Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen
Encyclopedia
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen was one of the railroad
Rail transport
Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods by way of wheeled vehicles running on rail tracks. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles merely run on a prepared surface, rail vehicles are also directionally guided by the tracks they run on...

 unions of the 19th century.

History

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen was founded on December 1, 1873 in Port Jervis, New York
Port Jervis, New York
Port Jervis is a city on the Delaware River in western Orange County, New York, with a population of 8,860 at the 2000 census. The communities of Deerpark, Huguenot, Sparrowbush, and Greenville are adjacent to Port Jervis, and the towns of Montague, New Jersey and Matamoras, Pennsylvania face the...

 by Joshua A. Leach and 10 other Erie Railroad firemen. Initially, insurance
Insurance
In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...

 benefits were the main incentive for membership, but by the late 19th century "The Brotherhood" had branched out into labor-management relations.

From July 1880 until September 1894, Eugene V. Debs served as Grand Secretary and Treasurer, and / or Editor and Manager of "The Firemen's Magazine." Disillusioned with craft unionism, Debs later went on to found the American Railway Union and the Socialist Party.

The organization changed its name to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen (BLF & E) after permitting engineers to join its ranks. In 1969, the union merged with the Order of Railway Conductors and Brakemen, the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, and the Switchmen's Union of North America to form the United Transportation Union
United Transportation Union
The United Transportation Union is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. It is a broad-based, transportation labor union representing about 125,000 active and retired railroad, bus, mass transit, and airline workers in the United States....

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