The following is a joint message to UTU members from UTU International President Paul Thompson, President-elect Mike Futhey, and Sheet Metal Workers International Association General President Mike Sullivan, who becomes general president of SMART on Jan. 1.

Brothers and sisters:

It is said that if we do not reason together, we will be devoured by the sword -- a descriptive commentary on this round of negotiations with the NCCC-represented rail carriers toward a new national contract.

Rather than working together through interest-based bargaining to achieve a mutually beneficial agreement, the UTU and the NCCC-represented railroads are at war with each other.

It needn’t be so, and the carriers are most at risk of losing big because of the change in congressional control last November, and the strong prospects for Hillary Rodham Clinton becoming president next November.

Whether this realization brings the carriers back to the bargaining table for good-faith negotiations remains to be seen.

For sure, this round of negotiations has been most frustrating for UTU members and the UTU national negotiating committee.

It is most frustrating because the carriers, whose profitability is setting records, are acting toward labor as if they were bankrupt airlines or near-bankrupt automakers.

In fact, the railroads' record profits are a direct result of labor’s long-time assistance. The carriers are quick to ignore that labor helped them gain from Congress economic deregulation in 1980, plus a $2 billion tax credit in 1982; and, more recently, significant payroll tax savings through Railroad Retirement reform, and elimination of a fuel tax worth $180 million annually to them.

We can remember no time in history -- until now -- that the UTU or its predecessor organizations didn’t step up to the plate to assist the carriers when they were in need.

The UTU worked with the carriers during their hard times, always being promised that when carrier finances improved, the restored profitability would be shared with the loyal employees who helped make it possible.

Surely, when we entered this round of national handling, there was valid expectation on the UTU's part that now that the carriers had entered a new era of profitability -- an era Wall Street is predicting can continue for many years -- that the carriers would honor their commitments.

Instead, the carriers came to the bargaining table as if they were on the verge of financial ruin.

* They demanded one-person crews, which would have destroyed the craft of conductor. In fact, the one-person crew demand was made in the face of evidence that safety and national security would be compromised severely if two sets of ears and eyes were removed from the cab. Moreover, the demand for one-person crews was made even though local crew-consist agreements provide for a minimum of one conductor and one engineer. 

* Additionally, the carriers demanded that the UTU agree to scrap the Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA), which Congress imposed on railroads as essential protection against unsafe working conditions.

* More recently, the carriers have added demands that future COLAs be eliminated, and that we pay back the entirety of previous COLAs, which would be double-dipping by the carriers because a portion of previous COLAs was put toward health-care cost sharing.

* And throughout these negotiations, the carriers have increased their level of intimidation and harassment against employees. Never can we recall such a high level of arbitrary and harsh discipline imposed on train and engine service crews who are often forced to work when they are psychologically impaired by the onset of  fatigue brought on by inflexible availability policies and limbo time.

The UTU went to federal court to derail the unrealistic one-person crew demand -- and we were successful.

The carriers then voluntarily withdrew the demand to scrap FELA after the same court said that is a matter for Congress to decide. But the carriers did not ratchet down their harsh and arbitrary discipline policies, or back away from inflexible availability policies or limit limbo time

Still, the UTU stayed at the bargaining table. When it appeared the carriers might finally get down to good-faith bargaining following our court victories, the carriers created a new stumbling block by refusing to honor a written commitment from the previous round of national handling.

In that round, the carriers signed a side letter solemnly pledging, at the earliest possible opportunity, to address entry level rates of pay as tied to training.

Without explanation, the carriers refused to honor the commitment they signed in Side Letter 2. They even made back-door attempts to reassert their one-person crew objective by demanding that conductors accept a pay cut to reflect the additional cost to the carriers of two-person crews.

We haven’t had a negotiating session with the carriers since January, when we asked, once again, that the carriers honor their written commitment and address Side Letter 2.

But instead of addressing the matter of train crews not being paid full scale after successfully completing training and being assigned the full duties of conductor, the carriers demanded we withdraw the item from negotiations.

So we went back to courthouse and asked that the carriers be ordered to engage in good-faith negotiations and address entry-level pay as tied to training. We are awaiting a decision.

In the meantime, several of the carriers have signed agreements with the BLET to eliminate the conductor and brakeman positions and give the remote control work to the locomotive engineer in road service. We do not think these agreements are lawful and are fighting them in court.

So what is the next step?

Well, the Railway Labor Act and a half-century of actions by Congress have made it painfully clear that railroad labor unions cannot mount a successful work stoppage as a defense against employer attacks.

In fact, the carriers thought they had us in checkmate, even suggesting to the media that if the UTU didn’t capitulate on one-person crews, the carrier-friendly Bush administration would appoint a carrier-friendly Presidential Emergency Board to break the impasse.

The carriers expected such a PEB to issue recommendations favorable to the carriers, and predicted Congress would enact those recommendations into law.

But the UTU has commenced a different strategy -- and it is being embraced by the labor-friendly Congress we helped to elect last November, and aided through our merger with the SMWIA, creating, through SMART, one of the best funded and largest Political Action Committees (PACs). Also, our friends at the AFL-CIO are assisting us.

We are now taking the fight to the carriers.

Since it is fact that no major piece of railroad legislation has ever been passed without the support of rail labor, we have made clear to the carriers that we are going to block passage of their proposed $400 million investment tax credit bill.

That action denies them an annual $400 million federal subsidy -- and even Wall Street is now taking serious note of our political strength and our responses to the carriers’ refusal to bargain in good faith.

We have also linked arms with captive shippers in support of legislation to bring railroads more fully under the antitrust laws; and those shippers are supporting our efforts for passage of the Federal Railroad Safety Improvement Act, which has more teeth than any rail safety bill introduced in more than three decades.

If the carriers do the arithmetic, the loss of their investment tax credit far exceeds -- each and every year -- any savings from addressing entry level pay tied to training, or paying our members current and future COLAs.

Moreover, the longer the carriers remain at war with the UTU, the more new lawmakers we are going to sign-up in support of captive-shipper sought legislation and other carrier-unfriendly actions by Congress.

The UTU didn’t ask for this state of affairs. The UTU has always made a better friend than an enemy -- and we can be a vicious enemy. We would have been on the railroads' side had they come to the bargaining table this round with a positive attitude.

There is still time. It is in the best interests of the carriers and the UTU that we reach a voluntary and mutually acceptable contract at the bargaining table.

And it is in the best interests of railroad stockholders that the carriers and the UTU restore their collaborative ways, because if this battle continues, the UTU and its new partners in SMART and the AFL-CIO will be investing considerable resources in a legislative battle against the railroads.

If carrier management thinks it can force the recommendations of a carrier-friendly PEB through Congress, with labor peace to follow, they are quite mistaken on both counts.

Thus, carrier stockholders may wish to direct the carrier managers -- who work for the stockholders -- to reflect on the words of former Southwest Airlines CEO Herb Kelliher. Kelliher observed that when the employees are put first, they will feel good about themselves; and if they feel good about themselves, they will treat customers well and customers will come back -- and that's good for stockholders.

It has been a long time since train and engine service workers employed by the major railroads have felt good about themselves. It’s time for change.

In solidarity,

(signed)

Paul Thompson
Mike Futhey
Mike Sullivan