The Union of All Railway Employees.— Though these brotherhoods have much in com mon in organization and purpose there has been rivalry and discord among them, which has proved decidedly detrimental to their best in terests. In 1895 an alliance between the five brotherhoods was formed, providing for the formation of a federated board of adjustment for the consideration of grievances and man agement of strikes. A more centralized federa tion was organized in 1898, but dissolved in 1900, leaving the agreement of 1895 in force. The first attempt to form a union which should unite in one organization all classes of railway employees was the American Railway Union, organized in the early part of 1893 by Eugene Victor Debs. This union lacked the complicated organization of the older brotherhoods, was rad ical and aggressive and met with bitter opposi tion from the older unions. It drew away some of their membership and grew rapidly; before the close of the year it conducted successfully a strike against the Great Northern In 1894 it inaugurated a sympathetic strike in behalf of the Pullman Car Company employees, was defeated and shortly afterward the organ ization dissolved. A later attempt to unite all railway employees is the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees, organized in January 1901, which also resulted in failure.
Lesser Of the smaller or ganizations those which closely resemble the five larger brotherhoods in organization are: (1) The International Brotherhood of Main tenance-of-Way Employees, organized in 1887 as the Brotherhood of Railway Trackmen; its membership includes those employed in track, bridge and building, water supply and fuel de partments and signal and interlocking service; it has a mutual benefit department and the same provisions for preventing strikes and dealing with grievances as the other brotherhoods; the official journal is the Advance Advocate; the membership is about 10,000. (2) The Switch men's Union of North America, organized in 1894, admits to membership those engaged in making up and disposing of trains. It has a beneficiary department, membership in which is compulsory for those physically sound. The
organization is the same as in other brother hoods. The membership in 1914 was 9,800; this is less than it would otherwise be because of the fact that the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, an older and more powerful organi zation, also admits switchmen. The official organ is the Journal of the Switchmen's Union. (3) The Brotherhood of Railway Carmen, or ganized in 1900 by a consolidation of the Brotherhood Car Repairers of North America and the Carmen's Mutual Aid Association. Its membership consists of those who are employed in oiling, repairing, inspecting and cleaning cars; it is a comparatively unimportant organi zation.(4) The National Railways Clerks' Association, organized in 1901, had in 1914 a membership of 5,000 in about 50 locals; it publishes the Official Journal of the N. R. C. A. (5) The International Association of Car Workers, organized in 1901, includes in its membership those employed in the construction and maintenance of all cars; it has no benefit department, but the arrangement for dealing with grievances and strikes by local and gen eral grievance committees; its declaration of principles is conservative, including opposition to prison contract labor and a declaration in favor of reduction of hours of work and com pulsory education. Its official journal is the Car Worker; its membership is over 20,000.
Other railway organizations are the Mechan ical Trackmen, with 4,000 members; the Rail road Freight Handlers, with 3,000 members; Railroad Signalmen, with 11,000 members; Railroad Station Agents, with 11,000 members; Railroad Station Employees, with 4,300 mem bers; Railway Express Messengers, and Rail way Expressmen, and the Street and Electric •Railway Employees, with 54,500. According to the Quarterly Journal of Economics there are about 600,000 members enrolled in the several railroad labor organizations. Consult Review of Reviews May 1917) ' • Quarterly Journal of Economics (passim) and publications of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the United States Department of Labor. Consult also files of the official brotherhood journals mentioned above.