Page:William Zebulon Foster - The Railroaders' Next Step, Amalgamation (1922).djvu/28

Rh of N. A.), Telegraphers (O. R. T.), Clerks (B. of R. & S. C. F. H. E. & S. E.), Signalmen (B. of R. S. of A.), Stationary Firemen (I. B. of S. F. & O.), Maintenance of Way (U. B. M. W. & R. S. L.), Machinists (I. A. of M.), Blacksmiths (I. B. of B. & H.), Boilermakers (L B. I. S. B. & H. of A.), Carmen (B. R. C of A.), Electrical Workers (L B. E. W.), and Sheet Metal Workers (A. S. M. W. L A.). In order that we may understand the coming together process that has developed these craft unions and the alliances between them, and so* we will have a guide for future progress, it will pay us to review some of the details of the evolution. We will consider the sixteen principal unions in their three natural divisions of transportation, miscellaneous, and shop, beginning with the transportation section.

Originally the five unions actually engaged in the direct moving of passengers and freight, the Engineers, Firemen, Conductors, Trainmen, and Switchmen, like all the other railroad trade unions, followed a policy of individual action. That is, each craft group fought its own battles, regardless of the interests of the others. When one struck the rest stayed at work, with the natural result that much bitterness prevailed among them. This was intensified by raging jurisdictional wars and mutual scabbery. The general result was to seriously weaken them all and to make them pay dearly, through many lost strikes, for their lack of solidarity.

The evolution of the transportation unions, like all others, is to be measured chiefly by the extension and solidification of their fighting front against the employers. The first fighting unit used by the transportation unions consisted simply of the few workers in a single trade employed in only one town of a railroad system. For example, the conductors working out of a certain division town would negotiate an agreement with the company. Thus