History
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers was North America's oldest rail labor union when it merged with the Teamsters in 2004. It had members in the eastern half of the United States and parts of Canada. Conductors were able to enter, but the union was not specialized to deal with their issues.
The BLE was the first of the "Big Four" of railroad worker brotherhoods:
- Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (BLE, 1864), organized as Brotherhood of the Footboard in 1863.
- Order of Railway Conductors (ORC, 1868).
- Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen (BLF, 1873), later the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen (BLFE, 1904).
- Brotherhood of Railroad Brakemen, (1883), later the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen (BRT).
In 1969, all except the BLE joined with the Switchmen's Union to become the United Transportation Union (UTU).
In the era after the founding of the Big Four, some sixteen other "brotherhoods" of railroad trades organized. Membership qualifications across trades shifted, and the alliances among the brotherhoods (and their chapters) are not always clear.
After 1877, the BLE was considered less militant than some other brotherhoods, as well as the Knights of Labor and the American Railway Union.
Read more about this topic: Brotherhood Of Locomotive Engineers And Trainmen
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—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)