This Day in Labor History: May 20, 1926. The Railway Labor Act passed Congress. Let's talk about this pioneering labor legislation, largely written by the rail unions, stopped rail strikes. This is what Biden used to stop the rail strike a few years ago and was used just as its authors intended! - ThreadSky

erikloomis.bsky.social • 7 days ago

This Day in Labor History: May 20, 1926. The Railway Labor Act passed Congress. Let's talk about this pioneering labor legislation, largely written by the rail unions, stopped rail strikes. This is what Biden used to stop the rail strike a few years ago and was used just as its authors intended!

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frankclawson.bsky.social•7 days ago

Yes, the act was one of the most important pieces of Labor legislation ever. Biden did what needed to be done. The strike would have brought the country to its knees.

rbeck.bsky.social•7 days ago

📌

daborer.bsky.social•7 days ago

Great thread. I practiced under the Railway Labor Act for 20+ yrs & prefer it to the NLRA for some reasons you mentioned. Best of all, the RLA was not amended by Taft-Hartley, so things like intermittent strikes & sympathy strikes are still legal.

daborer.bsky.social•7 days ago

The biggest flaw is the NMB focus on avoiding strikes has undermined the power of the strike threat at the bargaining table. Decades w/out allowing any strikes has emboldened management; there's little risk to their hard bargaining. I think Tom Kochan's work at MIT touches on this.

daborer.bsky.social•7 days ago

By focusing primarily on avoiding strikes, the NMB has neglected its other mission: assisting the parties in reaching. agreements. When the parties believe the threat of a strike or lockout is real, that provides the impetus for reaching agreements. A few strikes now & then help to keep it real.

erikloomis.bsky.social•7 days ago

From the beginning of the peak period of American industrial strife in 1877, the railroads were the main target.

erikloomis.bsky.social•7 days ago

It was that year when the Great Railroad Strike not only brought workers into the streets, but the general citizenry, furious over the corruption the railroads brought to politics, the noise and smoke, the lack of safety that killed the workers but also killed people just trying to cross the tracks.

erikloomis.bsky.social•7 days ago

That led to President Rutherford B. Hayes calling out the military. After all, not only was the idea of the mass strike anathema to the American elites, but also the railroads were the heart of the nation’s economy.

erikloomis.bsky.social•7 days ago

The equivalent to shutting down the railroads today would be shutting down both the airlines and the trucking industry at the same time. The nation couldn’t move people or goods or mail.

erikloomis.bsky.social•7 days ago

The legitimate concerns workers were had were not taken seriously at the time, so you saw strikes against the railroads time and time again, most notably with Eugene Debs’ American Railway Union launching a sympathy strike for the Pullman workers in 1894.

erikloomis.bsky.social•7 days ago

That again led to President Cleveland and his railroad hack Attorney General Richard Olney calling on the military to serve as a strikebreaking force.

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