UTU TO DEFEND CREW CONSIST, FELA IN COURT

The United Transportation Union (UTU) on March 15 asked a federal court to prohibit railroads from demanding the union collectively bargain about a carrier notice to abolish all conductor jobs aboard through-freight trains.

The UTU also asked the court to prohibit railroads from demanding that the union collectively bargain about a carrier notice to seek jointly from Congress legislation eliminating the Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA), a federal statute allowing injured railroad workers to sue carriers for damages arising from unsafe working conditions.

Specifically, the UTU asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois to declare that the UTU has no statutory duty to bargain or participate in mediation with respect to the carrier demands regarding abolition of conductor jobs or FELA.

The railroads, which include BNSF, CSX, Kansas City Southern, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific, are negotiating under the umbrella of the National Carriers' Conference Committee.

The negotiations as to rates of pay, rules and working conditions, are governed by the Railway Labor Act. The UTU lawsuit was filed following a second bargaining session with the carriers following the carriers' Nov. 1, 2004, notice to the UTU proposing changes to existing collective bargaining agreements. These changes included a provision that "crew size shall be based on operational needs as determined by the railroad." The wording of this demand could eliminate every conductor aboard through-freight trains.

The carriers, said the UTU, are barred by law from violating existing moratoria provisions in local collective bargaining agreements - so-called crew-consist agreements -- that provide for at least one conductor being assigned to every through-freight train.

Notwithstanding these crew-consist moratoria, the carries are seeking to negotiate an end to these crew-consist agreements through the Railway Labor Act's major dispute procedures, at the conclusion of which the carriers will contend they can resort to self-help if no agreement is reached. This, the UTU told the court, is in violation of the Railway Labor Act obligation to maintain the status quo under agreements.

Alternatively, the UTU asked the court to find the carriers' actions a dispute over interpretation or application of the moratoria provisions, making it a so-called "minor dispute" under the Railway Labor Act, which would commit the resolution to the exclusive jurisdiction of an arbitration panel.

Crew consist agreements were negotiated on a property-by-property basis by UTU general committees of adjustment during the 1980s and the 1990s in exchange for a then-reduction in crew size that was agreed necessary to permit railroads to become more competitive with trucks. General committees of adjustment have authority to make local or system agreements with representatives of railroads.

Those locally negotiated crew-consist agreements provide for at least one conductor being assigned to every through-freight train - and on some properties, a brakeman on some assignments -- and that no UTU member assigned to train service would lose their job involuntarily.

Crew consist agreements are "a local issue as a matter of law and changes to crew size must be negotiated with the UTU general committees of adjustment on the appropriate railroad property," the UTU told the court. "In other words, the issue of crew consist is not subject to national handling."

UTU International President Paul Thompson said, "It should shock every American in this age of terrorism that the railroads, which haul millions of tons of deadly chemicals and even nuclear weapons and atomic waste, and whose dreadful safety record has become regular and frightening reading on the front page of The New York Times, want the flexibility to run trains with only one person aboard.

"Mark Twain warned that when you pick up a cat by the tail, you learn a lesson that cannot be learned in any other way," Thompson said. "The lesson that must now be scratched into the carriers' faces is that they cannot play roulette with the nation's safety and security or with their employees' well being for the sole purpose of fattening the bottom line and executive bonuses."