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 Post subject: Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen
PostPosted: Tue Dec 10, 2019 9:20 pm 

Joined: Tue Aug 27, 2019 9:48 pm
Posts: 483
Location: Potland, Maine
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.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brotherho ... _Enginemen


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 Post subject: Re: Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen
PostPosted: Tue Dec 10, 2019 11:07 pm 

Joined: Tue Aug 27, 2019 9:48 pm
Posts: 483
Location: Potland, Maine
If interested, archive.org has a number of issues to read.

https://archive.org/search.php?query=br ... ne&sin=TXT


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 Post subject: Re: Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen
PostPosted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 4:43 pm 

Joined: Sun Sep 05, 2004 9:48 am
Posts: 1531
Location: Byers, Colorado
Please note, that The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, or BLE, was not part of the 1969 merger which began the UTU. When I went into engine service in 1980, I had a choice between UTU or BLE representation.

The main difference is that the BLE had as it's founding principle that enginemen should always get more money than anybody else on the crew, while I and many others felt that we should not be working against the trainmen, but rather that we should combine our efforts for the common good.

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Ask not what your locomotive can do for you,
Ask what you can do for your locomotive,

Sammy King


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 Post subject: Re: Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen
PostPosted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 6:20 pm 

Joined: Wed Sep 06, 2017 11:33 am
Posts: 187
QJdriver wrote:
Please note, that The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, or BLE, was not part of the 1969 merger which began the UTU. When I went into engine service in 1980, I had a choice between UTU or BLE representation.

The main difference is that the BLE had as it's founding principle that enginemen should always get more money than anybody else on the crew, while I and many others felt that we should not be working against the trainmen, but rather that we should combine our efforts for the common good.


From the outside looking in, I always find those types of things weird and oddly fascinating. Utah has always had an anti-union attitude, so honestly other than railroaders/miners there isn't just a lot of active union activity in the state these days. Honestly the most active one I know of is the Actor's Equity Guild for theater. Its strange to me to think any union would try and put a hard line on making some hierarchical paygrade, instead of just letting that be at the employer's discretion but again I am coming from a strong non-union state.

Then again, the type of engineer (Mechanical Engineering major) I am studying to be, is the type that will probably design the autonomous trains that may someday fully kill the trainman job (one man crew's? I feel like one of the few railfans who has no objections to that idea and would actually actively support it...), so I doubt my opinion would be popular among the rail engineers in the union's if they fully heard the kind of near future tech I support... In short, unions will always seem strange to me.


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 Post subject: Re: Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen
PostPosted: Wed Dec 18, 2019 10:09 am 

Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2016 11:58 am
Posts: 250
xboxtravis7992 wrote:
QJdriver wrote:
Please note, that The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, or BLE, was not part of the 1969 merger which began the UTU. When I went into engine service in 1980, I had a choice between UTU or BLE representation.

The main difference is that the BLE had as it's founding principle that enginemen should always get more money than anybody else on the crew, while I and many others felt that we should not be working against the trainmen, but rather that we should combine our efforts for the common good.


From the outside looking in, I always find those types of things weird and oddly fascinating. Utah has always had an anti-union attitude, so honestly other than railroaders/miners there isn't just a lot of active union activity in the state these days. Honestly the most active one I know of is the Actor's Equity Guild for theater. Its strange to me to think any union would try and put a hard line on making some hierarchical paygrade, instead of just letting that be at the employer's discretion but again I am coming from a strong non-union state.

Then again, the type of engineer (Mechanical Engineering major) I am studying to be, is the type that will probably design the autonomous trains that may someday fully kill the trainman job (one man crew's? I feel like one of the few railfans who has no objections to that idea and would actually actively support it...), so I doubt my opinion would be popular among the rail engineers in the union's if they fully heard the kind of near future tech I support... In short, unions will always seem strange to me.


Perhaps one can look at it from a different perspective.

"Capital" is encouraged to organize together with Corporations, Lawyers, Boards of Directors, and protective layers purchased through Politicians, etc. Money is Speech now.

When "Labor" organizes, it is an abomination against nature.

Brian


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