A 130-mile coal railroad, long in the planning stage to stretch from Wyoming into Montana and likely connect with BNSF, is about to be purchased in part by the billionaire whose family controls the candy giant producing M&Ms, Mars bars, Milky Way, Snickers, Skittles, Twix and other confections.
Forrest E. Mars, Jr., reports the Great Falls Tribune, will purchase from BNSF and Arch Coal one-third of the proposed Tongue River Railroad, which has been mired in legal challenges by environmentalists and ranchers. Mars owns what The New York Times once described as “a sprawling cattle ranch” in Montana.
Mars, who has been funding some of the legal challenges, is said by the newspaper to be buying into the railroad so as to change the route of its construction to the satisfaction of some who oppose it.
The proposed railroad would haul coal north from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin through Montana to electric utilities in the Midwest.
The newspaper reports that the deal between Mars, BNSF and Arch Coal will not stop opposition.
In 2008, Mars lost a court challenge to halt exploration and drilling for natural gas on his ranch.
WASHINGTON – The Republican chairman of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, Rep. John Mica of Florida, added to his anti-labor reputation July 19 by inserting language in an aviation bill aimed at pressuring Senate Democrats to overturn a National Mediation Board decision allowing more democratic representation elections among airline and rail workers.
Not to be lost here is that were the UTU tentative national rail agreement rejected, and the outcome turned over to third parties, Mica would take the lead in deciding the outcome – and it is likely he would push for a congressionally imposed settlement quite unfavorable to workers.
Mica’s latest assault on labor is in the form of legislative language to halt essential air service subsidies to states of three labor-friendly Senate Democrats — Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.).
Rockefeller told the Associated Press that the Mica action was in retaliation for Senate Democrats refusing to accept an anti-labor provision in a Federal Aviation Administration authorization bill.
Mica, who is pushing to eliminate Amtrak, slash transit funding and prevent Transportation Security Administration workers from joining a union, has been on a tear to overturn an NMB ruling that brings airline and railroad representation elections in tune with all other democratic elections.
The NMB last year ended a 75-year practice that counted those not voting in rep elections as having voted against union representation. Instead, rep elections are now determined by a majority those actually voting.
No other democratic elections count those not voting as having cast negative ballots. The NMB merely brought airline and railroad rep elections under the same rules affecting all other elections in America. Indeed, if congressional elections followed the old NMB procedure, which Mica wishes to restore, many House and Senate lawmakers would not have been elected.
Mica is piqued that the changed NMB rep-election rule could make it easier for unions to organize airline and railroad workers.
Although the Republican controlled House voted to overturn the new NMB rep-election rule as part of a reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration, the Senate has refused to go along.
The result has been a stalemate and a series of extensions to keep the FAA operating. In the latest extension effort, Mica inserted language eliminating essential air service to the states of the Reid, Rockefeller and Baucus, who are among the most staunch opponents of overturning the NMB ruling through legislation.
It is a game of chicken, because if the latest extension is not passed, thousands of FAA employees would be furloughed, although the nation’s air traffic control system would continue operating. The Senate has showed no sign of capitulating to Mica.
GREAT FALLS, Mont. — Two unidentified BNSF crewmembers – a conductor and engineer — were injured near here July 19 when their 110-car train, with three locomotives, ran into the rear of a stationary and unoccupied maintenance train, reports the Associated Press.
The injuries were said not to be life-threatening. The freight train was enroute from Laurel to Shelby, and 13 of the maintenance-train cars derailed.
WASHINGTON – The UTU has won a victory on behalf of 12 train and engine employees represented by the UTU and employed by Manufacturers Railway, a 124-year-old subsidiary of brewer Anheuser-Busch for which Manufacturers performs switching services in St. Louis.
In March, the carrier sought permission from the U.S. Surface Transportation Board (STB) to discontinue operations, and asked the agency not to impose so-called labor protection (actually income protection) for workers who would be put in unemployment lines as a result of the discontinuance.
The railroad’s case rested on a long-standing policy of the board and its predecessor, the Interstate Commerce Commission, not to impose labor protection when an entire system is abandoned.
The UTU Law Department intervened, telling the STB that Manufacturers had provided the agency with “misleading information” with regard to the intended cessation of operations.
Rather than abandon its system, the UTU told the STB that Manufacturers, in its own press release, had said it intended, in fact, to transfer those rail operations to a third party that would operate over the railway’s tracks and yard, which would remain under Manufacturers Railway and Anheuser-Busch ownership.
“It is clear,” said the UTU, that Anheuser-Busch intends the transaction as “a means to get around the labor protection which should rightly be imposed,” and that Anheuser-Busch “stands to benefit financially from this transaction by contracting out the rail switching operations and reducing its labor expense.”
The STB agreed, and ruled that so-called Oregon Short Line labor protection be granted as a condition of the discontinuance of operations by Manufacturers Railway.
The protection provides for six years of income protection – as opposed to a guarantee of employment — for all adversely affected employees of Manufacturers Railway.
Members of the UTU National Rail Contract Negotiating Committee, assisted by International officers and general chairpersons, are barnstorming the nation, holding face-to-face meetings with members to explain the tentative agreement and respond to questions.
The meetings began last week and continue through early August — prior to voting packages being mailed to some 38,000 members eligible to vote on the agreement.
A slideshow, shown at these meetings, provides an overview of the agreement; and a link to that slide show is found below.
A listing of meeting locations and dates can be found be clicking on another link, below.
A link also is provided to a webpage with additional information, including a link to the actual agreement.
Key points being explained to members include:
* The 17-percent wage increase is substantially higher than the rate of price inflation in 2010 and 2011, and the Department of Labor’s estimate of price inflation in subsequent years.
* The wage increase actually is 18.24 percent compounded, because each annual sequential wage increase is computed on the wage base increased by the previous year’s wage increase.
* This agreement exceeds the level of price inflation by more than any previous national rail agreement in the 41-year history of the UTU. Although the excess of the wage agreement over price inflation may appear greater in the 1970-1973 agreement (as shown graphically in a slide), that agreement didn’t account for cost-of-living adjustments; and there were givebacks, including changes in interdivision service, road-yard demarcation and run-throughs. There are no givebacks in the current tentative agreement.
* Price inflation, as computed by the Department of Labor, includes increases in costs of such items as food, autos, gasoline, clothing and other consumer goods and services. Wages that exceed price inflation provide members with greater everyday purchasing power.
* The $200 monthly cap on health care insurance assures that members will pay considerably less than is being paid by federal workers and workers in the private sector (as shown graphically in a slide). That slide also shows that were this agreement not ratified, and the existing formula for health care insurance premiums continued, members would pay considerably more than $200 monthly.
* Health care costs have been rising dramatically – more than doubling since 2000; and UTU member health care insurance premiums doubled from $100 monthly to $200 monthly in the previous agreement. This tentative agreement has provisions to help bring these costs under control, while improving the quality of health care (shown in several slides). Without bringing health care costs under control, members would face considerably higher premiums in future years.
* A significant provision in this tentative agreement maintains the $200 monthly cap for 6 ½ years, or 18 months beyond the reopening of the contract. There are certain to be increases in existing health care insurance premiums for federal workers and other private sector workers during this period – workers already paying considerably more than the $200 monthly cap provided in this tentative agreement.
* While it is alleged by some that the UTU National Rail Contract Negotiating Committee could have extracted more from the carriers owing to record-profits of major railroads party to the agreement, the fact is that carrier profitability has been ruled by neutral arbitrators not to be a valid reason for increasing wages.
* Said Arbitration Board No. 559 in 1996: “We do not think that ‘bigness’ alone or profits by themselves are permissive reasons for recommending wage increases … in our view, the union’s claim that current profit levels justify greater wage increases does not fly.”
* Were this agreement not to be ratified, third parties would decide. A presidential emergency board would consist of neutrals, all aware that President Obama froze wages of federal employees for two years, that federal employees’ health care premiums are more than double the $200 cap in this tentative agreement, that 46 million Americans have no health care insurance, and millions of unionized workers have suffered wage cuts, loss of health care benefits and loss of pensions.
* Presidential emergency board recommendations are subject to congressional amendment. The committee of jurisdiction will be the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, whose chairman, Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), proposes eliminating Amtrak and slashing transit funding, and opposes union representation of Transportation Security Administration workers. Moreover, the anti-labor Republican leadership in the House proposes folding Railroad Retirement into Social Security and privatizing Social Security and Medicare.
* Historically, rail unions do poorly after rejecting tentative agreements. Many members recall the devastation in 1991 of PEB 219 recommendations, when two of the most labor-friendly lawmakers – Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) — chaired the committees of jurisdiction.
* As National Legislative Director James Stem counsels: “This agreement provides significant financial improvement and economic stability for our families. Any other option would be a big gamble we cannot afford to take.”
To download a .pdf version of the presentation, click here.
To view the listing of meetings scheduled for locals, click on the following link:
ATLANTA — The UTU has reached a tentative agreement on behalf of train and engine workers employed by Fulton County Railway, a 20-mile-long OmniTrax-owned shortline on the west side of Atlanta.
The shortline operates over CSX-owned track, serving warehouse and light manufacturing companies in an industrial park.
The Fulton County Railway train and engine workers selected the UTU as their bargaining representative in August 2010, after meeting with UTU organizers Rich Ross and Mike Lewis.
UTU General Chairperson Doyle Turner (CSX, GO 347) led the lengthy negotiations, with National Mediation Board mediator John Livengood helping bring the sides together. The tentative agreement now goes out for member ratification.
“What we are trying to do is bring parity in wages, benefits and work rules to the thousands of employees in the shortline railroad industry, in addition to the many other protections offered by union membership,” said Turner, who heads the UTU’s shortline-railroad initiative.
“The seniority, scope and discipline rules these members now enjoy are what makes union membership valuable,” Turner said. “They help ensure that these members will have the protections they deserve.”
Turner praised UTU International President Mike Futhey for his “commitment to organizing the unorganized employees on shortline railroads.”
Fulton County Railway should not be confused with Fulton County Railroad, an independent 13-mile shortline in Indiana.
Sturdy confirmation of the value of the UTU Collective Bargaining Defense Fund emerged from a Wisconsin vote tally this second week of July – the second of three heats in a race to unseat anti-labor senators in special recall elections.
Wisconsin voters, awakened to and energized against anti-labor efforts of political extremists in their state legislature, cast majority ballots for labor-friendly candidates in primary elections.
The primaries were in advance of Aug. 9 special elections to recall state senators who earlier this year voted to strip Wisconsin public employees of their collective bargaining rights.
As Wisconsin has an open primary and no party registration, the labor-friendly candidates (all Democrats) found themselves pitted against Republican political extremists who entered the Democratic primaries as sham Democrats. They had hoped to win the primaries and assure either their own victory or victory for the incumbents they would face when the recall elections are held Aug. 9. The sham tactics failed.
Indeed, Wisconsin voters knew the difference between the real labor-friendly candidates and the sham candidates because of shoe-leather exertions by union members in Wisconsin. They knocked on doors, handed out educational materials and urged voters to go to the polls. Those successful efforts – as well as the earlier successful petition drive to force the recall elections — were supported by the UTU Collective Bargaining Defense Fund.
Legislative attacks on organized labor in Wisconsin – duplicated in Ohio, where organized labor’s counter offensive also is proving successful – is part of a more expansive effort among political extremists nationwide to destroy organized labor, fold Railroad Retirement into Social Security, privatize Social Security and Medicare, eliminate Amtrak and starve other public transit operations of funds.
The UTU’s political consultant, Dean Mitchell, said, “The UTU Collective Bargaining Defense Fund made a difference by working with the Wisconsin AFL-CIO on member-to-member communication. UTU members in Wisconsin were contacted through phone calls and special mailings, urging them to vote in the Wisconsin primary. UTU International President Mike Futhey also hosted a town hall meeting via telephone with UTU active and retired members in Wisconsin.
Mitchell has been coordinating a multi-state effort among UTU legislative directors to educate voters to the threat posed by political extremists and to energize UTU members and retirees and their families to be politically active.
That communication effort will be duplicated in advance of the Wisconsin recall elections Aug. 9.
In Ohio, the UTU Collective Bargaining Defense Fund helped to fuel a petition drive that put that state’s anti-labor legislation on hold pending a voter referendum in November. The fund is also assisting with efforts in other states to block anti-labor efforts advanced by political extremists.
Activities fueled by the UTU Collective Bargaining Defense Fund have spawned media attention, which in turn helps to educate large numbers of middle-class voters to the anti-labor agenda of political extremists.
As evidenced in the Wisconsin primaries, voters are expressing anger with the attacks on organized labor even though many have never belonged to a labor union. They recognize that today’s attacks on labor unions are a prelude to a future attack on the middle class in America.
To learn more about the UTU Collective Bargaining Defense Fund, and how to contribute, click on the following link:
Dirk Sampson, now acting general chairperson for Amtrak GO 769, issued the following update on wage, benefits and work rules negotiations with Amtrak following the death of General Chairperson Roger Lenfest.
Sampson will join with Amtrak General Chairperson Bill Beebe (GO 663) to lead those negotiations, with International Vice President John Previsich continuing to provide assistance.
Said Sampson: “We are continuing negotiations with Amtrak with a goal of obtaining an equitable agreement for our members. Certification and the interpretation of single days are important issues to Amtrak conductors and assistant conductors.
“With the continued efforts of both the general committees, and the assistance of International Vice President John Previsich, we will obain an equitable agreement.”
Sampson said the next negotiating session with Amtrak is tentatively scheduled for July 22.
WASHINGTON — America learned a tragic lesson a decade ago when armed terrorists gained entry to the flight decks of multiple commercial airliners. The results of 9/11 will live in infamy.
Inexplicably, neither railroads nor the federal government has moved to require the securing of locomotive cab doors and windows to prevent terrorists – whether foreign or domestic – from taking control of a train and wreaking a new calamity on Americans.
A similar security breach is possible at commercial bus terminals, and with commercial motor coaches, where drivers and passengers are vulnerable to armed attacks and hijackings.
That was the message delivered to the House Subcommittee on Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection by UTU Alternate National Legislative Director John Risch July 12.
The FBI warned in 2002 that rail facilities are vulnerable to attacks by terrorists; and following the killing of Osama bin Laden, it was revealed he was planning an attack on railroads. Terrorist attacks already have been carried out on passenger trains in Madrid, Spain, and London, England.
Most chilling is a warning from the Chlorine Institute — that a terrorist-induced release of chlorine from a tank car could create a toxic cloud 40 miles long and 10 miles wide that could kill upwards of 100,000 people in an urban area within 30 minutes. In fact, a limited chlorine release from a tank car following a derailment in rural Graniteville, S.C., in 2005 killed nine and forced the evacuation of thousands.
Securing locomotive cabs is also essential for crew safety. In June 2010 in New Orleans, a conductor was shot to death and an engineer wounded in their locomotive cab during an armed robbery. In 1998, a commuter train was hijacked near Philadelphia; the engineer held at gunpoint.
“We believe it should be a requirement that all locomotives be equipped with locks for the doors and windows to prevent unauthorized entry into the operating compartment,” Risch told the subcommittee, which was seeking advice on how to enhance transportation security.
The UTU also recommends that fencing, video surveillance and security personnel be required for bus terminals, and that protective shields be installed on buses to protect drivers from unruly or deranged passengers.
Proper training of rail operating crews and bus drivers to recognize, respond to and report potential terrorist activities is a high priority of the UTU, Risch told the subcommittee.
“We need to adequately train bus, rail and transit workers across America so they are ready in the event of a terrorist threat or attack,” Risch said. “Properly training frontline workers is vital to surface transportation security, and is a cost-effective way to secure and safeguard our bus, rail and transit systems.
“In the event of an incident or attack, our members are the first on the scene — even before police, fire fighters, and emergency medical responders — and what they do in the first few minutes is crucial to minimizing destruction and loss of life,” Risch said.
The UTU already is working in partnership with Amtrak to develop a training program for on-board employees; and on Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis, the UTU is helping to develop a program to train front-line employees on how to recognize, respond to and report potential terrorist activity. Although the UTU has reached out to other freight railroads for partnerships to develop similar safety training programs, railroads are hamstrung due to a lack of federal funding.
“Officials from the Federal Transit Administration and the Transportation Security Administration testified previously before Congress on the need for, and the inherent value of, worker security training,” Risch said. “Yet too little has been done to actually ensure that employees receive adequate security training.”
Although the congressionally passed 9/11 Commission Act mandated that all frontline rail, transit and over-the-road bus employees undergo live training exercises, receive training on evacuation procedures and are instructed on crew and passenger communications and coordination, little has been accomplished, and training mandates are long overdue, Risch said.
“This is unacceptable and further delay only perpetuates the existing dangers,” he said. “Security training should not be a one-time, check-the-box exercise. Regularly scheduled follow-up training is critical.”
Risch also recommended that major rail terminals, where chemicals are stored, be fenced and equipped with video surveillance and security personnel; and that outdated FRA window glazing standards be improved, as current standards protect against only small-arms fire such as a .22 caliber bullet.
“Workers must be treated as partners in the battle to protect our vulnerable bus, rail and public transit systems,” Risch said.
General Chairperson Roger Lenfest (Amtrak, GO 769), age 65, died July 10 following a short illness. Lenfest, of Sicklerville, N.J., succeeded Al Suozzo as general chairperson following Suozzo’s death in March 2010. Assistant General Chairperson Dirk Sampson becomes acting general chairperson for GO 769. Suozzo had held the post almost 18 years. A member of UTU Local 898 (Boston), and a native of Vermont, Lenfest held UTU membership since March 1971. Earlier in his UTU officer career, Lenfest was a general chairperson on Boston & Maine (now part of Pan Am Railways). GO 769 represents UTU conductors and assistant conductors on Amtrak (New York City south to Washington, D.C., and on non-Northeast Corridor Amtrak passenger trains nationwide), as well as on Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad, Virginia Railway Express, South Florida Tri-Rail and Los Angeles MetroLink. In March, Lenfest and Sampson led negotiations with MBCR that resulted in a ratified agreement, and in May Lenfest led successful negotiations toward a new ratified agreement with South Florida Tri-Rail. Most recently, Lenfest has been negotiating with Amtrak for a new agreement on wages, benefits and work rules. Sampson will succeed Lenfest at the negotiating table, joining General Chairperson Bill Beebe (Amtrak, GO 663) to lead those talks with Amtrak. UTU International Vice President John Previsich will continue to assist in those Amtrak negotiations. Lenfest is survived by his wife, Debra, two sons, six brothers, a sister and three grandchildren. Prayer service at noon Tuesday, July 19, with a calling time from 10 a.m. to noon at the Ingersoll-Greenwood Funeral Home, 1201 Central Ave., North Wildwood, N.J. In lieu of flowers the family requests memorials in his name to the Our Lady of Angels Church, 35 E. Mechanic Street, Cape May Court House, NJ 08210.
