BLE Intl. Rebuts UTU Claims

Brotherhood of
Locomotive Engineers

EXECUTIVE COMMlTEE
DON M. HAHS
International President

EDWARD W. RODZWICZ
First Vice-President

WlLLIAM C. WALPERT
General Secretary/Treasurer

1370 ONTARIO STREET
CLEVELAND, OHIO 44113-l 702
TELEPHONE: (216) 241-2630
FAX (216) 241-6516

Over the past six to eight weeks, several UTU General Chairmen have been distributing a circular with UTU’s party line on remote control operations. This circular adulates the bargaining prowess of UTU President Boyd, alleges BLE’s leadership has failed to disseminate important information provided it by UTU concerning remote control, and lists the reasons that allegedly permitted UTU to participate with the major railroads in implementing remote control operations without any agreement.

This past weekend UTU informed everyone that with the help of National Mediation Board Member Maggie Jacobson it reached an agreement in national handling with the NCCC, which resolved the issues between them as to rates of pay, rules, working conditions and health and welfare. A specific subject alleged to have been covered by the agreement is remote control operations. We don’t know what UTU agreed to on remote control, and we do not anticipate any information on the agreement until that organization presents it to its general chairpersons. Nevertheless, we believe some response to the aforementioned circular and UTU’s newsflash is in order at this time.

First, let’s look at the propaganda UTU has been circulating. As everyone knows, UTU and its predecessor, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen, from which its current President and Assistant President came, have been the Masters of Spin. They use half-truths, misleading statements and catchy phrases to justify their actions. The story put out by UTU on the various properties is just that - - a lot of propaganda to diffuse the open dissatisfaction that all employees in the operating crafts have expressed about UTU’s remote control operations.

To place all of UTU’s rhetoric in its proper perspective, you have to remember that UTU’s leadership has adopted an approach different from the rest of labor. It is a defeatist approach. It has been described to us by UTU’s leaders as being modern and recognizing that Rail Labor "doesn’t win," for the Carriers have the upper hand in government, the federal agencies, the courts, and, therefore, we have to stop butting our heads against the brick wall and join the railroads. When Boyd became President, he hired Frank Wilner, the one-time advocate for the AAR and the rail carriers, as UTU’s PR Boss. It quickly became clear that Wilner is espousing the same Carrier views that he did in his earlier writings for the railroads, The only difference now is that those arguments are being made under the UTU banner To punish BLE’s membership for voting against a merger with the UTU, UTU’s leadership decided to engage in anti-engineer, pro-company strategy in its press releases. On the one hand, it seeks to place the evils of remote control operations upon the BLE. On the other, with sleight of hand, UTU claims its stance on remote control to be beneficial for locomotive engineers. A few examples will suffice to prove this.

1. The UTU did not participate in BLE’s negotiations with the NCCC. Therefore, UTU would not have knowledge whether or not BLE was aware of the U.S. railroads’ argument that they could implement remote control operations without any negotiations. UTU’s circular says we were aware. The truth: Neither NCCC Chairman Robert Allen nor the individual railroads’ representatives took that position in any negotiating session with BLE in the current national negotiating sessions.

2. UTU’s propaganda asserts, "President Boyd, in a brilliant negotiating strategy, convinced the railroads to make remote control a negotiating issue. In [the last week of] September 2001], the railroads signed a letter of intent that gave remote control work to the UTU." The merger agreement between UTU and BLE was out for ratification by the BLE’s membership at that time. If Boyd and Thompson truly wanted that merger to go through, grabbing the letter of intent was about the most counterproductive thing they could have done. And the 17,000 against to 7,000 vote for proves that. As a bargaining strategy, who benefited? The railroads put the remote control operations into effect without an agreement. Train service employees have been performing engineers’ work at lesser rates of pay than they would normally have received. They now have more onerous jobs that they are not properly trained for, which makes those jobs potentially unsafe. All this strategy has accomplished is the loss of hundreds of engine and train service jobs with all the reduction in labor costs going toward the railroads’ bottom line.

3. To support their anti-engineer stance, UTU’s apologists next claim that its top three officers (Boyd, Thompson and Johnson) met with your Executive Committee, along with General Counsel for both organizations. They say that at this October 3,200l meeting, Boyd proposed that BLE jointly negotiate with UTU on the remote control issue. This is far from true. Despite BLE’s often made offer to engage in joint national negotiations, Boyd repeatedly refused to do so. Moreover, BLE’s Convention ended on Friday, September 28,2002. BLE’s Executive Committee was totally new. Boyd wanted to meet with us in regard to the merger and the litigation affecting the vote. The remote control "agreement" that UTU obtained the preceding week was not a discussion item. Rather, near the end of our meeting, Boyd introduced the NCCC and UTU joint letter of intent. This letter became a threat- - -merge or else. Boyd and Company wanted the remote control operations and demanded the agreement from the NCCC. Not the other way, as they state it. NCCC willingly gave remote control to UTU. Wouldn't you if you were in the railroads' shoes?. In doing so, Boyd and the UTU effectively reduced the number of jobs for operating employees on the nation's railroads. Of course, this is just part of UTU's" let's join 'em - - the carriers" - - policy!!!

4. Based upon a standard speech of UTU Assistant President Paul Thompson ' the conclusion UTU's propagandists advocate is that UTU has "hundreds of engineer members, whom we are going to see protected, and the only way we can accomplish that task is to gain the right to represent the engineers' craft." This statement proves that UTU's propaganda consists of just its usual old, tired, false battle cries which attempt to instill fear in the membership and create fights within the train and engine service crafts. in short, UTU is threatening merger or representation warfare and suggests it can't lose, as it is supported in this endeavor by the railroads.

Now, as we noted at the outset of this letter, UTU has entered into a national agreement with the NCCC. Except for the UTU and the NCCC, no one else presently knows how they dealt with remote control. However, we think that it can be anticipated that their settlement was built upon an anti-BLE, anti-engineer theme. Contrary to what UTU's Assistant President has said, any conclusion UTU reached will not be geared to help their engineer members anymore than it would be intended to aid BLE's engineer members. In addition, any observer of the situation must know that the NCCC and UTU have forced us to arbitrate the remote control dispute while they negotiate, but have delayed and continue to delay creating an adjustment board with unbiased, nonpartisan members.

Thus, we are going to have to go to federal court again to develop some order to the chaos the railroad industry and its favored partner are purposely fomenting. Railroads employees, in general, and train and engine service employees, in particular, should not allow themselves to be derailed by UTU's distracting public relations efforts and the accompanying staged bargaining that has accompanied those actions. UTU has become a pliable organization. But we must always remember that our adversary is the railroads, not each other. Only if Rail Labor sticks together for the interests of the rank-and-file members of each and every craft, will locomotive engineers and all railroad employees accomplish Labor's goals.