Order of Railroad Telegraphers

This practice greatly increased the efficiency of single-track railroads by enabling two trains traveling in opposite directions to use the track at the same time.[4]: 6 In the early 1890s, members began to demand that the union take a more assertive role in negotiating wages and working conditions with the railroads.During the relatively prosperous years of 1890–92, the railroads were inclined to recognize the union and negotiate agreements with the ORT to guarantee wages and working hours.Ola Delight Smith joined the ORT in Gainesville, Georgia, in 1906, and began a long career as a labor organizer and journalist.They immediately began using the telegraph to bombard their congressional representatives with messages of protest, which resulted in the original nine-hour limit being reinstated.The La Follette Hours of Service Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt on March 4, 1907.ORT Grand Chief Perham appeared before the Board to request a 40 percent increase in pay, an eight-hour day, and relief from handling government mail by railroad telegraphers.Some railroads, including the Santa Fe, the Louisville and Nashville, and the Great Northern, maintained essentially the same agreements with the ORT that they had established during the years of government control.A dispute with the Atlantic Coast Line led to a strike in 1925 that ended with the railroad making concessions to the union and signing a new agreement.Membership in the ORT began to decline after the stock market crash of 1929, due not only to economic conditions but also to the increasing use of centralized traffic control, which no longer required the presence of a telegrapher in each station.As a result of the declining membership and the loss of revenue from dues, the ORT was forced to suspend payment of pensions to retired members through the mutual benefit program.Additionally, the ORT charged that the individual pay adjustments were in violation of a collective bargaining agreement that had been signed with Railway Express in 1917.However, the railroad was required to give 90 days' notice to terminated employees, and to pay laid-off telegraphers 60 percent of their annual salary for as much as five years.
Cover of The Railroad Telegrapher, monthly magazine of the Order of Railroad Telegraphers, for March 1902.
Ambrose D. Thurston, Founder, Order of Railroad Telegraphers. Source: Railroad Telegrapher , May 1913, 706.
Hattie Todd Pickard, ORT Assistant Chief of Overland Division No. 196 Source: Railroad Telegrapher , May 1897, 402.
Order of Railroad Telegraphers member, D. J. Kirton, Cades, SC
United States labor uniontelegraph operatorstelegraphtrain routingCharles MinotErie Railroaddispatchertrack switchestime zonesair traffic controllersKnights of LaborCedar Rapids, IowaVinton, IowaAtlantic & Pacific RailroadDenver & Rio GrandeUnion PacificMissouri Pacific RailroadBaltimore and Ohio RailroadChesapeake and Ohio RailwayPanic of 1893Reading RailroadAtchison, Topeka and Santa FeNorthern PacificreceivershipLehigh Valley RailroadBrotherhood of Locomotive EngineersOrder of Railway ConductorsBrotherhood of Locomotive FiremenBrotherhood of Railroad BrakemenNew YorkNew JerseymediationPullman StrikeAmerican Railway UnionEugene V. DebsCanadian Pacific Railwaycollective bargainingPeoria, IllinoisSt. Louis, MissouriAmerican Federation of LaborHenry B. PerhamRawlins, WyomingCambridge, OhioOla Delight SmithGainesville, GeorgiaCongressRobert La Follette Sr.Theodore RooseveltAdamson Actfirst World WarUnited States Railroad AdministrationnationalizationMissouri-Kansas-Texas RailroadPennsylvania Railroadeight-hour dayLouisville and NashvilleGreat NorthernAtlantic Coast Linecentralized traffic controlDepressionWestern UnionRailway Express AgencySeaboard Air Line RailroadRailway Labor ActU.S. District CourtCircuit Court of AppealsU.S. Supreme CourtfeatherbeddingChicago & Northwestern RailroadJohn F. KennedyTransportation Communications International UnionInternational Association of MachinistsHistory of rail transport in the United StatesList of American railway unionsArmy Appropriation Act