A MISSED ALTERNATIVE: FEDERAL COURTS AS ARBITERS OF RAILWAY LABOR DISPUTES, 1877-1895.

The article focuses on the alternatives to labor injunction that the federal courts can provide to meet the railway labor problem from 1877-1895. During the years between the Railways Strikes of 1877 and the Pullman Boycott-Strike of 1894, the courts turned labor injunction as a major device to protect railroads from demonstrators. Though labor advocates condemn the device, the businesspeople hailed labor injunction as proof that the U.S. legal system can adapt to the changing needs of industries. Aside from labor injunction, federal courts could have addressed railway labor disputes by acting as mediators on interstate railways, by requiring receivers to recognize and bargain with organized railway workers, or by empowering itself to enjoin workers from quitting and taking custody of the railroad companies in question until the dispute is resolved.