The Great Strike on the “Q‪”‬

On May 8, 1863, twelve locomotive engineers joined hands in Detroit and pledged “to resist the wrong and maintain the right.” Their small brotherhood began with a fight over pay, dignity and who would have a voice on the railroad.

Writing in the late nineteenth century, John A. Hall traces the rise of the labor organizations whose members would face off with officials of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad. He begins with engineers driven to organize by wage cuts and what they saw as the erosion of their rights, then follows the growth of the Brotherhoods of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen. Their ideal was not simply resistance: they argued that disputes should be settled by arbitration, so long as a company would hear their representatives. But when negotiation fails on the Burlington system, that principle meets its hardest test. What happens when the men who keep the trains moving decide they can no longer wait for justice?

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