Seward, Ralph T. (Ralph Theodore), 1907-

Arbitration Board No. 282 was established by Congress (1963) in an attempt to avert a threatened strike by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen (BLF and E) in response to employer attempts to reduce the number of firemen on diesel freight and yard trains. The award granted by the Arbitration Board allowed the railroads to reduce the number of firemen on freight and yard trains by 90% and was finally implemented in October, 1964 after several unsuccessful attempts by the railroad unions to overrule the Board's award through legal action.

This was an arbitration before Ralph Seward, an impartial chairman, Dean Robert S. Stevens of the Cornell Law School, representing the company and Joseph D. McCue representing the union. The dispute arose as a result of the discharge of an employee and the issue was whether good and sufficient cause existed for the discharge. Hearings were held in New York City, January 5, 1950.

Arbitrator and mediator; member, National Mediation Service, National Defense Mediation Board and National War Labor Board; impartial umpire for cases involving the dairy, auto and steel industries, among others.

Emergency Board 176 was invoked by the president of the United States under the emergency procedures of the Railway Labor Act for the purpose of investigating the dispute between four railroad shopcraft unions and U.S. railroads which threatened a strike by October 4, 1969. The issues in contention were largely wage-related.

Arbitrator and mediator; member, National Mediation Service, National Defense Mediation Board; impartial umpire for cases involving the dairy, auto and steel industries, among others.

Ralph Seward (BA., Cornell University, 1927; MA., New York University, 1931; LLB., Columbia University, 1935) served as an attorney with the National Labor Relations Board (1936-1937) and was executive secretary (1937-1939) and general counsel (1939) of the New York State Labor Relations Board. He also served as chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals, U.S. Department of Justice (1939-1941), as executive secretary, National Defense Mediation Board (1941-1942), and as associate public member of the U.S. National War Labor Board (1942) before going into private practice as an arbitrator and mediator. In addition to chairing two Emergency Boards of the National Mediation Service, Seward was impartial chairman for the metropolitan New York milk industry (1942-1944); impartial umpire for General Motors Corporation and the United Automobile Workers (1944-1947); chairman of the Board of Conciliation and Arbitration of United States Steel Corporation and United Steelworkers of America (1947-1949); impartial umpire for International Harvester Company and United Farm Equipment and Metal Workers of America (1949-1951); impartial umpire for Bethlehem Steel Corporation and the United Steelworkers of America (1952); and arbitrator and/or mediator in various other cases.