Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway Company Offices of Vice-President & General Manager Representative Files, 1931- 1939
Collection Number: 5550

Inclusive date range: 1931-1939

Bulk dates: 1934-1938

This collection is comprised of circulars issued by the National Mediation Board [NMB] regarding the representation of railroad employees by labor unions as per the 1934 amendment to the Railway Labor Act [RLA]. The NMB was created by Congress in the 1934 amendment to the RLA; it was the successor agency to the government appointed Board of Mediation which had previously intervened in those disputes between carriers and organized labor that could not be settled by boards of adjustment. One of the main thrusts of the 1934 amendment to the RLA was to ensure that railroad employees were able to join a union voluntarily and without interference from management. This was intended to both protect the workers and to do away with company unions, which disproportionately affected employees in non-operating crafts. The company unions, which were dominated by the company management, limited effective collective bargaining because all the parties were acting in the interests of the company management. The 1934 amendment to the RLA created an election system by which all employees designated in a specific class or craft could cast a ballot for a specific union; the union which gained the support of the majority of those employees was then certified and designated by the NMB as the representative for those employees.

The circulars in this collection, the majority of which are from the 1324 series, are the decisions by the NMB regarding the representation of the employees of various carriers in NMB designated crafts and classes. The circulars are arranged by issue number, with additional decisions, amendments, court proceedings, and other related records to individual certifications filed in reverse chronological order.

This collection also contains NMB circulars 1321 through 1321-3 and individual circulars from other series, as well as a letter to the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway Company from the NMB alerting the Vice-President of the Railway and the president of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees to the closing of Case No. A-127.