Rail Carriers Submit Union Busting Proposal

      IN EARLY NOVEMBER, The National Carriers' Conference Committee (NCCC),
representing most of the nation's large freight railroad companies, served
notice to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLE&T) and
the United Transportation Union (UTU) concerning the Committee's position on
wages, rules and benefits for the upcoming year's round of collective
bargaining. Since the 1930s, the NCCC has assumed master contract bargaining
on behalf of the majority of the carriers vis-à-vis the myriad craft union
"brotherhoods"; i.e., engineers, track workers, car inspectors, trainmen,
etc.

     What is alarming about the NCCC's proposal this time around is that the
carriers are not only pursuing the expected demands for give-backs in health
insurance and work rules, they are seeking to outright alter the face of
railroading forever through craft consolidation, job eliminations, and a
complete restructuring of the Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA) which
governs compensation for on-the-job injuries in the rail industry. In
addition, the rail industry wishes to implement additional restrictions on
the right to strike or take other "self-help" activities, and to invoke
crushing sanctions against employees and the union if and when they engage
in such actions. The tone of the entire 9-page document, identical in its
entirety to both unions, is cocky, confrontational, and combative.

     The NCCC claims that the railroads' current labor cost model "produces
relentless labor cost inflation." Specifically, the Committee claims that
current agreements mandate staffing levels that a) require the employment of
more workers than necessary; and b) impose "above-market" wage and benefit
costs. Therefore the carriers propose that all train and engine positions
(engineer, conductor, brakeman, etc.) be "consolidated", the new position to
be renamed "transportation employee". The separate contracts now in effect,
one for trainmen (held by the United Transportation Union -- UTU), the other
for engineers (held by the BLE&T) would apparently then be rolled into a
single common agreement. While the initial proposal does not spell out their
plans in detail, there can be no doubt what this means: "crew size shall be
based on operational needs as determined by the railroad." The carriers,
having achieved the elimination of thousands of yard engineer positions
across the country in the last few years with the implementation of Remote
Control Operation (RCO), have obviously now set their sites on achieving
single employee operation of over-the-road trains, in effect, the
elimination of the conductor position. As a parting shot in this section of
the document, the NCCC chides that "absent agreement on
staffing/consolidation, to the extent that any collective bargaining
agreement requires a crew size which exceeds operational needs, the
compensation of the entire crew shall not exceed the compensation which
would have been paid to the crew had crew staffing been determined by the
railroad by operational needs alone. Such reduced compensation shall be
divided equally among the crew members." (italics added). In other words,
the carriers are stating that they wish to operate with single-person crews,
and if the union refuses to agree, the carriers say fine then, the two of
you will have to now split the wage of one; i.e., a fifty percent pay cut!

     The Carriers' proposal goes on to gripe about employees' taking
unscheduled time off work, and proposes that if and when an employee fails
to meet the railroad's attendance standard, that a proportional reduction be
made in the railroad's contributions toward that employee's benefits based
on the percentage of his/her availability. This is a particularly insulting
demand, considering that engineers and trainmen traditionally have
accumulated NO sick leave; i.e., when a T&E employee "marks off" sick or
otherwise, there is NO wage compensation whatsoever.

    But perhaps the most controversial section of the NCCC proposal involves
changes and add-ons to federal legislation which governs employment in the
rail industry. First off, the carriers are proposing to replace the existing
FELA legislation with a "no-fault" system of compensation. While FELA may
have its inefficiencies and problems, the carriers' desire to change it to a
system more like workers compensation has less to do with efficiency than it
has to do with wanting to circumvent the payout of large sums of money to
employees who are critically injured due to negligence on the part of the
railroad. The NCCC's final jab here: "If a joint legislative proposal ... is
not developed and enacted, all rates of pay will be reduced by an amount
that represents the excess costs to the railroads attributable to FELA."
(italics added).

     Second, the NCCC proposes to negotiate "add-ons" which would make the
right to strike and take "self help" even more restricted than is currently
the case under the Railway Labor Act (RLA). While the NCCC does not actually
propose changes to the Act, the Committee proposes that the union negotiate
agreement that it be required to give ten days advance written notice to the
railroad of any picket, strike, boycott, slowdown or other "self-help"
activity. In addition, the NCCC suggests that during any form of job action,
any of its member railroad companies would have the unilateral right to
suspend any pay and protective provisions of any union agreement, and end
agreements which provide for union or agency shop or deduction of union
dues. Here, the NCCC offers its final kick in the teeth: "For the duration
of the action, the railroad will, at its sole discretion, have the right to
determine compensation for employees." (italics added).

     Taken as a whole, the NCCC proposal is nothing short of a union busting
initiative. With the Republicans firmly in control of the White House and
both houses of Congress, the carriers appear to be poised to launch an
all-out assault upon the wages, benefits, and work rules of the nation's
railroaders. In the early 1980s, on the heels of deregulation of the
industry and the election of Ronald Reagan, the carriers launched their last
major offensive against rail labor. Over the past twenty to twenty-five
years or so, the carriers have gotten nearly everything they have wanted.
The implementation of new technology has decimated the ranks of U.S.
railroaders. Firemen, brakemen, switchmen, and operators have been largely
eliminated. Other crafts, including dispatchers, clerks, maintenance-of-way
and mechanical personal have all seen their numbers eroded through new
technology, job consolidations, and outsourcing. By the dawn of the 21st
century, U.S. railroaders had easily become the world's most efficient rail
workers based upon tonnage moved-per-mile-per-man.

     During this period, there were a number of strikes in the industry,
both against the NCCC and its member railroads as well as against non-member
roads as well (Norfolk & Western 1978, Soo Line 1994). However, these
attempts were largely defeated by the carriers. The national strikes were
quickly ended when the unions were ordered back to work by the U.S.
Congress, usually within 24 hours. The unions were then subject of a hostile
ruling by a stacked Presidential Emergency Board (PEB). Rail workers and
their unions are covered by the Railway Labor Act which predates the
National Labor Relations Act, the legislation passed in the 1930s to protect
most other private sector workers' rights to organize and strike. The RLA
provides for an extremely complex and convoluted process whereby unions make
take "self-help" action, but only after a lengthy period of negotiation,
notification, cooling off, etc. And once these hoops are carefully jumped
through and the union actually takes self-help, the U.S. Congress can simply
order the membership to stop taking self-help; i.e.,. issue a back-to-work
order. This process usually ends with the President appointing a 3-member
PEB which hears evidence and then issues a binding decision upon both
parties, the carrier(s) and the union(s).

    It goes without saying of course, that the NCCC proposal is no more than
a "wish list", a vision of a world in which the carriers would love to
operate. How much of this vision they will be able to achieve remains to be
seen. What they are capable of winning is inversely proportional to how much
the unions and the rank-and-file railroader are ready, willing, and able to
resist.  Unfortunately, in the face of this assault, the two craft unions
that represent train and engine employees -- the BLE&T and the UTU -- are
beset by division and scandal. Never on friendly terms, the two unions have
become increasingly hostile to one another, particularly following the
failed merger attempts of a few years ago. The UTU withdrew from the AFL-CIO
after being charged with raiding the BLE, and the latter went on to
undertake what for some engineers is an uncomfortable marriage with the
Teamsters (The BLE renamed itself the the BLE and "T" for trainmen, a
reflection of its attempt to woo trainmen away from the ranks of the UTU).
Meanwhile the UTU has been plagued by scandal at its highest levels, its
president and past president both convicted of racketeering charges earlier
this year. Coupled together with the Republicans' triumph in the recent
elections, it should come as no surprise that the carriers are capitalizing
on this opportunity to take advantage of the unions' malaise.

     This contract struggle will come as a first test of the newly
reconstituted BLE&T, a union that has traditionally (for some 140 years)
represented just one craft -- that of engineer -- but for the last year has
been welcoming trainmen into its ranks, organizing both crafts on short line
railroads and encouraging defections from the UTU. The union won a
winner-take-all election earlier this year on the Canadian Pacific, adding
thousands of new trainmen to its ranks. Will the union now resist the
temptation to cut a deal with the NCCC and sell out the trainmen? It was
just a few short years ago that the UTU itself cut a deal with the carriers
on RCO, much to the chagrin of the engineers union. Obviously, with trainmen
swelling their ranks now, it may be more difficult, but hardly impossible
for the BLE&T to engage in such treachery. Will the engineers' union and the
track workers' union, the Brotherhood of Maintenance-of-Way Employees
(BMWE), now both members of the newly formed "Teamsters Rail Conference" of
the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) stick together and back
each other up in negotiations?  Perhaps the biggest unknown: will the IBT
use its strength in the transportation industry to support the railroaders?
And if "self-help" is taken by the nation's railroaders, will the IBT
leadership and the rank-and-file in trucking act in solidarity with the
railroaders by taking direct action, including the refusal to handle struck
freight? If such job action comes to pass, this would assuredly be a real
test of  Hoffa's "seamless transportation union". And what of the UTU? With
this latest concerted attack by the carriers upon the "running trades", the
trainmen (conductors) appear to have the most to lose. Will the future find
the trainmen's union knocking on the door for admittance into the Teamsters
Rail Conference? Divided and conquered for years, are the various
brotherhoods possibly on the threshold of a new era of unity and solidarity?
Or will the NCCC's offensive simply result in even further division,
disarray, and demoralization?

     For well over a hundred years, rail labor has been artificially divided
along craft lines. At one point, 26 different craft unions represented
workers on the nation's railroads, a number which has now been pared down to
a dozen or so. In the face of shrinking membership figures, together with
the NCCC attack, the future will no doubt see further mergers, amalgamations
and recombinations as the aging and crippled craft unions attempt to survive
and remain relevant. Regardless what face that rail labor takes on, it
should be obvious that the only way to stave off the offensive of the
carriers is to stand united across crafts and across union lines. The unions
must at this point put aside their differences and call a truce to their
animosities. They must set unity in the face of the NCCC union busting
proposal as their top priority. An immediate joint proclamation by the
leadership of all rail labor, not just the BLE and UTU, that we will unite
against the NCCC initiative would be a good start. In addition, the
leadership of all craft brotherhoods should immediately sound the alarm to
their respective memberships -- an injury to one is an injury to all.  And
its up to us -- the rank-and-file -- to stand up for each other across
crafts and fight back.

Ron Kaminkow
BLE & T District 27