President's Perspective

As I have noted in past columns, much of our business – our ability to deliver the bacon for our members – depends on actions which occur in Washington, DC. The actions of the federal government impact railroad workers in many areas that do not impact most other organized workers.
For example, our Railroad Retirement includes a Social Security component similar to Social Security for non-railroad workers. It also includes a "Tier II" component which is similar to private pensions negotiated by most other unions.

While most other workers are covered by state inadequate workers' compensation schemes, railroad workers are covered by the Federal Employers' Liability Act, an act which allows injured railroad workers the right to recover the full cost of the injuries they suffer at work.

When mergers occur outside of the railroad industry, the unions involved and the merging companies generally negotiate agreements to handle the new situation. In the railroad sector, a labor-hostile Surface Transportation Board simply allows railroads to abrogate collective bargaining agreements in order to make the merger supposedly more efficient, based simply on assertions by the merging carriers.  Even when the merger hurts the public, the merging companies and the workers and the assertions made by the carriers when they apply to the STB to merge prove clearly erroneous and inaccurate, the STB ignores it anyway. 

Similarly the courts have interpreted the Railway Labor Act in a manner which encourages railroads to violate the clear language of collective bargaining agreements with impunity, at worst expecting to have their actions arbitrated many months after they violate the contract, as the courts generally (though not always) enjoin strikes by railroad workers when the railroads clearly break our contracts.

Even the area of collective bargaining is mired in outmoded principles of regulation which are not applicable elsewhere in the private sector. In virtually all other industries, when the contract expires the parties are free to resort to self-help. But in the railroad (and airline) industry, a government agency, the National Mediation Board, has jurisdiction over the bargaining process and generally functions shamelessly to allow the railroads to gain the upper hand, making up rules as they go in order to assist the railroads and hurt the families of railroad workers. NMB board members regularly substitute their personal and political agendas to subvert the process in favor of the railroads.

Once the National Mediation Board decides the time is ripe for the railroads and proffers arbitration (releases the parties), it generally recommends in railroad disputes on major carriers that a presidential emergency board be created because any disruption of service on a major railroad might cause problems in the national economy or even a regional economy. They base their decisions on principles which are as outmoded as the necessity of the NMB's role in collective bargaining.

In the 1920s when the Railway Labor Act was passed, more than 80% of intercity freight moved by rail. Now less than half of that moves by rail, but the NMB simply parrots the cliches put forward by railroads that a rail strike will immediately cripple the economy and has done little to analyze what effect a rail strike on a single road would have on a national or regional economy and whether a PEB is even necessary.

After the NMB takes its parting shot at railroad workers by recommending a PEB and recommends the neutrals who will be on it, the president of the United States selects the PEB. Even though the findings of the PEB are not binding on the parties – either party can reject them and resort to self help after 30 days – the Congress of the United States (regardless of whether the Republican or Democrats are in control) usually ends the self-help and imposes the recommendations of the PEB on the parties or legislates an arbitration process.

It should be noted here that many former NMB members and staff, STB members and staff, and even Congressmen and staff have ended up with lucrative railroad and airline industry jobs after taking pro-railroad, anti-labor actions while they served on those agencies.

It is no surprise then to us in Rail Labor to see the Supreme Court of the United States override the Constitution of the United States and the will of the American people and select its favorite to become president of the United States. It simply is acting in the same manner that the agencies which have jurisdiction over railroad workers generally act. It creates about as level a playing field as a major downhill ski slope.

This is the reason why federal elections are so important to railroad workers. And with the selection of George W. Bush as president we are bargaining in a very negative environment. The railroads know this and are being very aggressive in our bargaining round. Although we are making every effort to negotiate a fair deal – a deal consistent with agreements that have already been made by the BMWE nationally and locally – we run a significant risk if we allow a PEB appointed by President Bush to determine the parameters of our next contract.

The last national Presidential Emergency Board appointed by a George Bush was PEB 219. Although our case for improvements is legitimate, it is improbable that we will have a fair evaluation of issues by a Bush-appointed PEB. There are monumental issues that could cause all of us incredible harm that would be considered by a Bush-appointed PEB which would probably not be there if we reached an agreement.

The railroads have raised proposals: to contract out all of our production work; reduce our away- from-home expenses; obtain $100 per month in cost sharing for our health and welfare; alter seniority and bidding rules. A fair minded PEB would give short shrift to such proposals – look at them in the same manner they would look at union demands for $100 per hour – and simply ignore all such carrier proposals.

A fair minded PEB would recognize that the carriers' current economic problems are short term in duration and the result of self-inflicted, poorly conceived mergers and would not penalize railroad workers for the poor management decisions which led to those mergers and the poor public policy decisions of the government agency which approved those mergers. A fair minded PEB would recognize that the railroad industry prior to those mergers was coming on strong, more profitable than it had ever been with promise of even better years to come. And a fair minded PEB would not allow the colossal judgment errors of management and the even more colossal blunders of the STB in approving those mergers and converting eight profitable Class 1 railroads four years ago to four marginally profitable larger railroads today to be taken out of the hide of the workers on those railroads.

But there is little likelihood that we will get a fair minded PEB from President Bush. It is much more likely we will get a Board that is pro-railroad – that will ignore the temporary nature of the financial condition of the railroads – that will consider their work rules arguments legitimate and fashion recommendations accordingly. And as Congress always rubber stamps recommendations of PEBs regardless of whether the Democrats or Republicans control it, those recommendations would most likely be the basis of our next agreement.

I would prefer not to go that route.

Remember the last national, illegal strike that occurred was under a Republican -- the PATCO strike, when the union was eliminated by government action and all of the workers who took part were fired.