One hundred years ago:
Section 13: Employees shall not be required to clean out public station latrines.
Who can deny there are benefits to union membership?
Perhaps when labour-management relations become complex enough (after a large organization is partially unionized) it becomes attractive to management to simplify matters by having the remaining employees bargaining collectively as well.
Knowing many railway company executives in history, maybe there was also a nagging feeling that some manager, somewhere, was getting away with treating their employees too well with the Company's profits. (Come late, leave early, take off at noon on Saturdays during the summer.) However, if these conditions made sense in certain circumstances, perhaps they could form part of an employee's non-monetary 'compensation' - leaving the monies saved for reinvestment in plant or for shareholder dividends.
A century ago, this document shows the RAC (not just individual railways) setting the employment conditions and hours of work expectations across a really interesting assortment of railways.
The rules of The Standard Code were often said to be 'written in blood' - reactive to railway accidents causing loss of life, suffering and property losses ...One may wonder what type of sharp or inconsistent labour practices preceded some of the management behaviours prohibited or limited by some of the articles of this contract.
... How did cleaning out public station latrines - across a vast network of wilderness railways having countless small stations with no running water or indoor plumbing - become its own section in this booklet?
... One also wonders who inherited this necessary task.
Other sections which harken back to old railway technologies and processes of the past include:
Section 9 (b) At least 150 cubic feet will be provided for each B&B road gang employee to sleep.
Section 9 (d) Time limits on the man of the gang cooking dinner and supper for the gang.
Section 10 A compensation schedule for employees lighting semaphore, switch and yard limit lamps.
Section 16 Who will hang/remove snow plow tarpaulins from engines.
Section 21 Which employee qualifications are considered to be necessary on a B&B gang.
Page 16 Itemizes all Grand Trunk Railway yards by class.
Page 21 (l) Refers to water treatment and coal hoisting duties.
This collective agreement also demonstrates the complexity of fixing compensation for railway workers whose railway-specific skills are needed intermittently - across a Division which spans several hundred miles.
As just one example: One needs water tank pumps and fires (in winter) maintained, but these facilities are necessary along a railway line - not concentrated at one point where the employee might reside.
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| from: Train Country; MacKay & Perry; 1994; Douglas & McIntyre. |
A track gang in the Fraser Valley on the CNR in 1931.
Eventually, they're going to find out that each member of the B&B road gang is allotted
150 cubic feet of space in their Palace on Rails.
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| from: Engine Houses & Turntables 1850-1950; Edward Forbes Bush; 1990; Boston Mills Press. |
National Transcontinental Railway roundhouse at Cochrane, Ontario, 1915.
Hopefully, shop hands will be available to hang the snow plow tarps when the time comes.
