[1][2] At times, it played a prominent role in setting rail transport policy in the U.S., and was party to six U.S. Supreme Court cases.
It disbanded in January 1997, with representation, collective bargaining, and legislative lobbying assumed by the newly formed Rail Division of the AFL–CIO Transportation Trades Department.
[1] The president of the Railway Employes' Department, a division of the American Federation of Labor (AFL; and later the AFL–CIO) was also a member and had a vote.
[5] In 1932, Robertson stepped down to devote more time to his union, and Alexander F. Whitney, President of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, was elected his successor.
[7] Its chief counsel was Donald Richberg, a noted attorney who helped write the Railway Labor Act of 1926.
[8] Over the next several years, it continued to coordinate collective bargaining strategy, and by 1935 the unions had restored the wage cuts incurred in 1932.
The Railway Labor Executives' Association was the primary organization pushing for railroad retirement legislation, which was first enacted in 1934.
[12] During World War II, the RLEA argued that its members were losing significant amounts of pay due to war-time inflation, and nearly went out on strike in the spring of 1942.
[13][14] Later in 1942, the federal Office of Price Administration created a labor policy advisory group on which a representative from the RLEA sat.
The Economic Cooperation Administration wanted private groups to play a greater advisory role in the plan's implementation.
The idea behind the international labor federation was that the unions would be able to play a stronger role in anti-war initiatives.
The IFTU survived as a link to underground trade union freedom-fighter movements during World War II, but dissolved in 1945.
The goal of the American government and the AFL did not change, however; both wanted to end communist dominance of international labor bodies.
[20] In 1948, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters hired attorney Joseph L. Rauh Jr. to help it win disputes with RLEA members over which union had jurisdiction over various types of work on the railroads.
As the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters won more of these disputes, the RLEA was put in a position of either accepting the African American union into its ranks or losing its economic clout vis-a-vis the railroads.
[23] On December 16, 1950, the RLEA joined with the AFL, CIO, International Association of Machinists to form the United Labor Policy Committee.
[24] The committee's goal was to monitor government policy-making to avoid what labor unions perceived was a pro-business policy bias in during World War II.
[35] The Congress of Railway Unions had the same purpose as the RLEA, but generally attempted to be a leaner organization and pursued different policy and collective bargaining goals.
[39] The RLEA bid for Conrail generated intense public debate and discussion, even as other bidders for the railroad emerged.
[52] The Railway Labor Act (as amended) established the National Mediation Board (NMB) to adjudicate collective bargaining disputes between unions and employers in the railroad industry.
In Railway Labor Executives' Association v. National Mediation Board, 29 F.3d 655 (1994, amend'd July 20, 1994), Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for a 2-to-1 majority of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, concluded that the NMB did have the legal authority to adjudicate jurisdictional disputes.
[55] The RLEA disbanded in January 1997, with representation, collective bargaining, and legislative lobbying assumed by the newly formed Rail Division of the AFL–CIO Transportation Trades Department.
[3] The Railway Labor Executives' Association has been party to six cases which were decided by the Supreme Court of the United States.