News Items-Remote Control
Ongoing Court Action
CLEVELAND, May 17 --
A hearing was held on May 15, 2002 before U. S. District Judge Gottshall on BLE's Motion to Enforce or Amend the Injunction issued on January 16, 2002 in the Class I Railroads' action on remote control. At that time, the District Court enjoined BLE and its subordinate entities and members from striking over remote control operations and directing BLE to arbitration.
Since the January decision, the carriers have refused BLE's proposals for a fair and impartial arbitration, and the UTU interjected itself into the process as a full participant on the basis of a ruling in 1998 won by the BLE in the Eighth Circuit. At the hearing, BLE urged the court to join UTU as an indispensable party to the case and then to vacate the injunction or set up an expedited arbitration process with a fair and impartial panel and the neutral member or members of the panel having to side with the majority.
The court made UTU a party and denied BLE's motion for the court to condition continuation of the injunction by prescribing the method to choose the panel, the panel's composition, and a means to break any deadlock. The court directed BLE to invoke the procedures specified in Section 3, Second of the Railway Labor Act. Judge Gottshall also informed BLE that it should come back to her after the merits decision of the Section 3, Second Board if the issues raised by BLE were not satisfactorily answered by the arbitrator.
Billboard Denouncing Remote Control Disappears
CLEVELAND, May 21 --
Remote control technology has caused 60 locomotive engineer jobs to disappear nationwide since the beginning of 2002 -- and now it has caused a billboard to disappear. In April, the members of BLE Division 532 spent just under $1,000 to lease a billboard overlooking the rail yard where they work in Richmond, Va. They used the billboard to post a message protesting CSX Transportation’s use of remote control locomotives. Even though the Division paid to have their message displayed for a full month, it disappeared after only two weeks. The billboard’s message read: "Remote control trains? No engineer in the cab? Stop the madness! Call your Congressman today! Stop paying dues to a union that eliminates jobs! Join BLE Division 532 today!"
The billboard was situated outside the control tower window and in plain view of the local trainmaster and yardmaster. It received positive responses from BLE and UTU members alike.
"Most UTU guys on the ground around here don’t want remote control," said M.E. "Ed" Mellott, Local Chairman of Division 532.
However, the BLE message mysteriously disappeared and was replaced with a military recruitment ad.
Brother Mellott contacted the billboard company that his division had paid to lease the advertising space. According to Brother Mellott, a representative from the billboard company told him CSXT had contacted her company asking that the BLE message be removed. She told Brother Mellott that CSXT believed the message was a breach of the billboard company’s contract with CSXT, primarily because the billboard was located on CSXT property. She further told Brother Mellott that CSXT threatened to knock down
all the company’s billboards located on CSXT property if the message was not removed.
The billboard company offered to transfer the message to another location for two weeks, but the BLE Brothers chose to have half of their $1,000 refunded. "We felt we had made our point, so we opted to get our money back," Mellott said.
Brother Mellott said he and the members of his Division have other plans in store to inform the general public in Richmond, Va., about the railroad’s remote control operations. He noted that CSXT’s parent company, CSX Corp., is headquartered there.
CSX to apologize over BLE billboard flap
MILWAUKEE, Wisc. --
CSX officials yesterday told Trains.com that it will apologize to the BLE for the removal of an anti-remote control billboard that BLE Division 532 placed overlooking the railroad’s Acca Yard in Richmond, Va.
CSX says it should not have asked to have the advertisement removed and will apologize to the union. “We clearly made a mistake,” said CSX spokeswoman Kathy Burns.
Last month, BLE Division 532 paid nearly $1,000 to lease the billboard for a month. It read: “Remote control trains? No engineer in the cab? Stop the madness! Call your Congressman today! Stop paying dues to a union that eliminates jobs! Join BLE Division 532 today!"
The billboard was situated outside the control tower window and in plain view of the local trainmaster and yardmaster, the BLE said. But the BLE’s message disappeared after two weeks, replaced by a military recruitment ad.
The union said CSX – which has purchased the most remote-control units of any American Class 1 so far -- asked Lamar Outdoor Advertising to remove the BLE advertisement.
Notification about the billboard went to CSX’s real estate subsidiary, Burns said. Real estate personnel told Lamar Outdoor that the billboard message was offensive, and asked for it to be removed, she said.
“That action was not cleared through the appropriate internal CSX channels,” Burns said. “We don’t agree with the content of the billboard, but as a matter of policy we respect the rights of others to have differing views on issues.”
CSX will contact the BLE local chairman to apologize, Burns said, and will notify him and Lamar Outdoor that the railroad would not object if the union wishes to have the billboard message reappear.
The advertising company refunded half of the union’s billboard payment after running the ad for just two weeks, the BLE said.
BLE spokesman John Bentley said local chairman Ed Mellott could not be reached for comment today.
“The BLE International Division commends Ed Mellott and the members of BLE Division 532 for standing up to CSX and making their voices heard on the issue of remote control,” Bentley said. “It took a lot of guts to do what they did.”
The BLE has been protesting the implementation of locomotive remote control on the U.S. Class 1s, and says that the technology has bumped 60 engineers from their yard jobs. It has filed lawsuits against the Federal Railroad Administration, the Department of Transportation, and Union Pacific, seeking to have remote control operation shelved.
An account executive from Lamar Outdoor did not return a phone call to Trains.com seeking comment.