Word: mcnear
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...Enter McNear. One of the few is big, brash George Plummer McNear Jr., 50, president of the Toledo, Peoria & Western R.R. An individualist to the last ounce of his 200 lb., Railroader McNear has fought the Brotherhood rules for 15 years. But he finally ran into the U.S. Government. After a bloody three-month strike last winter, the U.S. Government kicked him out of office, seized...
...George McNear got into railroading in 1926, when he spied T.P. & W. on the auction block, outbid giant Pennsylvania R.R. by paying $1,300,000 ($130,000 in cash). T.P. & W. hardly seemed a bargain, but it had one big asset: over its 239 miles of track (between Effner, Ind. and Keokuk, Iowa) transcontinental freight can save days by dodging the Chicago terminal bottleneck. McNear got to work and within 45 days the long-bankrupt road was making money. It has made money ever since. Last year it earned a neat $365,000 on $2,775,000 revenue...
...never got on with the Brotherhoods. In 1929, McNear rode a cowcatcher through picket lines, thus broke a strike. In his 1932 annual report he harped: "It is time that eight hours' work be given for eight hours' pay." Late in 1940 he started anew, demanded that the Brotherhoods revise their rules before he considered a 30% wage boost...
...McNear one of the worst union rules is that denning a 100-mile run as a day's work, which it has not been for years. He also hates the Brotherhood-built barriers between road and yard work. Present rules say that if a road crew does ten minutes' yard work, all can claim a full day's yardman's pay besides their road pay. Worse still, the regular yardmen can claim a day's pay on the grounds that they were gypped...
...Proposition. To the Brotherhoods' demands for wage boosts, McNear counter-proposed "a day's work for a day's pay." In cash per envelope, this meant more pay, not less. Engineers would get $13.44 a day v. $11.57 under Brotherhood rules, firemen $10.41 v. $9.46, etc. But because idle "standby" workers would be eliminated, it meant fewer jobs. McNear ran his road with 55 crewmen a day at the very time the Brotherhoods were insisting it took...