The Erdman Act of 1898 was a

United States federal law The law of the United States comprises many levels of Codification (law), codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the supreme law is the nation's Constitution of the United States, Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the ...

regulating

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

labor disputes. The law provided

arbitration Arbitration is a formal method of dispute resolution involving a third party neutral who makes a binding decision. The third party neutral (the 'arbitrator', 'arbiter' or 'arbitral tribunal') renders the decision in the form of an 'arbitrati ...

for disputes between the interstate railroads and their workers organized into unions.

Major provisions

The most significant portion of the act prohibited a railroad company from demanding that a worker not join a union as a condition for employment (Section 10). The interstate requirement affected individuals who worked on moving trains, such as

firemen A firefighter (or fire fighter or fireman) is a first responder trained in specific emergency response such as firefighting, primarily to control and extinguish fires and respond to emergencies such as Dangerous goods, hazardous material incide ...

, brakemen,

telegrapher A telegraphist (British English), telegrapher (American English), or telegraph operator is a person who uses a telegraph key to send and receive Morse code messages in a telegraphy system. These messages, also called telegrams, can be transmitte ...

s, and conductors, providing that the train transported

freight In transportation, cargo refers to goods transported by land, water or air, while freight refers to its conveyance. In economics, freight refers to goods transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. The term cargo is also used in ...

and

passengers A passenger is a person who travels in a vehicle, but does not bear any responsibility for the tasks required for that vehicle to arrive at its destination or otherwise operate the vehicle, and is not a steward. The vehicles may be bicycles, ...

between states. Workers who maintained

railroad cars A railroad car, railcar ( American and Canadian English), railway wagon, railway carriage, railway truck, railwagon, railcarriage or railtruck (British English and UIC), also called a train car, train wagon, train carriage or train truc ...

and

station Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle statio ...

clerks did not come under the statute's jurisdiction. While the arbitration system created by the act was voluntary, the results were binding if all sides agreed to arbitrate. Capital and labor each chose one of three arbitrators under the act; if they could not agree upon a third, the government would. The Chair of the

Interstate Commerce Commission The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later Trucking industry in the United States, truc ...

and the United States Commissioner of Labor, acting in concert, made that choice under those circumstances. The act made it unlawful to strike or fire a worker during the arbitration process; it also made it illegal to terminate the employment of a worker involved in the dispute while arbitration was pending, except for neglecting duty or inefficiency. In ''

Adair v. United States ''Adair v. United States'', 208 U.S. 161 (1908), was a US labor law case of the Supreme Court of the United States, United States Supreme Court which declared that bans on "yellow-dog contract, yellow-dog" contracts (that forbade workers from joi ...

'' (1908), the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

declared Section 10 of the Erdman Act

unconstitutional In constitutional law, constitutionality is said to be the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; "Webster On Line" the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or set forth in the applic ...

.Adair v. United States, .

References

* Jay Finley Christ, "The Federal Courts and Organized Labor. II. From the Sherman Act to the Clayton Act (Continued)," ''The Journal of Business of the University of Chicago'' (1930), pp. 341-375. * David A. McCabe, "Federal Intervention in Labor Disputes Under the Erdman, Newlands, and Adamson Acts," ''Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York'', Vol. 7, No. 1, Labor Disputes and Public Service Corporations. (Jan., 1917), pp. 94-107. {{William McKinley United States federal labor legislation United States railroad regulation 1898 in American law United States federal legislation articles needing infoboxes 1898 in labor relations

Major provisions

See also

References