Bargaining Update

The latest national bargaining sessions are scheduled for May 24 through 26, June 8 and 9, and June 28 through 30, by the National Mediation Board. The NMB case has been reassigned from Senior Mediator Jack Bavis to John Schrage along with Less Parmelee who was previously assigned.

On March 30, the BMWE requested the services of the NMB on Amtrak because "discussions with Amtrak are not heading towards any meaningful resolution" of the current Section 6 dispute. Mediators Les Parmelee and Fred Lief were assigned to the case and the first mediation meetings were held on May 11 and 12.

"The 74-year-old Railway Labor Act could come under assault in the 107th Congress next year if rail unions perceive that carriers are using its provisions to delay negotiations in hopes of pressuring labor into concessionary agreements," reported Frank N. Wilner in his April 17 "Rail Intelligence" column for Traffic World. "It is not uncommon for labor negotiations to drag on for years - and some have dragged on for more than three years. ... The longer the negotiations, the greater the pressure of the rank-and-file on their leaders to sign a less than desirable contract so long as it contains some form of wage boost," Wilner said.

"If the carriers had put a detailed proposal on the table early, there could have been more progress," said Joel Myron, BMWE Director of Strategic Coordination and Research. "The carriers want to halt disruptions but make little effort to resolve disputes promptly. If the carriers refuse to sit down immediately to concentrated bargaining, the parties should be released" to use economic incentives such as a strike. Otherwise, the carriers benefit as outlined in the so-called "Schmiege Letter."

On June 21, 1991, Bob Schmiege, then Chairman of the Chicago & North Western Railway, wrote, "the Railway Labor Act's specific charter is to avoid strikes, and it is remarkably effective at preventing unions from achieving the legal right to strike. Unless we believe that our companies have the leverage to win traditional management-employee tests of economic strength, our interests are best served by a system which avoids those tests. Our only real leverage is delaying a wage settlement." (Bold and italics added.)

A Right Denied - or Thrown Away

Voter registration is allegedly meant to prevent election fraud, but it often works to prevent working people from voting. In many states you must register to vote a month or more before the election. Busy people like us often don't think seriously about an election until a week or two before voting day. By then, in many states it's too late to register. And to vote. But your bosses don't forget, nor do the rich folks that own your railroad. They register. They vote. In numbers approaching 100 percent. Never forget, if you don't register, you can't vote. If you don't vote, your boss or your owners in effect vote for you. They vote, and you may not like who they pick to run your life. Remember, as former United Mine Workers President John L. Lewis said, "what is gained at the bargaining table can be lost at the ballot box." Not registered because you're on the road (or deer hunting) on election day? No problem. Also no excuse. Every state lets residents who aren't home on election day to vote in advance - usually by mail. If you're registered, all it takes is a phone call or postcard to your election bureau and a 33-cent stamp to mail the ballot back. But voting absentee is no different than voting in person. If you don't register, you can't vote.

Cramdown

On April 10, the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department wrote the U.S. Senate urging the Senate to work towards ending the "perverse 'cramdown' policies of the Surface Transportation Board, an independent agency of the U.S. Department of Transportation charged primarily with oversight of our nation's railroads. Since 1983, the STB has seen fit to use its regulatory authority during the consideration of railroad mergers and other proceedings to grant the railroads the unencumbered right to break, or 'cramdown,' the private collective bargaining agreements they have entered into with their employees. The Board's actions are in clear defiance of Congressional intent as Congress has never authorized the practice of breaking private contracts. ...

For railroad workers this egregious practice by the STB has very real and serious consequences. For example, a 30-year veteran of the railroads who has climbed the seniority ranks, may become displaced or otherwise see his or her contract rights destroyed by a stroke of the STB pen. For a working family, the consequences often mean that a railroad worker may face the real prospect of having to move hundreds, if not thousands, of miles from home - that is, if he or she is lucky enough to retain a job following a merger. In other cases, workers have actually seen their collective bargaining rights stripped away by actions of a federal government agency, or watched their employer successfully use a 30-year-old merger transaction as justification to again break an existing private contract.

Fortunately, their is a legislative fix - S. 1590 - introduced by Senator Michael Crapo (R-ID), which would put an end to the insidious practice of cramdown by barring the STB from breaking or modifying the private contracts of employees or any other entity such as a business shipper that has a contractual relationship with the railroads. ...

Last year rail labor and management agreed to up to a three-year moratorium on cram down. During this period the two sides would negotiate an end to the current cramdown policy and then work toward enactment of a unified STB policy agenda. Unfortunately, just hours after a deal was reached, the railroad industry reneged through its Washington, DC association. ... To continue to allow a federal agency to break private collective bargaining agreements that are supposed to protect railroad workers and their families is a travesty. ..."

100th Anniversary of Casey Jones Fatality

On April 30, the Casey Jones Home and Railroad Museum in Jackson, Tennessee, held a special ceremony to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of legendary engineer John Luther "Casey" Jones. As part of the ceremony, a museum official read the following statement from Ed Dubroski, President of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.

"In less than two weeks, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers will celebrate its 137th anniversary. As North America's oldest labor union, the BLE has represented literally hundreds of thousands of locomotive engineers over the course of our history. But clearly, the one BLE member whose name stands out from the rest is John Luther 'Casey' Jones.

Casey Jones belonged to BLE Division 99 in Water Valley, Mississippi. He was a member in good standing at the time of his fatal accident at Vaughn Station, which occurred one hundred years ago. In those days, railroading was such a hazardous occupation that the unions usually were the only source by which railroad workers could obtain insurance. In fact, Casey's widow benefited from not one, but two $1,500 life insurance policies that Casey had purchased from the BLE's Locomotive Engineers' Mutual Life and Accident Insurance Association.

By all accounts, Jones was an ambitious engineer, eager to move up the seniority ranks and serve on the higher paying and more prestigious passenger trains. Prior to the accident, Casey was regarded as a good engineer, who had only minor infractions on his record. Casey Jones has gone down in American folklore as an heroic man, like the captain who goes down with his ship. He was immortalized in song because he stayed on his locomotive in a vain, but valiant attempt to prevent the accident that took his life and threatened so many others. Today, the legend of Casey Jones lives on.

The cabs of our nation's locomotives are much safer than they were in the days of Casey Jones, but the railroad industry still must make great strides to ensure the safety of locomotive engineers. In the past 12 months alone, six BLE members have been killed in the line of duty while at the throttle of a locomotive. While these men may not be immortalized like Casey Jones, their deaths symbolize the ever-present need for improved railroad safety. For almost 137 years, the BLE has led the fight to protect the lives and interests of locomotive engineers, train crew members and the traveling public, and we will continue to fight for as long as it takes to reduce the number of fatalities to zero. May the legend of Casey Jones live on, even as we strive to put an end to fatal accidents on our nation's railroads."

New Move to Silence Workers

New legislation aimed at curbing the political activity of unions and their members is on the horizon in the U.S. Senate, said the AFL-CIO April 17 Work In Progress. In an April 12 hearing on campaign finance, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said he planned to introduce a bill adding another layer of regulations to unions' reporting requirements on how union dues are spent. The new requirements would interfere with unions' constitutional rights to communicate with their members, said Laurence Gold, AFL-CIO associate general counsel. Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, reminded the panel that in 1998, business groups spent more than 11 times what unions spent in hard and soft money political contributions.

Kaiser Talks Resume

One day after the National Labor Relations Board said it would charge Kaiser Aluminum with an illegal lockout of more than 2,900 workers, the company agreed to resume contract talks with the Steelworkers, beginning May 10 in Houston. The remedy for Kaiser's unlawful action is full back pay and benefits retroactive to January 14, 1999, when the company illegally locked out its employees. USWA members struck Kaiser on September 30, 1998, after the company's unfair labor practices and substandard contract offer, and offered to return to work on January 13, 1999.

Overnite Developments

The Teamsters' unfair labor practice strike against Overnite Transportation Co., hit the six-month mark April 24. Negotiations resumed for three days in Chicago in late April and were set to continue May 16 and 17 in Washington, DC. In March, the National Labor Relations Board ordered the trucking giant to bargain with the union at its Miami terminal, where workers voted to join the Teamsters in 1995. The Board also found Overnite had committed a number of unfair labor practices there, such as illegally subcontracting work, refusing to provide the union with certain information and unilaterally changing work rules. Overnite also was ordered not to interfere with, coerce or intimidate workers at the Miami terminal.