(The following column by transportation writer Larry Kaufman, a former writer for Business Week and The Journal of Commerce, appeared in Rail Business newsletter and will appear in the April issue of Trains magazine, which has a circulation of some 100,000). (Appearently it also appeared on the UTU website on Feb. 7th.)

They want a Company Union

The arbitrator’s decision affirming that remote control assignments are properly held by ground service employees represented by the UTU is more significant than just deciding a food fight between two unions trying to secure work for their members, writes columnist Larry Kaufman in a recent issue of Rail Business newsletter and a separate column to appear in the April issue of Trains magazine.

Don’t be surprised if the decision leads to renewed merger talks between the two unions that represent the on-train crews at all the major railroads in the United States.

BLE and UTU have tried several times over the years to combine, but broke off talks each time. The engineers union now is flirting with that notoriously pro-railroad union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. I’ll be churlish and point out that the Teamsters have destroyed more railroad worker jobs than the UTU (is alleged by the BLE to have destroyed). Even members of the BLE are holding their noses while their international leaders bow and scrape before Jimmy Hoffa the Younger.

Why might the decision on remote control operations drive the engineers back into the arms of the spurned suitor, the UTU? Because the engineers craft effectively has been “deskilled.” The BLE long has maintained that the engineer always must be the highest paid member of a train crew. Its arguments included the time-honored term ‘custom and practice’ and more recently that the engineer is the only crew member who must be certified.

If the engineers lose their exclusivity, there probably is even less reason in the future than there is now for there to be a separate union for their “craft,” which represents about 25,000 locomotive engineers. And if BLE leaders conclude that their days as a small but independent union representing certified, highly paid, highly specialized workers is over, an

alliance with the UTU makes more sense than trying to make common cause with the Teamsters.

The BLE was between the proverbial rock and a hard place in its approach to remote control operations. On the one hand, the union kept up a strident campaign to persuade anyone who would listen that remote control operations

were inherently unsafe. On the other hand, it demanded that its members get the job of operating these allegedly unsafe trains. You can’t have it both ways, guys. (By the way, safety studies show remote control operations tend

to be safer than yard operations with an engineer in the cab and a crew member giving directions from the ground. Remote control has been used in Canada for about a decade now.)

UTU, on the other hand, had a more logical position. It recognized early on that it couldn’t stand in the way of technological progress. Accepting that railroads would purchase and use remote control technology and that it would

cost railroad worker jobs, the UTU leadership decided to do the best for its members. It seems to have succeeded.

BLE is in a tough spot. The Class 1 railroads, through the National Carriers Conference Committee, their negotiating arm, sees no reason to negotiate with the engineers. As far as the carriers are concerned, the issue is off the table. They cut a deal with the UTU and the arbitrator upheld that agreement.

The railroads, in effect, are telling the BLE there’s only one operating contract out there and the union can take or leave it. The union says it is turning to the Federal Railroad Administration, but how can it expect any relief from an FRA in a Republican Bush administration? This is not a good time for unions to be seeking favors from an administration that most of them tried to keep from coming to office.

In the arbitration, the BLE case was simple – the assignment of other than locomotive engineers to operate locomotives by remote control “is a violation of the exclusive rights of locomotive engineers to perform such service pursuant to existing BLE agreements and established practice.”

UTU was equally clear, asking whether the involved carriers were proper in their assignment of trainmen to perform remote control operations in their terminals.

The railroads pointed out that they have implemented remote control technology, “which eliminates any need for an on-board locomotive engineer,” in connection with work assignments . . . in and around terminals. Their question was whether “Under the carriers’ collective bargaining agreements with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and the United Transportation Union at issue in this case, may the carriers assign use of remote control technology to ground service employees represented by the UTU, “thereby eliminating the locomotive engineer position?”

In the category of ‘be careful what you ask for because you might get it,’ the BLE, which sought the arbitration, got a ruling that at least in some cases says the engineer is not the only worker who can operate a locomotive.

The UTU, at various times in recent years has threatened or sought representation elections at individual railroads to combine the various on-train crew jobs into one craft. The National Mediation Board, which administers the Railway Labor Act of 1926, has sided with the BLE, but there has not been a major UTU effort since the Clintonites left Washington and the Bush folks arrived.

The most serious effort was on the Union Pacific, where many engineers, although represented by the BLE, have retained their membership in the UTU.

While the NMB is not bound for representation purposes by the arbitrator’s decision that effectively wipes out most of the reasons for having a separate engineer’s union, it may find it easier the next time around to rule that there really is one class and craft of workers running trains. That would lead to the representation election sought by UTU, which just on the numbers probably would win.

Technology can’t be stopped an never has been stopped. Smart union leaders know that the best that can be done for employees is to protect existing jobs and income, ensure proper training, have a say in implementation. That is precisely what the UTU did.

If it is true that in union there is strength, then it should be dawning on both sides that combined single operating craft could do more for members than can two unions fighting for survival. A now-retired railroad labor relations vice president once told me that the companies preferred to deal with one strong union rather than several weak ones because the strong union could focus on the big picture and aggressively represent its members, while the smaller weak unions were paralyzed when it came to developing creative solutions to serious problems.

By the way, there’s real money involved in this dispute. While the railroads will be able to knock off a lot of operating jobs in yards and terminals, the two unions are squabbling over the rates of pay. Under the UTU agreement

with NCCC, UTU workers get an extra 46 minutes pay per shift when they operate remote control units. That figure was reached after BLE cut a deal with Montana Rail Link calling for engineers to get an extra 45 minutes pay

per shift. So the Class 1s went along with the UTU and upped the ante by one minute per shift.