FELA Attorney

Railroads and Unionization - How it Helped in the Early Days

Railroads hold a significant amount of historical importance in the overall development of the United States. The advent of the railroad system, in many ways, connected California to New York and vice versa, and made everything that's made or built in the United States available to everyone else in the country.

However, this convenience and advancement did not come without a price. Thousands of miles of railroads had to be built, and thousands of railroad workers had to not only build the railroads, but also to staff the trains that traversed the United States almost continuously. Needless to say, it was brutally hard work, and it led to countless serious injuries and deaths.

Until 1908, there really was no uniform standard in place legally that protected these railroad workers, and this was an important year for railroad workers' rights, as this was also the year when Congress passed FELA, which stands for Federal Employers Liability Act. This law held the railroads accountable for workers' injuries, and made a huge difference by result in the workers' everyday conditions.

FELA was really the culmination of years of effort to protect these workers, and just one year prior, Congress passed a law that limited the hours that railroad employees could work to 16 hours within every 24 hour time period. Prior to that, railroad workers were quite often literally worked to death.

Perhaps one of the most unknown and under-reported forces that led to these changes for the better for railroad workers was the emergence of the labor union. A look at the history of Chicago railroads, for instance, shows documentation that the first known union was organized in 1856, and its members were master railroad mechanics.

More unions began to surface as the 19th Century progressed, and unions came to the forefront for the first time in 1888, when the railroad engineers union struck for better working conditions, which they received after a heated standoff. This development continued into the 20th Century, at which time laws such as FELA began to gain momentum in Congress and with the federal government in general.

One could legitimately ask where railroads would be today without the influence of unions, and arguments could be made for both sides of the issue. One thing is sure, however - railroad work is still extremely strenuous and sometimes dangerous, and FELA is there for protection. If you've been injured while working on a railroad, you need to contact the FELA attorneys at Williams Kherkher immediately to schedule a free initial consultation.