Editing Railway Labor Act (section)

==Earlier laws==
{{See also|US labor law history}}

In 1877, protests broke out in [[Martinsburg, West Virginia]] when the [[Baltimore and Ohio Railroad]] (B&O) cut worker pay for the third time in a year. West Virginia Governor [[Henry M. Mathews]] sent militia under Colonel [[Charles J. Faulkner]] to restore order but was unsuccessful largely because of militia sympathies with the workers. The governor reluctantly called for federal assistance, which restored peace to Martinsburg but proved to be controversial, with many newspapers critical of the governor's characterization of the strikes as an "insurrection", rather than an act of desperation. One notable paper recorded a striking worker's perspective that he "had might as well die by the bullet as to starve to death by inches." A day after federal troops had restored order in Martinsburg, similar protests erupted in Maryland and spread to New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Missouri. The strikes, which lasted six weeks, would come to be known as the [[Great Railroad Strike of 1877]].<ref name="Bellesiles">{{Cite book |last=Bellesiles |first=Michael A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rf4q5LjLbHIC&pg=PA149 |title=1877: America's Year of Living Violently |date=2010 |publisher=New Press |isbn=978-1-59558-441-0 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://npgallery.nps.gov/pdfhost/docs/NHLS/Text/03001045.pdf |title=The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Martinsburg Shops. National Historic Landmark nomination. |last=Caplinger |first=Michael |date=2003 |pages=40–45}}</ref>

[[United States Congress|Congress]] later passed the Arbitration Act of 1888, which authorized the creation of arbitration panels with the power to investigate the causes of labor disputes and to issue non-binding arbitration awards.<ref>United States. Arbitration Act of 1888, {{USStat|25|501}}. Approved 1888-10-01.</ref> The Act was a complete failure since only one panel was ever convened under the Act: in the case of the 1894 [[Pullman Strike]], it issued its report only after the strike had been ended by a [[United States federal courts|federal court]] [[injunction]], backed by federal troops.

Congress attempted to correct the shortcomings in the [[Erdman Act]], enacted in 1898.<ref>Erdman Act of 1898, June 1, 1898, Ch. 370, {{USStat|30|424}}.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ellingwood |first=A. R. |date=1928 |title=The Railway Labor Act of 1926 |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/253917 |journal=Journal of Political Economy |language=en |volume=36 |issue=1 |pages=53–82 |doi=10.1086/253917 |issn=0022-3808}}</ref> The Erdman Act likewise provided for voluntary arbitration but made any award issued by the panel binding and enforceable in federal court. It also outlawed [[discrimination]] against employees for [[trade union|union]] activities, prohibited "[[yellow-dog contract|yellow dog contracts]]" (in which an employee agreed not to join a union during employment), and required both sides to maintain the status quo during any arbitration proceedings and for three months after an award was issued. The arbitration procedures were rarely used. A successor statute, the [[Newlands Labor Act]] of 1913, which created the Board of Mediation, proved to be more effective.<ref>Newlands Act, July 15, 1913, ch. 6, {{USStat|38|103}}.</ref> It was largely superseded when the federal government [[nationalization|nationalized]] the railroads in 1917, after the US entered [[World War I]]. (See [[United States Railroad Administration]].)

The [[Adamson Act]], enacted in 1916, provided workers with an eight-hour day at the same daily wage they had received previously for a ten-hour day, and it required time-and-a-half pay for overtime work.<ref>Adamson Act, Sept. 3, 5, 1916, ch. 436, {{USStat|39|721}}. {{USC|45|65}} et seq.</ref> Another law enacted that year, amid increasing concerns about the war in Europe, gave US President [[Woodrow Wilson]] the power to "take possession of and assume control of any system of transportation" for transportation of troops and war material.<ref>Army Appropriation Act, {{USStat|39|45}}, August 29, 1916.</ref>

Wilson exercised that authority on December 26, 1917.<ref>Presidential Proclamation 1419, December 26, 1917.</ref> While Congress considered nationalizing the railroads on a permanent basis after the war, the [[Wilson administration]] announced that it was returning the railroad system to its owners. However, Congress tried to preserve, the most successful features of the federal wartime administration, which were the adjustment boards, by creating a [[Railroad Labor Board]] (RLB) with the power to issue nonbinding proposals for the resolution of labor disputes, as part of the [[Esch–Cummins Act]] (Transportation Act of 1920).

The RLB soon destroyed whatever [[moral authority]] its decisions might have had in a series of decisions. In 1921, it ordered a twelve percent reduction in employees' wages, which the railroads were quick to implement.<ref>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Wages of a Million Railway Workers Will Be Cut July 1 |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1921/05/18/98690139.pdf |work=New York Times |date=1921-05-18 |page=1}}</ref> The following year, when shop employees of the railroads launched a [[Great Railroad Strike of 1922|national strike]], the RLB issued a declaration that purported to outlaw the strike, and the [[US Department of Justice]] obtained an injunction that carried out that declaration. From then on, railway unions refused to have anything to do with the RLB.