death. Every man whose name has once been enrolled in the permanent employ of the company should be entitled to the benefit of these funds; and he should be deprived of it only by his own voluntary act, or as the consequence of some misdemeanor proved before a tribunal. At present the railroad companies of this country are under no inducement to establish these mutual insurance societies, or to contribute to them. Their service, in principle at least, is a shifting service; and so long as it is shifting the elaborate organizations which are essential to the safe management of the funds referred to cannot be called into existence. A tie-up, as it might be called, between the companies and their employees is a condition precedent. Were this once effected the rest would follow by steps both natural and easy. For a company like the Union Pacific to contribute $100,000 a year to a hospital fund and retiring pension and insurance associations would be a small matter, if the thing could be so arranged that the permanent employees themselves would contribute a like sum; and permanent employees only would contribute at all. Once let the growth of associations like these begin, and it proceeds with almost startling rapidity. At the end of ten years the accumulated capital on the basis of contribution suggested would probably amount to millions. Every man who was so fortunate as to become a permanent employee of the company would then be assured of provision in case of sickness or disability, and his family would be assured of it in case of his death.

The moment a permanent service was thus established it would also involve further provision of an educational nature. That is, the companies must continually provide a stock of men for the future. Where a boy—the son of an employee—grows up always looking forward to entering the company's service, he becomes to that company very much what a cadet at West Point or Annapolis is to the army or the navy of the United States; the idea of loyalty to the company and of pride in its service grows up with him. Railroad educational institutions of this sort have already been created by at least one corporation in the country, and they should be created by all railroad corporations of the first class. The children of employees would naturally go into these schools, and the best of them would at the proper age be sent out upon the road to take their places in the shops, on the track, or at the brake. From those thus educated the higher positions in the company would thereafter be filled. The cost of maintaining these schools, at least in part, would become a regular item in the operating expenses of the road. Properly handled, a vast economy would be effected through them. The morale of the service would gradually be raised, and the morale of a railroad is, if properly viewed, no less important than the morale of an army or navy. It is invaluable.

But it is futile to suppose that such a service as that outlined could be organized, in America at least, unless those concerned in it were allowed a voice in its management. Practically the most important feature of the whole is therefore yet to be considered. How is the employee to be assured a voice in the management of these joint interests, without bringing about demoralization? No one has yet had the courage to face this question; and yet it is a question which must be faced if a solution of existing difficulties is to be found. If the employees contribute to the insurance and other funds, it is right that they should have a voice in the management of those funds. If an employee holds his situation during good behavior, he has a right to be heard in the organization of the board which, in case of his suspension for alleged cause, is to pass upon his behavior. No system will succeed which does not recognize these rights. In other words, it will be impossible to establish perfectly good faith and the highest morale in the service of the companies until the problem of giving this voice to employees, and giving it effectively, is solved. It can be solved in but one way: that is, by representation. To solve it may mean industrial peace.

It is, of course, impossible to dispose of these difficult matters in town-meeting. Nevertheless, the town-meeting must be at the base of any successful plan for disposing of them. The end in view is to bring the employer—who in this case is the company, represented by its president and board of directors—and the employees into direct and immediate contact through a representative system. When thus brought into direct and immediate contact, the parties must arrive at results through the usual method: that is, by discussion and rational agreement. It has already been noticed that the operating department of a great railroad company naturally subdivides itself into those concerned in the train movement, those concerned in the care of the permanent way, and those concerned in the work of the mechanical department. It would seem proper, therefore, that a council of employees should be formed, of such a number as might be agreed on, containing representatives from each of these departments. In order to make an effective representation, the council would have to be a large body. For present purposes, and for the sake of illustration merely, it might be supposed that, in the case of the Union Pacific, each department in a division of the road would elect its own members of the employees' council. There are five of these divisions and three departments in every division. The operating-men, the yard and section-men, and the machinists of the division would, therefore, under this arrangement choose a given number of representatives. If one such representative was chosen to each hundred employees in the permanent service those thus selected would constitute a division council. To perfect the organization, without disturbing the necessary work of the company, each of these division councils would then select certain (say, for example, three) of their number, representing the mechanical, the operating, and the permanent way departments, and these delegates from each of the departments would, at certain periods of the year, to be provided for by the articles of organization, all meet together at the head-quarters of the company in Omaha. The central council, under the system here suggested, would consist of fifteen men; that is, one representing each of the three departments of the five several divisions. These fifteen men would represent the employees. It would be for them to select a board of delegates, or small executive committee, to confer directly with the president and board of directors. Here would be found the organization through which the voice of the employees would make itself heard and felt in matters which directly affect the rights of employees, including the appointment of a tribunal to pass upon cases of misdemeanor, and the management of all institutions, whether financial or educational, to which the employees had contributed and in which they had a consequent interest.

There is no reason whatever for supposing that, within the limits which have been indicated, such an organization would lead to difficulty. On the contrary, where it did not remove a difficulty it might readily be made to open a way out of it. The employees, feeling that they too had rights which the company frankly recognized and was bound to respect, would in all cases of agitation proceed through the regular machinery, which brought them into easy and direct contact with the highest authority in the company's service. They would not, therefore, be driven into outside organizations. Meanwhile, on the other hand, the highest officers of the company, including the president and the board of directors, would be brought into immediate relations with the representatives of the employees on terms of equality. Each would have an equal voice in the management of common interests; and it would only remain to make provision for arriving at a solution of questions in case of deadlock. This would naturally be done by the appointment of a permanent arbitrator, who would be selected in advance.

The organization suggested includes, it will be remembered, only those employees whose names are on the permanent rolls of the operating department. For reasons which have been sufficiently referred to, those whose names are on the rolls of the other four departments have not been considered. But there would be no difficulty in making provision for them also, should it be found expedient or desirable so to do. Through the system of representation the organization could in fact be made to include every employee in the permanent service of the company, not excepting the president, the general manager, or the general counsel. Each employee included would have one vote, and each division and department its representatives. The organization in other words is elastic. No matter how large it might be it would never become unwieldy so long as it resulted in the small committee which met in direct conference face to face with the board of directors.

Could such a system as that which has been suggested be devised and put in practical operation there is reason to hope that the difficulties which have hitherto occurred between the great railroad companies and those in their pay would not occur in future. The movement is the natural and necessary outcome of the vast development referred to in the opening paragraphs of this paper. It is based on a simple recognition of acknowledged facts, and follows the lines of action with which the people of this country are most familiar. The path indicated is that in which for centuries they have been accustomed to tread. It has led them out of many difficulties. Why not out of this difficulty?

FOOTNOTES:

[31] Note.—The following paper was prepared for a special purpose in June, 1886, and then submitted to several of the leading officials directly engaged in the local management of the lines operated by the Union Pacific Railway Company, of which the writer had been president for two years. It drew forth from them various criticisms, which led to the belief that the publication of the paper at that time might easily result in more harm than good. It was accordingly laid aside, and no use made of it.