Page:William Ernst Trautmann - Industrial Unionism (1908).djvu/22

working crew have expired a change of shifts becomes necessary. If no other crew is there, the first refuses to work overtime. An embarrassing delay of trains may thus be caused, congestion of traffic increases and becomes more complicated and demoralized the longer these rules are obeyed in practice. Finally, the switches cannot be used because trains are crowded in from all directions. Other trains are compelled to lay over at small stations, as signals show continually a blocked road. No wonder that one government official exclaimed: "If the railroaders would continue to obey the rules by the letter for only. two weeks, we would be in the turmoil of a revolution proper."

But the railroad workers may not desire to bring about a suspension of industrial activity altogether; not yet. During the Austrian strike in 1907 they forced all North Bohemian coal mines to close down, because coal could not be transported; but it was not the intention to win the battle at the expense of other workers, when not absolutely needed. So they agreed not to block trains carrying workingmen to and from their working places; milk trains and others carrying foodstuffs and provisions to industrial centers were given "clear road" "in violation of the rules."

It is a known fact that the railroaders in Italy won twice their "passive strikes"; so also in Switzerland, and the last "passive strike"