Uncle Sam Needs MofW
As a result of the current national emergency, the two Army Reserve
railroad battalions are stepping up efforts to recruit experienced
railroaders in the areas of train operations, maintenance of way and
railway equipment repair. The two units are: 757th Transportation
Battalion (Railway) with units located in the Chicago, St Louis, and
Milwaukee metro areas, and the 1205th Transportation Railway Operating
Battalion with units located in Massachusetts, Connecticut and North
Carolina.
There are also options available for those who do not live near
these units. The Army Reserve is especially seeking individuals with
prior military service but all those with rail experience and a desire
to aid their country are encouraged to contact the Reserve.
Anyone who is interested in finding out how they can put their
railroad skills to good use serving their nation in this time of need,
can contact the Army Reserve in the following ways:
For general information, please contact:
Major Martin Piech, phone toll free 877-519-8533 or E-mail:
martin.piech@us.army.mil.
For 757th information, please contact:
Staff Sergeant Steve Willis, phone toll free 877-399-6595;
Website: http://www.usarc.army.mil/88thrsc/units/online/336_tc/757_tc/
For 1205th information, please contact:
Phone toll free 877-519-8533 or E-mail: martin.piech@us.army.mil;
Website: www.1205thtrob.com
BLE Members Reject Merger With UTU
On Dec. 12, 2001 the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers reported
that on the question of merging their ranks with those of the United
Transportation Union, the membership voted "NO" by a vote of
17,251 to 7,425. The UTU vote was previously certified by the American
Arbitration Association on Oct. 29 — 23,368 in favor and 4,146
opposed.
Although the final date for receipt of both unions’ ballots was
Sept. 17, the final count of UTU ballots was delayed by a court action
brought by three BLE officers, challenging the process by which the
BLE polled its own members. The lawsuit was subsequently withdrawn and
the BLE sent new ballots to its members, which were counted by the AAA
on Dec. 10.
For more details about the four-year "on-again, off-again
merger talks" between the BLE and UTU, see the September-October
issue of the BMWE JOURNAL.
Congress Fails to Help Laid-Off Workers
President Bush’s and congressional Republicans’ insistence on
massive corporate tax breaks and their refusal to include needed
health care assistance and adequate income help for working families
scuttled any chance for an economic stimulus bill before Congress left
for the holidays.
On Dec. 20 the House narrowly passed a Republican stimulus bill
that would provide big corporate tax breaks but extend unemployment
benefits for just some workers and give some laid-off workers a small
tax credit to buy private health insurance but no immediate help to
pay premiums for their families.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) called the House bill
"wrong on all counts" and asked the Senate for unanimous
consent to extend unemployment benefits for laid-off workers, but the
move was blocked by Republican leader Trent Lott. Many laid-off
workers face the imminent end to their unemployment benefits in the
coming weeks and months.
"The reality that the Republican leadership in the House,
Senate and White House would allow an economic stimulus bill to fail
because of a family-friendly provision on health care for unemployed
workers signals a disturbing oblivion about life for working people
during a recession," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.
President’s Panel Calls for Social Security Benefit Cuts
On Dec. 11 President Bush’s Commission to privatize Social
Security officially endorsed a radical plan to dismantle Social
Security. The drastic recommendations adopted by the 16-member
Commission "will bankrupt our nation’s most effective family
income protection program and jeopardize the future of the federal
budget," said AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney.
The Commission’s final report "is rich with irony,"
Sweeney said. "President Bush’s Privatization Commission
recommends that Congress cover the high price of private accounts with
trillions of dollars from general government revenue — on a ‘temporary’
basis that literally would last decades. At the same time, Republicans
in the House and Senate refuse to spend the modest amounts of money
needed to improve conditions for unemployed workers at the front line
of our recession, or to use general revenue to strengthen Social
Security without radically restructuring."
"The President and this Commission worked hard in the spring
to convince working Americans that Social Security was in such bad
financial shape that it had to be dismantled. During those same spring
months, President Bush and Congress had a real opportunity to do the
right thing by using part of the federal budget surpluses to
strengthen Social Security. The President and Congress squandered that
opportunity by using the entire projected surplus for his $1.6
trillion millionaire tax cut. The non-partisan Center for Budget and
Policy Priorities found that if only half of the money spent on the
President’s $1.6 trillion tax cut was dedicated to Social Security,
the program would be financially solvent for the next 75 years."
Election Reform
On election day, November 2000, countless citizens in Florida and
throughout the country were denied their Constitutional right to vote
by flawed voting equipment, erroneous voter registration records and
confusing ballots. While many lawfully registered voters were
disenfranchised outright, others cast votes that ultimately were not
counted.
In order to help correct these problems, Senator Christopher Dodd
(D-CT) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) introduced the Equal Protection of
Voting Rights Act (S 565 / HR 1170), legislation that would require
all states and localities to meet three new minimum standards. These
important standards would ensure that: 1) voting systems are
accessible to individuals with disabilities and language minorities
and notify all voters whether they have voted for too many or too few
candidates; 2) registered voters whose names do not appear on voter
registration rolls can cast provisional ballots; and 3) registered
voters receive sample ballots and voting instructions before election
day. This election reform bill had the support of 51 senators and 166
representatives in early December.
The House Administration Committee, however, reported out an
election reform bill in November (HR 3295) introduced by Reps. Robert
Ney (R-OH) and Steny Hoyer (D-MD) that does not include the minimum
standards necessary to protect the right to vote of every individual
in every state. In particular, this legislation would fail to ensure
that states and localities use voting machines that are accessible to
individuals with disabilities and language minorities and inform
voters whether they have voted for too many or too few candidates. It
would also fail to ensure that all registered voters can cast
provisional ballots and receive sample ballots, voting instructions
and a summary of their voting rights.
Court Rules Bush Wrong on PLAs
A federal judge overturned one of President Bush’s first
anti-union executive orders — a ban on project labor agreements on
federally funded construction projects. In a Nov. 6 ruling, the judge
said Bush "lacked the requisite authority" to issue the
order and the order "in its entirety is pre-empted by the
National Labor Relations Act." Project labor agreements generally
set wages and establish work rules and methods of settling grievances
on large construction projects. For more than 70 years, project labor
agreements have benefited communities, employers and workers by
ensuring fair wages and benefits and on-time completion of projects.
When Bush issued the order in February 2001, the AFL-CIO Building and
Construction Trades Department filed suit in U.S. District Court for
the District of Columbia. "We are pleased that the court ruled in
favor of working families," said BCTD President Edward C.
Sullivan.
Workers’ Rights Denied by Senate
Senate Republicans denied the nation’s emergency service workers
collective bargaining rights Nov. 6, 2001. With 60 votes needed for
passage, Republican leaders blocked a motion — on a 56-44 vote —
to add an amendment to the Labor, Health and Human Services
appropriations bill that would have guaranteed collective bargaining
rights to all the nation’s emergency service professionals.
Currently, 18 states do not allow public safety workers to organize
and others limit their bargaining authority. The action came a little
less than two months after the tragic deaths of hundreds of
firefighters, emergency medical technicians and police officers in the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, followed by their counterparts’ heroic
rescue and recovery efforts. "Firefighters have been denied
justice," said Fire Fighters President Harold A. Schaitberger.
"But we will be back — with a vengeance."
Victory for Highway Safety
Teamsters President James P. Hoffa said a Nov. 28, 2001 agreement
to hold Mexican trucks to the same stringent safety standards as U.S.
rigs is a "victory for the American traveling public." The
deal was a compromise between the White House, which had called for
unfettered access to U.S. highways for Mexican trucks as part of
NAFTA; the House of Representatives, which passed legislation
restricting the trucks to the current area of operations in a narrow
strip of the U.S. Mexican border; and the Senate, which approved a
bill setting out stringent safety requirements for Mexican trucks
before allowing them on U.S. highways. Along with holding the Mexican
trucks to the standards, the agreement calls for building new border
inspection stations, training U.S. Department of Transportation
inspectors and creating a data system to determine whether Mexican
trucks and drivers meet U.S. standards.
In July the House passed an amendment to the Transportation
Appropriations bill to stop the U.S. Department of Transportation from
moving forward with the Bush administration’s announced plans to
open the border to Mexican trucks and buses on January 1, 2002. The
amendment offered by Rep. Martin Sabo (D-MN) was enacted by a 285 to
143 vote. It was a bipartisan victory, with 201 Democrats, 82
Republicans and two independents voting to put safety ahead of
corporate profits.
The Senate also approved a transportation spending bill containing
tough measures to ensure safe transportation at the U.S. - Mexico
border. Senators Patty Murry (D-WA) and Richard Shelby (R-AL)
successfully wrote into the bill tough requirements that Mexican motor
carriers meet strict safety standards before being allowed access to
American highways.
WTO Talks " Extremely Disappointing"
Although the World Trade Organization made important progress on
access to life-saving medicines for developing countries, its decision
in November 2001 to launch a new round of global trade negotiations
that ignore workers’ rights "is extremely disappointing ... and
falls far short in areas of key concern to America’s working
families," AFL-CIO President Sweeney said. He blasted the Bush
administration for allowing the new round of talks to include
discussions on U.S. anti-dumping trade laws. Such a move makes it even
more clear that the administration should not be granted Fast Track
trade authority, he said.
Clearly shaken by the massive mobilization of union, environmental
and human rights activists during world trade meetings in Seattle,
Washington, DC and Prague, the WTO leaders scheduled their November
meeting in the tiny, Middle Eastern country of Qatar. One possible
reason: the Gulf kingdom prohibits all political protests.
"Arbitrary detention in security cases and restrictions on the
freedoms of speech, press, assembly, association, religion and on
workers’ rights continue to be problems," says a recent U.S.
State Department report on human rights in Qatar.
"It’s fitting that a group that negotiates behind closed
doors should meet in a place where protest is forbidden," says
Jeff Crosby, president of the North Shore (Mass.) Labor Council. He
notes the WTO sets trade rules that often encourage nations to ignore
workers’ rights and environmental standards. "This move makes
it clear that our job is to bring these negotiations to light,"
adds Crosby, who is helping mobilize unionists to go to Quebec in
April, when leaders of Western Hemisphere nations will meet to discuss
expanding the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas.
Union-Industries Show Salutes America’s Heroes
The theme of the 2002 AFL-CIO Union-Industries Show being held in
Minneapolis, Minnesota from April 5 to 8 will be A Salute to
America’s Heroes: The Working Families of the AFL-CIO. "We
feel this theme will recognize those American heroes who have made the
ultimate sacrifice without overlooking those who have made, and will
continue to make, America the greatest country on earth: the workers
who produce the best products and services on earth — the working
families of the AFL-CIO," said Union Label & Service Trades
President Charles E. Mercer. |