The BMWE also vigorously supports the Rail Labor Division of the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department in its opposition to the reauthorization of the STB. The initial three-year authorization of the STB, successor to the Interstate Commerce Commission, expired in September 1998 but Congress has appropriated funds for its operation through September 30 of this year.

Rail Labor is vehemently opposed to any government agency having the authority to break privately negotiated collective bargaining agreements. Unless the STB is absolutely prohibited from breaking contracts and "cramming down employees throats" conditions dictated by the carriers, Rail Labor will continue to oppose the reauthorization of the STB.

Sonny Hall, President of the TTD and President of the Transport Workers Union, by letter of May 11, urged President Clinton to "defer consideration of Linda Morgan or anyone else until the Administration and Labor can achieve their stated goal to seek legislative changes in the STB that will insure that the existing collective bargaining agreements will not be sacrificed at the altar of rail mergers and corporation greed."

The AFL-CIO Executive Council, in a statement issued May 5, also strongly opposes this anti-worker policy of the STB and condemns the injustice done to railroad workers as a result. Following is a complete copy of that statement.

"The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) and its successor agency, the Surface Transportation Board (STB), have approved since 1995 major mergers and acquisitions in the railroad industry, including the combination of the Burlington Northern with the Santa Fe and the Union Pacific with the Southern Pacific, and the carve-up of the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) by CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern.

"In addition to significant and widely reported service and safety problems, these transactions have created mega-railroad corporations with enormous power over railroad workers. In each of these transactions, the ICC and the STB have approved conditions that permitted these large railroad corporations to break, alter or modify existing private collective bargaining agreements -- causing harm to thousands of railroad workers. Over the strong objections of the rail unions and the entire labor movement, the ICC and the STB have regularly interpreted the Interstate Commerce Act in a manner which forces arbitrators to render final and binding opinions that break and/or modify employees' existing collective bargaining agreements, contravene the collective bargaining process, and pervert federal labor policy under the Railway Labor Act.

"The AFL-CIO, along with its Transportation Trades Department and all of rail labor, opposes this anti-worker policy. The Executive Council condemns this injustice to railroad workers and calls on Congress and the Administration to enact legislation barring the STB from continuing this harmful policy.

"The Executive Council also opposes the renomination of STB Chair Linda Morgan. For six years now, the ICC and the STB under Chairwoman Morgan have routinely used their claimed authority to break collective bargaining agreements with no regard for the rights and jobs of railroad employees. Chairwoman Morgan has presided over the above-cited mergers and acquisitions and has refused to change the anti-worker policies set in motion in 1983 by President Reagan's appointees to the ICC."