Page:Fagan (1908) Confessions of a railroad signalman.djvu/131

Rh is the nature of the treatment that the employee himself, with his eyes wide open and his wits about him, is willing to give to the management and to the public, when he has the power and the opportunity to work in a little legislation for himself? For illustration, let us take what is commonly called the “Bumping Process.” Of course no management in its right mind would ever originate or put into service any such suicidal arrangement. From beginning to end it is a ludicrous, at times a pathetic, commentary on the seniority rule. It works somewhat in this way:—

On account of slack business, a crew consisting of a conductor and two or three men is relieved from duty. The conductor immediately looks over his list and picks out another job to his liking, the holder of which happens to be his junior in the service. The man who is thus turned out does the same to some one else, and meanwhile the discharged brakemen have been “bumping” other brakemen. So it goes on from one end of the division to the other, until some twenty or thirty men have been “bumped” out of their accustomed and hard-earned places. Finally, three or four of the youngest employees are bumped into space, at the end of the string, and the “bumping” ceases for lack of material. The management has had absolutely nothing to do with the affair; it can protect neither its own