The conditions under which trainmen worked were far from
satisfactory. At that time, in the Eastern field, the pay of a
brakeman was between $1.50 and $2 a day in the freight service,
$45 a month in the passenger service, and $50 a month for yard
service. In the Southern territory, the wages were very much
lower and in the Western about $5 per month higher. The runs in
the different sections of the country were not equalized; there
was no limit to the number of hours called a day's work; overtime
and preparatory time were not counted in; and there were many
complaints of arbitrary treatment of trainmen by their superiors.
Wilkinson set to work to remedy the wage situation first. Almost
at once he brought about the adoption of the principle of
collective bargaining for trainmen and yardmen. By 1895, when he
relinquished his office, the majority of the railways in the
United States and Canada had working agreements with their train
and yard service men. Wages had been raised, twelve hours or less
and one hundred miles or less became recognized as a daily
measure of service, and overtime was paid extra.
The panic of 1893 hit the railway service very hard. There
followed many strikes engineered by the American Railway Union, a
radical organization which carried its ideas of violence so far
that it wrecked not only itself but brought the newer and
conservative Brotherhoods to the verge of ruin. It was during
this period of strain that, in 1895, P.
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