Most of the rail unions except for the BMWE and BLE have published information about the retirement agreement like that on the front page of the January/February 2000 issue of Interchange, the national publication of the Transportation Communications Union. Under the heading "Key Points at a Glance" are listed the following:

Unreduced retirement benefits at age 60 with 30 years of service.

Retiree health insurance plan at age 60, with increases in lifetime benefit maximum indexed to medical inflation rate. (BMWE Note: The lifetime maximum is $75,000 and is primarily only a major medical plan.)

Expansion of surviving spouse benefits.

Carriers to ensure future solvency of fund by absorbing any necessary future tax increases. (BMWE Note: This is simply a continuation of current policy.)

Repeal of caps on railroad retirement benefits for long-term employees.

Five-year vesting.

Following are some of the key points that aren't being mentioned by the railroads or other rail unions:

The railroads are getting at least $347 million per year by 2004 of railroad workers' money in return for an alleged $308 million of railroad workers' money.

Railroad workers already can retire at age 60 with 30 years (360 months) of service. This is not a new benefit but approximately a 10 to 15 percent improvement of only one of our benefits.

The agreement does include a mechanism to provide improved benefits in the future if the Fund balance permits, but that future is almost 40 years away. According to the Railroad Retirement Board actuary's projections, any "extra" money in the Fund to provide improved benefits is gone until 2037 and there is only a small improvement predicted for that time.

This agreement was signed without the consensus of all the parties affected. This is an important principle. Since the Railroad Retirement Act was enacted, changes have always been made after consensus was reached. To make changes without consensus effectively disenfranchises thousands of workers in the Railroad Retirement System. And this has allowed the carriers to effectively divide rail labor; unions representing approximately 60% support the deal, while unions representing approximately 40% do not.