With the rapid growth and consolidation of large railroad systems after 1870, union organizations sprang up, covering the entire nation.
[2] Their main goal was building insurance and medical packages for their members, and negotiating bureaucratic work rules that favored their membership, such as seniority and grievance procedures.
They consolidated their power in 1916, after threatening a national strike, by securing the Adamson Act, a federal law that provided 10 hours' pay for an eight-hour day.
In 1926 the Railway Labor Executives' Association was founded as a federation of a number of the brotherhoods with the purpose of acting as a legislative lobbying and policy advisory body.
The Railway Labor Executives' Association disbanded in January 1997, with its functions taken on by the Rail Division of the AFL–CIO Transportation Trades Department.