A couple of thread postings have me wondering about the railroad unions, particularly the BLE and the UTU. How strong are they?
NS (and I believe the other railroads as well) make it very clear that some of their jobs will require union membership.
What do the pro railroaders think about their union? Is it responsive to their needs? Does it truly represent them fairly in front of management?
When was the last time a railroad went on strike? How was it resolved?
As far as #3, ask the breakmen, firemen, tower dispatchers, and all the other people who lost there jobs with the railroad buyouts and layoffs. The BLE and the UTU didn’t care about them as long as there jobs were safe. I’ve got plenty of family members who got the shaft. Just my two cents.
I think the question is too simplistic. Unions are just like any other organization that have voting members. You might not get everything you want, but hopefully, as the previous post shows, you don’t lose everyrthing either.
There are things, both good and bad, that the unions have going for them. For the most part we have a say in what our unions do or say. BLE members can vote on national elections, but UTU members can not. The local chairman must make a survey of their members then vote based on that survey. Does that always happen, well probably not, but that is the way it’s supposed to work by our constitution.
I was a local chairman in the UTU (then Uncle Sam called) I gave up that position and joined the BLE. I currently pay dues to both unions (hopefully they will merge).
The unions set up everything from our health insurance, to our work schedules, and to the shurgrin of “youngengineer” go to task in the form of investigations for people who make mistakes and (God forbid) break a rule.
So, yes, we need unions, or I would be working alot of hours for peanuts!
I doubt you will ever see a strike on any railroad in ever again.
If any issue came down to the point one of the unions felt the need to strike, the carriers have an ace up their sleeves in the form of a Presidential Emergency Order.
Say the engineers on UP go out on strike.
UP will immediately request a PEO, which the President will sign, which includes a Presidential order to the union to return to work immediately.
The PEO forces both parties into binding arbitration, with the final decision on the merits of the issue and a binding decision coming from an arbitration board, appointed by the US President under the Presidential Emergency Order.
Depending on who the President appoints to the board, and how well financed the UP PAC and lobbyist group is, the outcome is pretty much cut and dried.
Theoretically we still have the ability to strike, but in reality, the “strike” would last a few hours and result in the union “losing” on whatever issue that caused the strike.
The UTU and BLE have become pretty much nothing
Union strength in most industries took a major hit in the wake of the air traffic controllers’ walkout in the early 1980’s. Bonzo’s actions to crush the union by hiring scabs gave the green light for the private sector to do the same in the event of a strike in other businesses.
PATCO had lots of legitimate grievances with management which would have justified a strike in the private sector but the union leadership should have taken a better look at the political climate of the time before calling the strike.
When i was railroading i was in the B R A C now TCU i think and i was in the BMOWE. After CSX bought us i had 2 choices stay with bmow and get New York dock protection or stay with brac and get a guarentee. All i got was a sore butt from them both. The only union with clout at the time was the operating unions and the dispatchers. And they would cut each others throats when the carriers played them against each other. Incest run rampent.
Thanks, guys. Sounds like you have a union about as strong as the Fraternal Order of Police.
I do wonder if the union has any say in hiring practices. I am under the impression that some of the other unions used to serve as a pool for hires. Watching old movies gives me the impression of union guys hanging around a hall waiting for a job call, and I realize in the 21st century that this no longer happens.
There are some issues that I believe the unions could take a look at from a collective bargaining point of view. Obviously, both the BLE and UTU are involved in the ongoing remote control controversy. I’d like to believe that the unions also are working at the two issues of job security and job satisfaction.
Ed, your comment that you can’t tell the union leadership apart from carrier ops officers is really a good comment about unions in general. It seems that the little guys on the ground have a real disconnect with union leadership. I have to ask the question on when was the last time a UTU or BLE president actually ran a locomotive or died on the law… or got the 3AM call to take a freight train from A to B on Christmas morning.
The excuse that the union makes demands of management that will cause the company to go out of business is pretty weak nowadays. I don’t think any of the big Class I’s are going to go out of business soon. I do believe that issues like profit sharing, stock options build productivity… and develop a sense of ownership in the company. A UP employee on the receiving end of a new disciplinary policy is more likely to buy into the policy if he/she knows that this is going to increase the value of the stocks they now own. They will work harder to make the railroad work if they can see a piece of the railroad profits getting funneled into their wallets every paycheck. I believe that unions are probably the best solution for bringing ideas like that to the table.
1.) All Class 1s and many super regionals require you to join a union.
2.) I think my National Union is a pork barrel orgainization, dedicaded to preserving thier own cushy union positions, only when pressed to the wall, will the national organization rise up. On the other hand, my T&E local is very responsive, and actively attempts to improve conditions and protect it’s members. The yardmaster union is less responsive, because it is based in Baltimore, but covers territory in four states.
3.) The last major strike was in 1985, and went to a Presidental Emergency Board. Ask any T&E employee how that went - graduated pay structure, forced promotion to engineer, elimination of most arbitraries, etc.
Railroad contracts remain in effect after they expire. So as soon as you settle one contract (it could be years after the current contract “expired”), you start working on the next one. We’ve currently been without a contract for almost two years - no raises except for the COLAs. But the cost of everything keeps rising faster then the COLAs, so we fall farther and farther behind.
Nick
I agree with most everything everyone has said, but let me say this the Union is only as strong as the local. If you have a strong local then you can get alot of things done, locally, that directly affect your daily routine.
The International basically sells insurance and works out the new contracts. It is EXTREMELY politically at the top and that really smokes us at the bottom, in th’ trenches!
Erik,
As was pointed out, most Class 1 and Class 2 roads are closed shops, either you join the union, or you don’t get hired.
The National contract governs us all, but local unions can work deals to sweeten the contract, if they are well organized.
Or, they can do a whole lot of nothing, depends on how the membership feels, and how much they prod the local officers.
Technically, the UTU has a contract to provide T&E employees to the PTRA, in essence, I work for the UTU, in reality, I work for the PTRA…because the UTU holds the “employment contract”, the PTRA can’t hire anyone for T&E service who is not a part of the union.
If you do away with the pseudo legal made up mumbo jumbo of the contract, all it really says is you have to join the union, and nothing more.
The rest is left up to the carrier.
The days of the shop boss being able to put a buddy to work are long gone!
Same with our last few contracts, pretty much the carriers wrote the contract, then handed it to the unions to review…if something didn’t go well with the union, they handed it back, asking the carriers to re-write it, please, instead of demanding positive changes.
Instead of taking an active roll in forming a new contract, they pretty much took what the carriers presented.
If I am correct, the last nationwide rail strike took place in June 1992. There was one prior in April 1991 which lasted only 24 hours or so after Bush 41 issued a back to work order.
The BLE went out on the UP, I think in 2000, but it didn’t take very long for Uncle Pete to find a bought and paid for Federal Judge to get them back to work.
That’s sad, Ed. It kind of defeats the power of a union when it ends up being a rubber stamp for management. If you were a cop I’d suggest blue flu… but you aren’t.
Zapp, Ed, I thought the BLE and UTU were talking merger? Is that still out there somewhere?
There are some serious issues out there that I could see a union really sinking it’s teeth into. UP disciplinary policies, things like crew fatigue, remote locomotive operations… the list goes on and on. I wonder what the union would do if locals decided to decertify themselves? Or threaten same?
Y’all have my sympathy big time.
We have our own version of the “flu”…sometimes it works, some times it don’t!
UTU and BLE…as soon as the upper management of these two quit looking at their own short term gains, or profit from their insurance business, and begin to think like a labor union instead of a insurance company, things might go forward.
But dont hold your breath.
I was a conductor in the UTU at that time. I was also on vacation the week it happened. I didn’t know about that short strike until a few days after it happened. It got very little coverage in the local media.
Jeff
The Unions are on the Railroad in name only.
You can’t strike because the President or Congress can order you back to work.
Remember the the Air Traffic Contollers Strike when Reagan fired them all, and hired new?
I belong to the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen, part of the TCU/IAM we’ve been without a contract since 2000 or 2002 been so long I’ve forgotten, and the last contract was a piece of crap![:(!] all we get while we have no contract is cost of living raises.
There were a few reasons as to why the president ordered them back to work. The biggest reason was that the country would come to a halt so the air traffic controllers could get more money. This means a whole bunch of people who weren’t clamoring for more money would be affected, and some might consider that a little selfish.
It would be similar to the police going on strike. Or the military. Would crime go on strike too? I think not. There are some jobs in this country that are essential to this country maintaining a certain level of sanity. Not all strikes are started for the noble idea of ending the 100 hour work week or trying to raise wages above 10 cents an hour.
In the early eighties my union struck because the contractors were offering a five cent an hour wage increase and some hot-heads thought we were worth ten cents. This was at a time when there was no work. What was the result? Instead of earning money to put food on the table with what small amounts of work there was we were walking a picket line over a matter of 40 cents a day. More than one of the membership asked which idiot thought this was a good time to flex the union muscle. Instead of getting the 10 cent an hour wage increase, a large amount of the construction work went to non-union shops. So when sanity again prevailed we got to hit the unemployment lines with a 6 cent an hour raise. Not very intelligent if you ask me.
I don’t think you can set aside railroad unions from the larger national trend of their power being diluted to the point of their becoming soley just another deduction from your paycheck that provides little, if any, benefit. I see the UP is suing a union for a wildcat strike out West. Ouch.