The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen (B of LF&E) was a North American railroad fraternal benefit society and trade union in the 19th and 20th centuries. The organization began in 1873 as the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen (B of LF), a mutual benefit society for workers employed as firemen for steam locomotives, before expanding its name in 1907 in acknowledgement that many of its members had been promoted to the job of railroad engineer. Gradually taking on the functions of a trade union over time, in 1969 the B of LF&E merged with three other railway labor organizations to form the United Transportation Union.
Organizational history Background
Early railway transportation relied upon steam engines to power railway locomotives—large coal-fired boilers which generated motive power through the manipulation of concentrated steam. These boilers required a regular input of fuel to keep the train fired up and running. It was the task of so-called locomotive firemen to shovel coal into a train engine's firebox through a narrow opening, thereby feeding the fire.Paul Michel Taillon, Good, Reliable, White Men: Railroad Brotherhoods, 1877-1917. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009; p. 18.
The job of a locomotive fireman was physically demanding—strenuous, filthy and dangerous. Although by no means a highly skilled task, locomotive firemen nevertheless needed to develop not only physical prowess, moving heavy coal on a swaying platform, but also a certain job savvy, estimating the engine's burn rate and future fuel needs, making sure that water was continuously in the boiler to avoid an explosion and ensuring that coal was sufficiently and properly spread in the firebox to ensure the locomotive's efficient operation.
A locomotive's fireman worked in a tandem with the train's engineer, serving in a subordinate role as his assistant. Firemen were in practice often engineers-in-training, learning the skills of train operation and assisting the engineer with the observation of signals and other routine aspects of his job performance, waiting for a job opportunity for promotion.
Locomotive firemen were consequently lower paid and of lower status than the highly paid railroad engineers—although both of these were actually subordinate to the train's conductor. It was the conductor, not the locomotive engineer, who was most comparable to the captain of a ship. The conductor oversaw the crew and assigned them their mission, made sure the train ran on schedule, inspected car couplings, arranged for the train to maintain adequate supplies, collected passenger fares and supervised the train's freight documentation. Conductors acted as both supervisors and traveling clerks and were in practice the figures of the highest authority on a train.Taillon, Good, Reliable, White Men, pg. 19. Locomotive fireman generally received but half the salary of a conductor or engineer and shared in none of their authority.
Despite the hard nature of the work process, their low professional status and their mediocre pay, locomotive firemen performed very dangerous jobs. Boiler explosions and other railway accidents made railroad work among the most deadly in the United States at the end of the 19th century, with an annual fatality rate in the early 1890s of approximately 9 per 1,000 workers—higher even than the 7.8 per 1,000 fatality rate suffered by hard rock miners in the Western United States.Taillon, Good, Reliable, White Men, p. 21. Non-fatal workplace accidents were also endemic among railroad workers, with one study by the Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics determining that railroad workers suffered more than half the broken arms and ribs and 71 percent of all arms and legs amputated as the result of mishaps on the job.
During the 19th century, occupational safety regulation was non-existent in the United States as were the social benefits of the welfare state for employees injured on the job or the families of workers who suffered fatal accidents.Taillon, Good, Reliable, White Men, p. 40. As a result, workers themselves endeavored to form fraternal organizations among their peers for the purposes of insurance and the payment of benefits for death or disability suffered on the job. Some of these organizations were based upon religion or ethnicity, while others were occupational in nature. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen—later known as the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen—was one such organization.
Establishment
It was the engineers who pioneered occupational fraternal benefit organization in the railroad industry, with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers launching a charity called the Widows', Orphans', and Disabled Members' Fund in 1866.Taillon, Good, Reliable, White Men, p. 42. That organization went on to expand its benefits package through the establishment of a formal life insurance package via the Locomotive Engineers' Mutual Life Insurance Association in 1867. Conductors followed by establishing their own fraternal order in 1868.
Five years later came the locomotive firemen's turn to establish a fraternal benefits society of their own. This organization, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen (B of LF) was founded on December 1, 1873 in Port Jervis, New York by Joshua A. Leach and 10 other Erie Railroad firemen. These men had recently been forced to pass on the news of the fatal accident in a wreck of fellow fireman George Page to his grieving widow the previous month and decided to establish a mutual benefit society for those employed in the locomotive firemen's trade.D.B. Robertson, "Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen: A Brief Narrative Telling the Story of the Founding of the Institution and a Brief Historical Outline of Its Growth and Development...," in Fiftieth Anniversary B of LF&E, 1873-1923. [n.c. (Cleveland?)]: Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, 1923; p. 7. Other lodges soon followed and within a year there were a dozen functioning local groups scattered about the states of New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana. These met in convention in 1874 and adopted a first constitution for the organization and established a subsidiary institution called the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen's Life Insurance Association of the United States.
Indeed, the main practical purpose of the organization was its utility as a mutual insurance association, with each member to receive death benefit coverage of 50 cents per member up to a maximum of $1,000 for loss of life on the job.F.P. Sargent, "A Short History of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen," in Carroll D. Wright (ed.), Fifth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1889: Railroad Labor. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1890; pp. 40–41. A second optional fund provided for disability benefits. In 1881, the death benefit was pegged at a fixed level of $1,000 in 1883, with no more than 3 settlements per month to be paid, with premiums set at 50 cents per month per member. Total disability through loss of an arm, leg, or eyesight on the job was to be treated the same as loss of life under the revised system.
In 1884, benefits were expanded, with the death benefit raised to $1,500. By February 1889, a total of $1.35 million had been paid out in benefits by the B of LF. A total of 18,000 locomotive firemen were members of the organization at that date.
As a general rule in the B of LF and the other similar railroad brotherhoods, death and permanent disability benefits were administered by the national organization while local lodges handled sickness and accident insurance through a separate fund, raised and disbursed independently of the national organization.Taillon, Good, Reliable, White Men, p. 44. During the decade of the 1880s, such a local assessment might amount to 50 cents per member per month. Local units also saw to the emotional support of ill or injured members, with committees visiting the bedridden and attempting to provide personal solace to family members.Taillon, Good, Reliable, White Men, p. 45.
Organizational form
The B of LF in this early period organized itself into a network of "lodges", which provided a place for members to meet others in the profession to discuss matters of common concern. Social functions such as balls and picnics were periodically conducted under the B of LF's auspices. The organization also published a monthly magazine, The Firemen's Magazine (later Locomotive Firemen's Magazine), including railroad news of the day and articles appealing to the membership's professional interests. Little attention was paid to labor-management relations, with the B of LF mildly offering the suggestion that "the oldest firemen in service" should be promoted to positions as engineers "when they are competent and worthy, and opportunity offers".
The early B of LF took the form of a secret society, complete with an elaborate initiation ritual, membership oaths, secret signs of recognition, and formulaic protocol for the conduct of lodge meetings.Taillon, Good, Reliable, White Men, p. 49. Much of the original inspiration in this regard derived from the quasi-mystic religious tradition of Freemasonry. Meetings formally opened with a prayer conducted by the lodge chaplain and were modest and subdued, emphasizing the sacred task of the organization and the need for members to maintain appropriate decorum and professionalism in daily life.Taillon, Good, Respectable, White Men, p. 47.
In the B of LF's initiation ceremony of the 1870s, the initiate was seated in the darkened lodge room in front of a large backdrop used as a screen, while wearing a "hoodwink"—blindfolding headgear with retractable opaque lenses.Taillon, Good, Reliable, White Men, pp. 50–51. First the prospective member was instructed by the lodge chaplain as to the benevolent purposes of the organization and the sacred duties of the members thereof. Next, lodge members then joined in by collectively reciting the four principles ensconced in the organization's motto "Protection, Charity, Sobriety, Industry".Taillon, Good, Reliable, White Men, p. 51.
At this point a stereopticon began to project a series of images on the screen, after each of which the lenses of the hoodwink were briefly raised and the image was explained to the initiate. First, a locomotive fireman leaving his family to go to work; then, a train with its crew industriously fulfilling their assigned task. Next came an image of a train wreck, followed by another of a funeral attended by members of the brotherhood, paying their respects to the deceased. This was followed by an image of a lodge representative relieving the grieving widow with a payment of the organization's death indemnity. Having witnessed his own symbolic death, the new candidate was thus made acutely aware both of the importance of his own support of families of maimed or fallen brothers in their time of need as well as the confidence that his own family would be provided for should he himself fall to misfortune.
The initiation experience was memorable and effective in building lasting commitments to the organization. Three decades after his own initiation into the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, Eugene V. Debs recalled the evening as a watershed in his life: A new purpose entered my life, a fresh force impelled me as I repeated the obligation to serve the 'brotherhood,' and I left that meeting with a totally different and far loftier ambition than I had ever known before.Nick Salvatore, Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1982; p. 26.