A Receiver Wants to Cut Streetcar Wages; a Judge Says Not Below $2 a Day
The Seattle Consolidated Railway, in receivership, asks the federal court to trim motormen's and conductors' pay from 20 to 17½ cents an hour.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
An application was made to Judge Hanford in the United States court yesterday to reduce the wages of the conductors and motormen on the Seattle Consolidated Railway lines and on the Rainier Power & Railway lines from 20 to 17½ cents an hour. These lines are in the hands of a receiver, M. F. Backus, who, through his attorneys, made oral application for permission to reduce the wages. Judge Hanford asked that a statement of facts, agreed to by the attorneys for the receiver and the men, be filed for his guidance in determining the case, which will come up for consideration today. The judge intimated that he would not cut the wages of the men to less than $2 per day.
“The judge intimated that he would not cut the wages of the men to less than $2 per day.”
When a streetcar system slid into receivership, the first lever pulled was worker pay — and it took a federal judge to hold a floor under it. The pattern is uncannily familiar: cost-cutting on the backs of front-line workers, with the courts as the only backstop. Seattle's transit workers still bargain over wages while the system's finances swing with the region's fortunes.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.