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The Switchmen's Union of North America (SUNA) was a labor union formed in 1894 that represented the operators of switches in railways in the United States and Canada. It became part of the United Transportation Union in 1969. ==Precursor== The origins of the union can be traced to August 1870 when a local switchmen's mutual aid association was formed in Chicago. At that time, switchmen were paid $50 a week for twelve hour days, seven days a week. The association was formed to help them bargain for better conditions. The Switchmen's Mutual Aid Association of North America was organized in 1877 and held its first meeting in 1886. The national association suffered from a lockout by the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad and the failed Burlington Railroad Strike of 1888 against the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. In 1889 it was affiliated with the Supreme Council of United Orders of Railway Employees. Although blacks were widely employed by the railroads after the American Civil War, particularly in the south, they were generally excluded from the higher-paying jobs of engineers, switchmen and conductors. In 1887 white switchmen staged a walkout in protest against working with blacks in the Southern Pacific Railroad yard at Houston, and were supported by white switchmen from the Houston and Texas Central Railroad. In 1890 the white switchmen quit when the company refused to fire black workers at the yard. The Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, Brotherhood of Railroad Conductors, Switchmen's Mutual Aid Association and Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen formed a joint committee that submitted a protest: The company refused to accept this demand. They continued to employ blacks as they had in the past, in part because they accepted lower wages. As the ''Houston Daily Post'' noted, the railroad owned slaves before emancipation, and continued to employ negroes afterward. "Negro labor was and is the ordinary labor of the country." The Buffalo switchmen's strike was a two-week strike in August 1892 by railroad workers employed by three railroads in Buffalo, New York. The strike collapsed after two weeks when 8,000 state militia entered the town and other unions refused to support the workers. The Switchmen's Mutual Aid Association was dissolved in 1894. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Switchmen's Union of North America」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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