Professor Lauds Rails Settlement

An eminent labor relations expert last night hailed President Johnson's "masterful handling" of the railroad situation and said there were "no smacks at all of a deal" in the President's promise to review the railroads' tax grievances.

James J. Healy, professor of Industrial Relations, called Wednesday morning's decision to air the railroad claims of unfair tax treatment "quite logical" in the view of the costs the new contract would mean for the companies.

He emphasized that the President had promised only to review the complaints, not to grant any outright concessions. Secretary of the Treasury Dillon will meet in the near future with representatives of the railroads to discuss the grievances, which center around depreciation allowances permitted on tunnels and grading.

Healy, who served on the arbitration panel established by Congress to resolve the issues of crew size and firemen, said that johnson's intervention and personal attention "almost on a hourly basis" had brought about the first true bargaining between railroads and unions since the dispute began nearly five years ago.

Terms Not Dictated

But, while the president "almost knocked heads together" to get the railroads and the unions to bargain together, "at no point, from what I have heard, did the Administration attempt to dictate terms of an agreement," he said.

"I think President Johnson has made it quite clear that the government will extend every pressure at its disposal on the parties before turning to compulsory arbitration."

This emphasis, Healy said, should encourage private negotiation because it refutes a growing tendency to think that the executive would rather turn to the Congress than have a national strike.