Last month this column looked back over the last century and observed that despite the dramatic, revolutionary developments in technology, human behavior is still governed by the same forces that existed at the beginning of the century. We noted that the more things change, the more things stay the same.

In this column, the first of the new century, I am inviting our membership and others who read this Journal to help in improving human behavior, including our behavior. We enter this Century with a series of major battles to fight in order to see that our members and their families' lives and livelihoods are enhanced.

We have a round of bargaining that we want resolved by the middle of this year. We have already been informed by the railroads that they intend to protract the bargaining process. An agreement that appears about to be reached between most of the other rail crafts and the railroads (just as this Journal goes to press) threatens to destroy our ability to make significant changes in our benefit levels in Railroad Retirement.

The very existence of our sister union, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, is in the hands of arbitrators as a result of NMB action on the UTU petition to force a shotgun wedding between UTU and BLE. The Canadian National Railway has announced its intention to merge with the BNSF, possibly leading to another massive wave of contract abrogations, expanding districts and other such cramdowns. The fight to stop the railroads from unilaterally changing contracts through the merger process still faces us.

And the railroads' boldness in violating our collective bargaining agreements by contracting out work and manipulating other benefits such as the travel allowance is expanding geometrically. Their actions are aided by a judiciary which defines away our right to strike by eroding the definition of a major dispute. And, in many instances, arbitrators ignore or misread collective bargaining language and refuse to force the railroads to pay the costs of their unilateral abrogations of our contracts.

Added to this is the never-ending work of our General Committees and Lodges in negotiating, administering and enforcing the agreements and fighting to see that our members work in a safe environment.

All of this sounds as if a new century hasn't started - that the new Millennium appears to be a repeat of the last one. And when we look at the bigger picture, there still appears to be little difference. The first year of the new century brings us a presidential election and congressional elections.

Once again we must focus on an imperfect political system - a system so driven by huge amounts of campaign financing that the rights of working people and poor people are always at risk. While working people and poor people generally fair better under Democratic administrations than Republican ones, it is necessary for us to look closely at the candidates before we vote.

Although we in rail labor have faired better under the Clinton Administration than we did under Reagan and Bush, we have still seen the greatest consolidation of wealth and power in the new railroad industry under the Democrats than the railroads even conceived of under Reagan and Bush. And although Reagan and Bush started the cramdown that made these mergers a nightmare to our membership, the appointees of the Clinton Administration continued the cramdown policies and granted permission for these mergers to continue, even though the historical reason for railroad mergers is no longer valid.

By the time the Clinton Administration came to power in 1992, the inefficiency of the railroad industry had ended and we had a rail industry in which all of the major carriers were becoming increasingly profitable. By the time the 1995 round of bargaining started, all of the major railroads were more profitable than they had been in generations with projections of even greater profitability, efficiency and productivity. And there was still a modicum of competition and shippers were being better served than they had been in generations. Despite this, the appointees of the Clinton Administration allowed mergers to go on unabated and the profitability and efficiency of the industry declined, despite the fact that the railroads continued to abrogate contracts in the name of efficiency.

However, the Clinton Administration appointees did allow a more level playing field in the collective bargaining arena leading to better results in our 1995 national bargaining round than we would have seen under the Reagan-Bush anti-labor National Mediation Board. Further, the Democratic appointees in the Department of Transportation and the Federal Railroad Administration demonstrated and continue to demonstrate an even handed approach to the industry - recognizing the critical importance of labor input at every level. This has led to a safer railroad industry and a clear recognition of the importance of Amtrak and commuter rail that has improved service to the riding public while enhancing the lives and livelihoods of our members and their families.

We have seen fairness from some Republicans also. We applaud and recognize the courage of Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) to introduce legislation to end cramdown and the tenacity of Representatives Bob Ney (R-Ohio) and Steve La Tourette (R-Ohio) in a number of fights critical to Rail Labor. Governor Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin has demonstrated an even handed approach to Amtrak workers and has resisted a push from many in his party to reduce Amtrak funding. The work of Don Young (R-Alaska), Lincoln Diaz-Bolart (R-Florida) and several other Republican Congressmen demonstrates that we must not simply vote Democrat just because they generally are fairer to working people and poor people than Republicans.

Although it is true that there are many more Democrats who will fight for working people and poor people (Senators Torricelli, Wellstone, Kennedy, Harkin and Congressmen Bonior, Oberstar, Wise, Gephardt and the Congressional Black Caucus just to name a few), there are some Republicans whose stance for working and poor people is better than many Democrats. We cannot forget that other Democrats support NAFTA and unfair trade policies designed to reduce union wages and jobs in the U.S. and turn a blind eye to anti-labor and anti-worker and human rights policies abroad.

There are some who believe that the expansion of the politics of money means that the labor movement in general and Rail Labor in particular must seek compromises and grant concessions, even when concessions may not be warranted by objective criteria - that rail labor should make any deal no matter what the facts are. Those people generally believe that if Labor pushes too far, there will be an adverse impact on working people and the poor.

Although compromise is necessary in order to maintain an expanding economy and improve the standard of living of working people and the poor - you can't always get what you want--it is incumbent upon us in Rail Labor to be intelligent about what compromise means. There is a big difference between compromise and concessions - between going on the basis of an uneducated "gut" feeling on the one hand and knowing the full facts in order to obtain the best possible result in a deal on the other. It is just as important to know when to say "no" as it is to know when to say "yes".

Unfortunately ego, laziness - sometimes even corruption - cause some in our movement to cut deals without a willingness to fully analyze the facts. These people are so fearful of the power of the other side that they are not willing to obtain for their members what the facts demonstrate our members deserve. In short, they lack confidence in the power of the Labor Movement, even when the facts demonstrate that there is more on the table than the deal they cut. This does not mean to fight for the impossible - it means to fight for everything that is achievable.

In the opinion of the BMWE, it is these two tendencies that we must steer between in this new century. On the one hand we must not simply settle regardless. On the other hand, we must not fight for that which cannot be achieved. We must be honest with our members - seek the advice of experts - and make the compromises necessary to improve the livelihoods of our members to the maximum extent possible, as a careful analysis of the facts determine.

This does not mean obtaining an improvement when the facts clearly demonstrate that a better improvement is achievable. But it also does not mean going after something the facts demonstrate we can't get. The only caveat to this is that when the facts demonstrate that what is achievable is unacceptable, especially in critical areas, then we must fight regardless.

We cannot allow ourselves to be read out of the picture by the agenda of others who determine that we should get less than decent living and working conditions. And when we compromise and when we fight, we must do either as intelligently and vigorously as possible - using all of the tools available to us in a non-violent manner.

Although these concepts may appear simple, they are difficult in application. The Railroad Retirement fight is just one example of this. Most of the other crafts are fighting for a minor improvement and giving the railroads much more than the facts determine they should receive in order to get that minor improvement. And they are trying to cram what they believe is good for them down our throats, even though their deal is not good for our members.

By doing this, they are allowing the railroads to capture much more of the fund - now and in the future - than the railroads are entitled to. All in the group that is cutting the deal absolutely refused to allow independent actuaries and bankers to evaluate it while the railroads had independent actuaries and bankers advising them from Day One.

The unions that agreed to this deal believe giving the railroads 50% of your money (between $325 million and $340 million per year) to improve benefits a little -- and consequently ending the ability of the fund to provide us with substantially better benefits in the near future - was worth the deal, even though we will only receive $308 million per year at most, probably less.

Hopefully we will be able to stop this deal and negotiate something which is fair to both the railroads and our members. But more hopefully, Rail Labor will use this exercise as a lesson in how not to bargain and learn to steer the course between capitulation and mindless militancy with intelligence and courage. If we all learn how to go about this, this new century will be a bright one for working people in the railroad industry.

Had the rest of Rail Labor learned this lesson when all of the affiliates supported deregulation of the rail industry in the early 1980s, we could have ended the last century well on the road to a better life for our members. This time, however, crafts representing a substantial percentage of Rail Labor did learn the deregulation lesson and will not support a bad deal because others are doing it. Trick me once, shame on you. Trick me twice, shame on me.