Railroaders' Nostalgia > History of the BLET?

Is there a book on the history of the BLET? I haven't been able to find one that is substantial (as in, more than a few dozen pages.)

I'm asking because I've seen a BLET proposal to switch to hourly pay at CSX and to understand the true implications of that, I need to know the history. I can't even say I yet understand how the current pay system works with assignments and pools, but I would wonder how long it has been in place, and what railroads did before it. Were robber barons paying hourly? Just the things I need a history book for. Thanks for any suggestions.

> I'm asking because I've seen a BLET proposal to switch to hourly pay at CSX and to understand the true implications of that, I need to know the history. I can't even say I yet understand how the current pay system works with assignments and pools,

Until the changes in the late 1880s-early 1990s, it was a piecework/time system. The piecework was tip-oriented with so many miles recognized as a day's work, which was expressed as "miles (per hour)", and served to encourage the crews to get over the road so they could start another trip. The time rate kicked in with overtime and/or terminal delay, which were incentives on the company to get the train moving.

Until the 1980s-1990s the basic day was 100 miles, but the changes have gradually raised this number.

Switching jobs were straight hourly (at a slightly higher rate of pay) shift work. Road jobs and brakeman's locals, which also were paid by the mile, weren't shift work.

>but I would wonder how long it has been in place, and what railroads did before it. Were robber barons paying hourly? Just the things I need a history book for. Thanks for any suggestions.

Try a google search for BLE, BLF&E, BRT, ORC, etc. monthly magazines.

In my opinion, it boils down to money vs. (work) rules.

An hourly-style agreement (a CN-style agreement, I'm assuming, since Hunter Harrison is at CSX) will pay the employee lots of money, but there will be very few work rules. A traditional-style agreement (paid by miles run and hours) will generally pay less, but there are more work rules that benefit the employee.

That's my take on it based on discussions with railroaders who work under that style of agreement. I work under a yard agreement (so I'm paid hourly), so I don't have any first-hand experience on it.

Thanks for the comments explaining things, that gives me a better understanding. If I were a railroader I would be extremely leery of giving up work rules for higher pay, as I would expect management to viciously exploit that to the fullest. A substantial amount of what I know of rail labor history is from stories or anecdotes posted here, often in this section, and I'm always amazed at the viciousness in some of the past actions of the railroads. But I'm just trying to find if there is a history book published where someone really dug in and spent years putting it together. There seem to be certain moments where the BLET and UTU leadership were also confronting each other (1985 Halloween agreement) and because of that I wonder if there is historian who could objectively present those moments based on their research.

The BLET themselves published a book on their history. It was last updated in 2013 and is around 80 pages long. Only thing I can find online about it is an old eBay listing for one.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/The-History-of-the-BLET-Book-With-Keychain-/201816012857?nma=true&si=FWOC8ITvR%252FA%252FWDCIzthAU0McYog%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

>There seem to be certain moments where the BLET and UTU leadership were also confronting each other (1985 Halloween agreement) and because of that I wonder if there is historian who could objectively present those moments based on their research.

The BLE/trainmen confrontationalism is as old as railroading itself, and management has always played one craft off against the other. Look around for a copy of Almont Lindsey's "The Pullman Strike". While not about specifically about working conditions on the RR, it gives a good impression of labor relations of the time. Also look for something abut the Johnstown strike on the PRR in the late 1870s. Start here: explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-1C1

My career was with KaiserPermanente Foundation Hospitals and Health Plan-- its origins were in Henry Kaiser construction and shipbuilding industries which were heavily unionized-- when Henry agreed to the union demands to keep the health plan fir its employees after the war, the union influence continued and remains to this day. We have 7 bargaining units at my San Jose medical center, in Fontana, the nurses at the hospital belonged to the steelworkers union. the lab and X-ray peoplle belong to a maritime union CAMLT whose name escapes me right now.
C

Carol Voss
Bakersfield, CA



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/21/17 21:25 by CarolVoss.

Thanks for the additional recommendations, I will be looking into them.

EtoinShrdlu Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >There seem to be certain moments where the BLET
> and UTU leadership were also confronting each
> other (1985 Halloween agreement) and because of
> that I wonder if there is historian who could
> objectively present those moments based on their
> research.
>
> The BLE/trainmen confrontationalism is as old as
> railroading itself, and management has always
> played one craft off against the other. Look
> around for a copy of Almont Lindsey's "The Pullman
> Strike". While not about specifically about
> working conditions on the RR, it gives a good
> impression of labor relations of the time. Also
> look for something abut the Johnstown strike on
> the PRR in the late 1870s. Start here:
> explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-1C1

The strike to which you are referring is the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. This was a national railroad strike. The marker is located in Pittsburgh where there was a major conflagration. Several books have been written about this strike.

Posted from iPhone

Ive got one of the books some where , not sure where i put it though

---

If the BLET doesn't have any, check with the Railroaders' Memorial Museum gift shop or the one at RR Museum of PA. If you're interested in older material (pre-1928 copyrights) and you can read on an electronic device, Project Gutenberg has a wealth of railroad and union material.

Rebecca Morgan
Jacobsburg, OH

OHCR1551 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If the BLET doesn't have any, check with the
> Railroaders' Memorial Museum gift shop.

I have been to the Railroaders Memorial Museum gift shop many, many times. Although it sells railroad books, I have never seen any books about railroad labor history. An ironic and sad oversight given the museum's name.

Posted from iPhone



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/23/17 13:11 by RuleG.

I think the original poster was wondering how the miles plus terminal detention and arbitrary awards method of pay came about.

My understanding is that the traditional method of pay for operating employees and many of the work rules were part of the "MacAdoo Award".

Mr.MacAdoo was appointed by US President Woodrow Wilson to create a standard method of pay for all the railroads included in the USRA. MacAdoo was a railroad executive himself. Even after the USRA was disbanded, the railroads and their employees chose to retain the MacAdoo Award as the framework for pay, job classifications and work rules.

Curiously, the method of pay and work rules created by the Award are unique to North America.

The award has been greatly modified, and some railroads have gone to an hourly system of pay.

Because the award is a century old, many portions of it have been subject to changes bought about either by collective bargaining or arbitration or mediation.

All this leads to the question? What was the method of pay before the award? I'm guessing that the award was based on a method of pay from a certain railroad. The railroad network was built in the 1870's through the 1890's, and the MacAdoo award was almost three decades later.

Because the Award was a US Government document, I assume copies of it and the evidence collected to justify it are a matter a legal record available from the national archives.

One of the big issues which bought about unionization and strikes in the late 1800's was the reduction of wages when profits declined. Another issue was pay differentials between jobs of equal value.

The railroad workforce in the 1800's was nomadic, the operating employees moved from railroad to railroad seeking higher wages and better working conditions.

In Canada, the Canadian Pacific actively raided the Intercolonial Railway in Canada and the Northern Pacific in the US for qualified engine crews.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/27/17 21:50 by eminence_grise.

eminence_grise Wrote:
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> Mr.MacAdoo was appointed by US President Woodrow Wilson to create a standard method of pay for all
> the railroads included in the USRA. MacAdoo was a railroad executive himself. Even after the USRA
> was disbanded, the railroads and their employees chose to retain the MacAdoo Award as the framework
> for pay, job classifications and work rules.

William Gibbs McAdoo was appointed Director General of the U.S. Railroad Administration by President Wilson when the government temporarily nationalized the U.S. railroads during the First World War. His prior railroad experience was with the Hudson and Manhattan tubes (today's PATH system) and brief ownership of a municipal streetcar system in the 1890s. McAdoo was also Secretary of the Treasury and the President's son-in-law. After marrying the President's daughter, he offered to resign, but Wilson retained him at Treasury to oversee establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank system.

As Director General of Railroads, he issued several "General Orders" dealing with labor issues. I have not been able to find the text of these orders online. There is, however, an online copy on Google Books of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen's 596-page book titled "General Wage and Rule Agreements, Decisions, Awards and Orders Governing Employes Engaged in Engine Service on Railroads in the United States, 1907-1941" from the Northwestern University Transportation Center Library. That would include both the pre-USRA, USRA and post-USRA periods. The wikipedia article on the Railway Labor Act of 1926 is also quite informative regarding prior legislation, such as the Adamson Act of 1916 that established the 8-hour day (with 10 hours' pay) and the principle of a 50% premium for overtime, standards that weren't applied to the rest of the economy until passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act during the Great Depression.

As a loyal member of the BLE(&T) for many years, I would nevertheless warn potential readers of The History of the BLET that it is an autobiography of sorts, and is intended to promote the union in the best possible light. I have no problem with this - it is merely something to take into account.

EO

hogheaded Wrote:
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> As a loyal member of the BLE(&T) for many years, I
> would nevertheless warn potential readers of The
> History of the BLET that it is an autobiography of
> sorts, and is intended to promote the union in the
> best possible light. I have no problem with this -
> it is merely something to take into account.
>
> EO

Sadly, often the only account of labor history are the "autobiography" style histories written by members of the organizations.

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen & Engineers had an interesting history, but was absorbed into the United Transportation Union in the 1970's.

Some of the early or more radical unions did not survive into the 20th Century.

The "Knights of Labor" were a fraternal organization which represented many tradespeople including railroaders in the 1860's. Perhaps their power was that they were dealing with managers who were often Freemasons, who may have had some sympathy for workers involved in similar "lodges". The collapse of the KOL bought about many of the early BLE and BLF&E organizations.

Thanks for the additional context. What I'm really dealing with is the gap between a substantial amount of history and literature present from the earlier years of the railroads, vs. a near silence on the post-WWII era in published history and literature. I looked at a large library and if there were 50 books in a mostly flattering light about the rail barons, there were a handful about the early union days, and nothing about the contemporary times. The best I could do was check out memoirs from engineers and other operating employees, as looking through them would get me some mention of the real issues. I also checked out "The Men Who Loved Trains" and decided it was garbage after about 40 pages.

There's a huge amount of recent labour history that has ended up in the incinerator or landfill.

On a big scale, the McCarthy era saw many unions wishing to distance themselves from a radical past.

I've only read sketchy accounts of the whole Screen Actors Guild and Ronald Reagan's involvement. Some of the movie industry people that were blacklisted by Hollywood moved to Canada and Europe. Were they communists? They say not, merely progressives.

Most of the railroad unions were craft unions formed in the US and steered clear of politics, beyond supporting political candidates of their choice.

One transportation union with an interesting history is the Transport Workers Union, which represents subway workers in New York City.

It is a direct spinoff of the Transport & General Workers Union in the UK and Ireland. So many streetcar and subway workers in New York City in the late 1800's were Irish immigrants that they chose a union they trusted. Also, the TGWU was trusted by Catholics, where the other trade and craft unions of the era had links to Protestants and Freemasonry.

After the Easter uprising in Dublin, the TWU was accused of bankrolling the IRA. Two of the leaders of the uprising were TGWU members and Larkin spent time in America seeking support for Irish independence

After a period of time, the Irish were outnumbered by other races and ethnicities in the TWU, and the Irish American leader of the union John Quill was replaced.