http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/09/01/3477726/the-true-story-of-how-one-man-shut-down-american-commerce-to-avoid-paying-his-workers-a-fair-wage/
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
"Been on the hummer since ninety-four (1894), last job I had was on the Lake Shore.
Lost my office in the ARU (ARU strike) and I won't get it back 'til nineteen-two (1902).
I've been riding the hog trains flagging my meals, riding the brake beams close to the wheels."
I have that in a book (at home, I'm not right now) and I believe the poem is called "ARU" by Carl Sandburg.
Anyone remember about the crane with the broken neck?
Jeff
jeffhergertI have that in a book (at home, I'm not right now) and I believe the poem is called "ARU" by Carl Sandburg.
"A.R.U." (note the periods) is in the American Songbag, edited by Sandburg, but isn't by him. (He said he got the words from R.W.Gordon and the melody from C.W.Loutzenhiser, who was one of the original 'composers' in the IC yard in Macomb, MS)
Crane (from the papermakers):
The crane with the broken neck? According to railroad legend, the story goes like this...
In the old days when a man left the employ of a particular railroad it was customary to give him a letter addressed to "whom it may concern" stating the times of the mans employment, what he did, and how well he did it. It made getting another railroad job easier and was done as a professional courtesy. This letter was written on paper unique to railroads which had a crane watermark.
Anyway, in the latter years of the 19th Century after a series of railroad strikes when a man who'd been a striker left a particular road and got his letter and then presented it to another 'road, the superintendent who was given the letter would excuse himself, leave the room, and then return in a minute or two and tell the applicant "Sorry, we can't use you." When this happened to one particular boomer a number of times he just happened to look at his letter, the light caught it a certain way, and the saw the crane in the watermark had a broken neck. Instead of being held upright, the birds neck was bent back on itself. Someone in the rail industry had come up with a way of identifying possible troublemakers to prospective employers.
That's the story as I read it in Freeman Hubbard's 1945 book "Railroad Avenue." However as of 1945 Mr. Hubbard hadn't been able to find a surviving example of the broken necked crane stationary. Is the legend true? Who knows?
It's a good story though, isn't it?
The blacklist is thankfully part of the past in industries with strong unions. Unfortunately, in the current social climate which has become strongly anti-union, it's getting easier to get blacklisted for organizing and other union activities.
What is the need for public sector employee unions?
Euclid What is the need for public sector employee unions?
Ask any whistleblower who got reassigned to a make-work position (or discharged) because he pointed out various illegal and corrupt activities.
An observation: Of the professional railroaders, only one (Jeff) commented on a thread honoring/ commemorating the history of the struggle of railroad workers.
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