WASHINGTON — Mexican buses and trucks operated by Mexican drivers would be permitted to cross into and travel through the United States under an agreement reached March 3 between President Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon.
Congress, however, must approve the agreement, with details to be worked out between Mexico and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration should Congress approve the measure.
The Mexican vehicles would be required to meet U.S. safety and environmental regulations, and Mexican drivers would be required to demonstrate an ability to read English.
In exchange, President Calderon said Mexico would lift punitive tariffs against dozens of U.S. manufactured products, making it easier for U.S.-made goods to be sold in Mexico. Those tariffs are adding some $2 billion annually to the cost of U.S. goods imported into Mexico, according to U.S. officials.
In the face of an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showing 62 percent of Americans oppose revoking collective-bargaining rights for public employees, the Ohio Senate March 2 moved to repeal the core of those rights for Ohio state employees.
The New York Times reports the measure will clear the Ohio House of Representatives — having a sizeable Republican majority — and that Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich will sign the bill.
The newspaper calls the action nothing less “than a near complete dismantling of public-worker protections that have been in place in Ohio since 1983.”
In a close vote, the Ohio Senate voted 17-16 in favor of passage — with six Republicans joining all Democrats in opposing the measure.
The bill outlaws strikes for any public employee, removes health care insurance from any form of bargaining, eliminates binding arbitration for law enforcement and firefighters, and establishes, for all Ohio public employees, fact-finding bodies to make recommendations that, if rejected, allow a school board, city council or legislature to impose its own last/best offer.
In other words, the employer gets to determine the outcome of negotiations.
The president of the Fraternal Order of Police told the Columbus Dispatch newspaper that the bill “ensures that no employer has any reason to bargain in good faith … because they get to dictate the terms at the end.”
UTU members — and many UTU International headquarters staff in North Olmsted, Ohio, who belong to the Office and Professional Employees International Union — joined thousands of union and non-union workers over the past two weeks demonstrating against the measure outside the Ohio legislature in Columbus.
While the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll also showed that a majority of Americans support public employees paying more for health care and retirement benefits, public-employee unions in Ohio and other states already have indicated a willingness to grant states concessions, belying allegations of those Republican-controlled state legislatures and their Republican governors that they want merely to balance state budgets.
Union busting clearly is the intent. Ohio Democrats say they will push for a voter-referendum to repeal the bill.
Somewhat troubling in the poll is that Americans’ perception of private-sector and public-sector labor unions is lukewarm — with just 38 percent of respondents indicating a “positive” or “somewhat positive” impression of both private-sector and public-sector unions; and an almost equal number having a “somewhat negative” or “very negative” impression of labor unions.
The assault on public-employee collective bargaining continues in Indiana and Wisconsin.
The New York Times reports that in Wisconsin, “a standoff over legislation that would cut collective bargaining rights for public employees intensified. Democrats in the state Senate, who left Wisconsin last month to prevent a vote from taking place, learned that the Republicans left behind were taking steps to start fining missing lawmakers $100 for each day they stay away.”
In Indiana, the Indianapolis Star newspaper reports that the standoff, where Democrats have left the state to block House Republicans from passing anti-union legislation, continues.
And in Arizona, where the legislature is considering 20 anti-union bills, the UTU’s State Legislative Director Greg Hynes spoke out after 59 Republican senators and house members signed onto a resolution supporting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s union-busting agenda. “It is essential to the democratic system [that] workers should always have a voice, and to take that away is not American,” Hynes told the media in Phoenix.
UTU HQ employee Carl Morgano at a pro-worker rally in Columbus, Ohio
CSX-employed yardmasters represented by the UTU have ratified a coordination-of-operations agreement affecting CSX eastern district (former Baltimore & Ohio) and northern district (former Conrail) lines. The agreement was negotiated in response to a CSX filing with the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to “transfer, consolidate, coordinate and merge train operations and the associated work force” in the eastern and northern districts of CSX. An implementing agreement between CSX and the UTU was required under provisions of so-called New York Dock labor protection. The ratified agreement contains negotiated enhancements, including automatic certification for employees at locations where assignments will be affected by the coordination, prior rights to consolidated work, and an increase to the highest yardmaster pay rates for all positions in the territory not currently at the high rate. Additionally, the ratified agreement establishes around-the-clock yardmaster coverage at a new CSX intermodal facility at North Baltimore, Ohio, and places the newly acquired work under the jurisdiction of the former B&O collective bargaining agreement. UTU International Vice President John Previsich, who assisted with negotiations, commended General Chairpersons Richard DeGenova (CSX, GO 247) and Robert Keeley (CSX, GO 342) “for their commitment and tenacity in seeking improved conditions for their members during the long and difficult negotiating period of this agreement. Their efforts were instrumental in securing enhancements rarely obtained in Section 4 negotiations,” Previsich said.
BNSF CEO Matt Rose, 51, is said by the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram to be a possible successor to 80-year-old Warren Buffett as the next CEO of holding company Berkshire Hathaway, whose assets exceed $372 billion.
The newspaper bases the speculation on a Securities and Exchange Commission filing indicating “four unnamed candidates as possible successors to Buffett. That’s one more than a year ago, and some observers suggest the new candidate is Rose,” says the newspaper.
BNSF is now wholly owned by the Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway, whose holdings also include insurance giant GEICO.
A BNSF spokesperson denied the rumor.
WASHINGTON — Figures released by the Federal Railroad Administration for 2010 show that 20 rail employees — eight of them UTU members — died in on-duty accidents in 2010. There were 16 on-duty employee deaths in 2009 — eight being UTU members.
Highway-rail grade-crossing and trespassing accidents killed 712 in 2010, the FRA said — 451 of them trespassers on rail property.
In 2010, there were 130 train collisions, down 3.2 percent from 2009, and 1,297 derailments, down 4.4 percent from 2009. Yard accidents totaled 981, down 1.8 percent from 2009.
Demonstrations continued in state capitals in Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin this week as extreme right-wing legislatures indicated no intention of giving ground in their union-busting efforts.
UTU International President Mike Futhey, meeting with AFL-CIO officials in Washington, D.C., urged UTU members and their families to continue their telephone calls to state Republican lawmakers in opposition to the legislation. “We are not going away. We will not forget. And thanks to the values of the union movement and our members, the UTU and the labor movement is stronger than ever,” Futhey said.
In Ohio, a vote by the Republican-controlled Senate Labor Committee is expected this week on legislation to end collective bargaining and strikes by public employees, and establish stiff fines for public employees who defy the no-strike ban, reports the Columbus Dispatch. A sizeable Republican majority in the House and Senate prevents Democrats from blocking the bill from passage once it exits the Senate Labor Committee.
In Wisconsin, Senate Democrats remained out of state, preventing a quorum to consider union busting legislation in that state. Senate Democrat Tim Cullen told the Madison Captial-Times that Democratic senators remain united by their top priority — preserving key collective bargaining rights for Wisconsin’s public employees.
In coordination with the AFL-CIO, more than 1,000 automated telephone calls were made to UTU members in that state, delivering a message from UTU State Legislative Director Tim Deneen urging them to contact lawmakers in opposition to the leiglsation.
In Indiana, enough House Democrats remain out of state for a second week in their continuing effort to deny Republicans a quorum to consider union-busting legislation in that state.
In Idaho, legislation is pending that would prohibit state employees from joining unions, and would also outlaw public-employee strikes.
In Arizona, Florida and Kansas, legislation is being considered to restrict public-employees from having donations to union political action committees (PACs) deducted from their paychecks. In fact, Arizona State Legislative Director Greg Hynes advises that the Arizona state legislature now is considering 20 different anti-union bills.
Said UTU Assistant President Arty Martin, “In my 45 years as a proud union member and officer, I have never witnessed such blatant attacks on working families.
“The source of the attacks is corporations, financial institutions and wealthy investors who have bankrolled right-wing extremists running for public office. A Supreme Court decision making it easier for corporations to contribute to political campaigns certainly helped the effort.
“If labor-union survival and the economic survival of all working families is going to be assured, we in organized labor must respond to the attacks on our collective bargaining rights. We must maintain our right to join a union and our right to make political donations, if we choose, through payroll deduction to politicians who support labor and our rights.”
The United Transportation Union Board of Directors Feb. 28 voted that funds from the UTU’s Education Fund be made available to assist union brothers and sisters in various states whose collective-bargaining rights, right to strike, union membership and check-off privileges for PAC contributions are under attack by extreme right-wing lawmakers.
UTU International President Mike Futhey, a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Council, is in Washington, D.C., this week meeting with federation President Rich Trumka and other AFL-CIO Executive Committee members on strategies and events that will be most effective in combating union-busting efforts of state legislatures.
The UTU will coordinate its activities with the AFL-CIO and other federation unions.
Also under discussion is creation of a nationwide fund to which other unions and union members might contribute to assist in the effort to combat union-busting.
Two executive vacancies have been filled by the UTU Board of Directors. General Chairperson John Lesniewski (CSX, GO 049) was elected second alternate vice president – east, to fill a vacancy created by the retirement of now former General Chairperson Jim Huston (BNSF, GO 009). Also, UTU Local 1422 (Los Angeles) Chairperson Robert Resendez was elected an alternate on the executive board, filling a vacancy created by the resignation of General Chairperson Troy Johnson (Union Pacific, GO 927).
Walt Barrows, secretary-treasurer of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen since 1999, has been nominated by President Obama to fill the labor chair on the three-member Railroad Retirement Board, succeeding Butch Speakman, who is retiring.
The nomination requires Senate confirmation.
Barrows began his railroad career as a signalman with Norfolk & Western Railway (now part of Norfolk Southern) in 1974.
Since 2004, Barrows has been the labor trustee of the National Railroad Retirement Investment Trust, a position earlier held by former UTU General Secretary and Treasurer Dan Johnson.
Former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles has been elected a member of Norfolk Southern’s board of directors.
His name is most associated with President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility, on which he served as co-chair with former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.).
Bowles twice lost bids to become a U.S. senator from North Carolina. In 2002, he lost a bid to succeed Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), losing to Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.); and in 2004, seeking the seat of John Edwards (D-N.C.), who had resigned, Bowles was defeated by Richard Burr (R-N.C.)
A retired president of the University of North Carolina, Bowles also serves on the boards of General Motors, the Wall Street firm of Morgan Stanley and a North Carolina insurance company.
