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Ratification vote set for Sunday for UTU SEPTA operators

PHILADELPHIA – Members of United Transportation Union Local 1594, which represents 280 bus and trolley operators on the Red Arrow/Victory district in suburban Philadelphia, will vote Sunday to ratify a new three-year deal with SEPTA.

Negotiators remain under a news blackout, but two Philadelphia newspapers report that the contract includes 3 percent raises in each of the three years and some pension improvements. On the sensitive matter of hiring part-timers, the two sides decided that issue would be taken up by a committee established to consider initiating small bus service in the Victory District, union officials told the newspapers.

No progress, however, has been made in a new contract between the Transport Workers Union and SEPTA. TWU officials, who said the UTU agreement will no effect on its negotiations, have accused SEPTA of negotiating in bad faith and say that the transit agency’s actions may lead to a regional public transit walkout by 5,300 TWU workers.

Houston needs more rail competition

WASHINGTON – At the first day of Surface Transportation Board (STB) hearings yesterday into problems with rail service caused by the Union Pacific-Southern Pacific merger, Houston city and business leaders called on the federal government to require rail competition in all large cities and major ports.

The two-day hearing, which concludes today, was convened at the request of Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.), chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), chair of the Subcommittee on Surface Transportation.

A Houston Port Authority official said that all rail shippers in major cities should be guaranteed access to at least two major railroads to ensure economic vitality and not be held hostage by any railroad. The official also said that all rail customers at the nation’s ports need the ability to choose between at least two rail lines. At one time, Houston was served by eight railroads, but now is only served by UP and Burlington Northern Santa Fe.

Facing a strong wave of shipper complaints, the public relations arm of the railroads rejected the proposed remedies of the shippers as a recipe for financial ruin of the rail transportation industry. The Association of American Railroads (AAR) said if the STB acted on the proposed remedies to the current situation, mainly the problems in Texas and Houston caused by the UP-SP merger, that it would undo all of the progress the rail industry has made in the last 20 years since Congress passed the Staggers Act.

James Hagen, interim president of the AAR, said open access mandates and other proposed solutions would "amount to throwing fuel on the fire."

CSX Corp. Chairman John Snow said that changing the railroads’ statutory "revenue adequacy standards" as advocated by shippers would only result in shifting "massive amounts of wealth from the railroads to the shippers." Snow said, "The railroads are not awash in wealth."

But the Alliance for Rail Competition mocked the rail industry’s position. It urged the STB to re-examine its policies and called for the rail industry to become subject to federal antitrust oversight.

CP gets another union contract

CALGARY – Rail traffic controllers on the Canadian Pacific Railway have ratified a three-year agreement through the end of 1999.

The contract covers 230 traffic controllers. CP now says it has reached agreements with more than 70 percent of its unionized employees in Canada, including 4,100 train crew personnel, 1,420 clerical workers, 485 signal system maintainers and 2,700 track maintenance workers.

The agreement calls for wage increases of 2 percent in each of the three years, introduces work rule changes, and provides improved health benefits.

New president of Illinois Central

CHICAGO – John D. McPherson has been named president and CEO of Illinois Central Corp. succeeding E. Hunter Harrison, who resigned to become COO of the Canadian National Railway, which bought the Illinois Central Railroad Company.

McPherson had been senior vice president of operations at IC.