Grover Cleveland. The Library of Congress.

United States 1888

Synopsis

The United States federal government passed the Arbitration Act of 1888 on 1 October 1888 to legislate the government's role in railroad labor disputes, thus setting a precedent for federal arbitration between unions and railroad carriers. The act made provisions for two opportunities to settle issues: voluntary arbitration and a temporary investigative commission. The act states that it is intended "to create boards of arbitration or commission for settling controversies and differences between railroad corporations and other common carriers engaged in interstate and territorial transportation of property or passengers and their employees." The earliest legal sanction of federal mediation in labor relations, the act particularly affected subsequent labor legislation including the Railway Labor Act of 1926 and the National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act) of 1935. Prompted by a decade of railway strikes, most markedly the Great Railroad Strike of...