To meet their strong opponents on a basis nearer to equality, they started about 1904 a movement for “system federations,"[65] that is, federations of all organized trades through the length of a given railway system as, for instance, the Pennsylvania Railroad or the Illinois Central Railroad.  In turn the creation of system federations sharpened the employers’ antagonism.  Some railway systems, like the Illinois Central, might be willing to enter into agreements with the separate crafts, but refused to deal with a federation of crafts.  In 1912, stimulated by a dispute on the Illinois Central Railroad and on the Harriman lines in general, involving the issue of system federations, a Federation of System Federations was formed by forty systems upon an aggressive program.  In 1908 a weak and rather tentative Railway Employes’ Department had been launched by the American Federation of Labor.  The Federation of Federations was thus a rival organization and “illegal” or, at best, “extra-legal” from the standpoint of the American Federation of Labor.  The situation, however, was too acute to permit the consideration of “legality” to enter.  An adjustment was made and the Federation of System Federations was “legitimatized” through fusion with the “Department,” to which it gave its constitution, officers, and fighting purpose, and from which it took only its name.  This is the now well-known Railway Employes’ Department of the American Federation of Labor (embracing all important national unions of the railway workers excepting the four brotherhoods), and which, as we shall see, came into its own when the government took over the railways from their private owners eight months after America’s entry into the World War.

(3) The Machinery and Metal Trades

Unlike the miners and the railway brotherhoods, the unions in the machinery and metal trades met with small success in their efforts for “recognition” and trade agreements.  The outstanding unions in the industry are the International Association of Machinists and the International Molders’ Union, with a half dozen smaller and very small unions.[66] The molders’ International united in the same union the stove molders, who as was seen had been “recognized” in 1891, and the molders of parts of machinery and other foundry products.  The latter found the National Founders’ Association as their antagonist or potential “co-partner” in the industry.

The upward swing in business since 1898, combined with the growth of trade unionism and with the successful negotiation of the Interstate agreement in the soft coal mining industry, created an atmosphere favorable to trade agreements.  For a time “recognition” and its implications seemed to all concerned, the employer, the unions, and the public, a sort of cure-all for industrial disputes.  Accordingly, in March 1899, the National Founders’ Association (organized in the previous year and comprising foundrymen engaged principally in machinery manufacturing and jobbing) and the International Molders’ Union of North America met and drew up the following tersely worded agreement which became known as the New York Agreement: