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Go back further. Minimums were applied to the railroad in 1909, pulling them up to the prevailing white wage when the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen became
by ty6853 2y ago
Go back further. Minimums were applied to the railroad in 1909, pulling them up to the prevailing white wage when the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen became enraged blacks were working for cheaper.
- eesmith 2y agoYes, a lot of those unions were racist and xenophobic. You are, I believe, referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1909_Georgia_Railroad_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1909_Georgia_Railroad_strike ? I don't see anything about a minimum wage. I do see 'the arbitrators did rule that the railroad would be required to pay African American and white firemen the same wage' but nothing about how that minimum was set by law. Minimums for a union job are not the same as minimum wage, which is the legal minimum set by law. Union minimums predate the Civil War. For example, the Boston Journeymen Bootmaker's Society had a minimum price per shoe made, back in the 1830s, leading to Commonwealth v. Hunt.