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Railroads drop effort to reduce crew size Railroads have dropped their effort to negotiate the issue of one-person train crews during the current round of contract bargaining with labor unions, according to this report by Stacie Hamel published by the Omaha World-Herald.
The National Carriers' Conference Committee sent a letter to railroad supervisors late this week informing them of the move. The committee handles labor negotiations for 30 railroads, including the Omaha-based Union Pacific.
The letter said debate on "this contentious issue was impeding the progress of negotiations on other important matters."
The committee wrote that it decided "to remove the obstacle" by telling the United Transportation Union and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, which is associated with the Teamsters, that it would not pursue one-person crews during the current round of bargaining, "thus paving the way to what we hope will be productive negotiations."
UTU spokesman Frank Wilner said the union wants to get to the negotiating table "tomorrow."
"We have no grudges with regard to what has happened in the past," he said. "Our objective is to make every attempt to reach a negotiated settlement."
Joanna Moorhead, general counsel for the carriers' committee, said, "Our goal continues to be getting voluntary agreements in this round of bargaining."
The move marked a change in the tenor of negotiations that union representatives and Wall Street analysts long have said seemed headed for a Presidential Emergency Board when railroad-friendly Republicans controlled Congress.
In April 2005, after railroads asked federal mediators to step into negotiations that had begun only six months before, James Valentine and Michael Manelli of Morgan Stanley wrote that railroads hoped to "reach the last step in the process, namely a Presidential Emergency Board, while there is still a Republican administration and Republican control of Congress."
The decision to drop the effort to negotiate one-person crews actually was made in October, well before the Nov. 7 election when Democrats won control of Congress, Moorhead said.
"The letter just happened to come after," she said. "In October, we told them we would be setting it aside."
Other events made one-person crews an increasingly difficult issue for railroads.
In January, the United Transportation Union and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers agreed to work together against one-person crews and to not sign individual agreements with the rail carriers' negotiating committee that would protect one union's jobs at the expense of the other.
Also, a judge ruled in March in a UTU lawsuit against the railroads that the union was not obligated to take part in national bargaining over the size of train crews.
The judge's ruling didn't end the one-person crews issue then because it left open the door to "voluntary" negotiations by the union, Moorhead said.
Wilner said the carriers' conference reserved the right to return to the issue of one-person crews, but the union is feeling stronger, thanks to the changes in Washington, D.C.
"We feel confident that because of the change in congressional control we'll be back at the bargaining table, and their strategy of being able to rely on friends in high places has been diluted sufficiently and greater progress will be made," he said.
The carriers' conference letter to railroad supervisors gave strong indication of where negotiations will be headed. The letter says railroads have asked union negotiators to agree to changing health care plans to curb escalating costs.
The letter reads: "Major freight railroads will pay nearly $2 billion to provide health care benefits to employees, up from about $870 million in 1999 -- an increase of 130 percent in just seven years."
The letter indicates that rail employees pay less of a share of their health care benefits than most Americans. In 2006, railroads will pay 89 percent of the total cost per employee for full family coverage, with the employee's share of premiums averaging about $1,487, compared to about 74 percent paid by the average employer, with a worker contributing $2,973.
Railroad health care benefits are better than most, Wilner said.
"Of course, the average American isn't required to be on call 30 days a month, work up to 12 hours and be called back within 10 hours and have shifts migrate randomly around the clock," he said.
(The preceding report by Stacie Hamel was published by the Omaha World-Herald on Saturday, Nov. 18, 2006.)
November 20, 2006
