#railway workers

[muddyoveralls90]

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Inasmuch as white workers and white managers thought little of black railroaders, West Indian, African American, and Canadian-born black railwaymen envisioned their position on the rails quite differently. Black railroaders understood white workers’ growing hostility and sensed the nation’s agitation over their presence. In the spring of 1917, Winnipeg-based porters John A. Robinson, J. W. Barber, B. F. Jones, and P. White began meeting secretly to discuss the possibility of unionization among black railroaders. Robinson, who came to Canada from St. Kitts to work on the CPR in 1909, led the charge. If black railwaymen were to survive the Great War, he resolved that they needed protection. The men carefully weighed their options. White union men had made clear that they would not accept black workers into their brotherhood. Their white-only membership clause and open animosity affirmed it daily.

Though African American sleeping car porters were likely contemplating the value of railway unionization, no such organization yet existed at the time. Accordingly, Robinson and his allies discussed the possibility of forming a union for Canadian sleeping car porters. These clandestine meetings, held in an aging building just a stone’s throw from Winnipeg’s looming CPR station, changed the course of railway unionism in Canada. In April 1917, John A. Robinson and his co-workers chartered the Order of Sleeping Car Porters (OSCP) — one of the earliest black railway unions in North America—and spread politicized trade union radicalism across Canada. Within two years of its inauguration, the OSCP negotiated successful contracts for all sleeping car porters —black as well as white—on the Canadian Northern and Grand Trunk railways. By the end of the decade, Robinson emerged as the champion of black railway unionism in Canada. His two-fisted approach to Jim Crow on Canadian rails simultaneously fought segregation at work and in Canadian trade unionism.

Black railwaymen in the Order of Sleeping Car Porters targeted white trade unionists, holding union leaders to their rhetoric of working-class solidarity. ... Insofar as sleeping car porters from across Canada joined in the battle against Jim Crow unionization in the CBRE (Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Employees), it demonstrates that the OSCP’s following was indeed national. John A. Robinson’s crusade against the largest and most powerful railway trade union of its time gave bite to his young union, establishing black railroaders as principled and astute trade unionists who insisted that white supremacy disparaged the cause of organized labor for all workers.

The Great War served as a catalyst for black insurgency, especially among sleeping car porters. Emboldened by their union and with little else to lose having witnessed the slow encroachment of Jim Crow ideology in the federal bureaucracy, employment policy, and trade unionism, sleeping car porters in Canada became the chief political advocates for their communities. Together with the clergy and black press, black railwaymen protested violations of African Canadians’ civil rights, particularly when Jim Crow fixed limitations on their citizenship."

- Sarah-Jane Mathieu, North of the Color Line: Migration and Black Resistance in Canada, 1870-1955 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 96-98

[politijohn]

Railway workers: "sick days pls or we'll strike"

CNN: "is a strike worth it? the holidays are just around the corner. think about the economy! now joining us live is the Bank of America CEO to weigh in"

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Rail workers union launches legal challenge to binding arbitration order | Globalnews.ca

The Teamsters union challenged directives for binding arbitration issued to a labour board by federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon last

The union representing thousands of railroaders has appealed the moves that ended the rail shutdown last week — a work stoppage that halted freight and commuter traffic across the country. In filings to the Federal Court of Appeal, the Teamsters union challenged directives for binding arbitration issued to a labour board by federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon last week, less than a day after the lockout of 9,300 workers by Canadian National Railway Co. and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. In response to MacKinnon’s instructions, the Canada Industrial Relations Board ordered the country’s two major railways to resume operations and employees to return to their posts until binding arbitration could produce new contracts.

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Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[yearningforunity]

Railroad workers. Port Barre, Louisiana. 1938

Photo: Russell Lee

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

General strike?

What are we saying the threshold for a general strike is? The famous general strike in 1926 was 1.7 million workers (yes, smaller population, etc etc).

So when can we call it a general strike?

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[redarmyscreaming]

Württemberger Rail troops, 1914.