Word: brotherhood
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Spirit of '73. As president of the Firemen, Gilbert has been simply a preserver of past union gains. In a speech to a Brotherhood convention two weeks ago, he characteristically called upon the members to confront the crisis of '63 with the "spirit of '73." He meant...
That was the year the Brotherhood was founded. An Erie Railroad fireman was killed in a train wreck, and a railroading friend named Joshua Leach set about taking up a collection for the widow and the children. Leach was so distressed about the plight of the widow, left without funds, that he decided to form a firemen's life insurance association. The eleven original members called themselves Deer Park Lodge No. 1, took oaths and made up secret passwords. From that small beginning grew the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen (engineman is an old-fashioned word for fireman...
Creeping Obsolescence. Both the Brotherhood and the railroads reached their peak in the decade before 1920. Since then the companies have been afflicted with competition from trucking, and the rail unions with creeping obsolescence. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen had 126,000 members in 1920, has only 78,000 today, and if it were not for "work rules" that the railroads want to get rid of, the union's membership would be much smaller...
Firemen & Featherbeds. The railroads want to revoke their 1937 concession to the Firemen's Brotherhood and get rid of the firemen on diesels in freight and yard service. These firemen do no necessary work, the railroads say. Firemen would continue to ride in the cabs of passenger trains to serve as safety lookouts. Some diesel engineers frankly agree that firemen are dispensable. "I don't really need him," says an Ohio engineer, "but he's handy to have around. He gets four hours' sleep and I get four hours' sleep." Another diesel engineer tells...
...their struggle to fend off work-rule changes, the five railroad operating unions have formed a united front, but they have nonetheless fully retained their separate identities. Of the five, the Firemen's Brotherhood is most centrally involved. The other four...