As you may know, the Railway Labor Act is a crap shoot at best when it comes to negotiatons with labor usually coming out on the losing end (compared to the Section 6 notices that they file.) Amtrak probably would have settled some time ago if they had known what the PEB was going to recommend. On the other hand I'm sure there were labor specialists (lawyers) who were counseling him to hold out in an effort to gain some give backs from labor. In turn, he could have ignored the PEB findings and where would Amtrak be today? True, the president would have called everyone back but how many people would a strike run off? Amtrak provides a service; they manufacture nothing and the American people are the first to squawk when something doesn't operate to their liking. I would not want Amtrak to die for lack of ridership.
had8ley, with regard to the labor agreement, I believe Mr. Kummant did what he had to do, as you kind of allude to. In other words, he had to drag it out and wait for the Presidential Emergency Board to make the decision for him. He could not have acted any other way.
There is no excuse for the eight years those Amtrak workers went without a contract, but Kummant can only be held responsible for barely a year of that when he was in charge. Only 15 months after he took office the issue came to a head with the threatened strike in January. Now, as he said publicly at the time, Mr. Kummant has a fiduciary duty as the president of Amtrak, essentially the same as the CEO of a public company has to its shareholders (especially as Congress styles Amtrak as a
quasi-governmental organization). And Kummant knew very well that Amtrak
could not afford to pay for the contract that the workers wanted, particularly the demand for eight years of back pay. That money does not exist. I mean, they could find it if they slashed half the national network until 2010, but that's the only way. Now how can he, just personally, sign that labor contract that would half-shut down Amtrak and say that he is fulfilling his duty? Even if he could see past any ethical dilemmas and sign it, he would probably be fired (wouldn't you want him fired?), and Congress would be up in arms about how Amtrak refuses to behave like a private company that must make the hard decisions.
So the strike was threatened, PEB got involved, you know what happened. But now it's not Amtrak's fault. So now Congress next fiscal year will see, gee you're asking for $200M in extra funding because of this one-time charge for back pay. But oh, the PEB ordered it so you didn't really have any choice. In my view Amtrak probably won't get blamed and is far more likely to get the extra funding they need to pay this on top of what they need to keep operating normally. So, everyone wins: Amtrak, Mr. Kummant, Amtrak's workers, the traveling public, Congress who will not be blamed for killing a government service. Except the American taxpayer, but as a taxpayer I am happy to pay our government workers a fair wage - just also do wish someone would have insisted on changing the most antiquated work rules, as Alan says.
Don't complain, it's like the old analogy about how you're best off not touring the sausage factory, if you want to enjoy your yummy sausage! This is part of the bargain so long as Amtrak is funded the way it is. I do credit Kummant for getting this issue buried, but I also credit him for merely being in office at the time this issue was resolved for him.