UTU News Digest - Monday, December 7, 1998

UTU Daily News Digest

Information of interest to operating railroad and transportation employees

Monday, December 7, 1998

Attack highlights TNM&O drivers’ security concerns

The issue of security raised by United Transportation Union (UTU) bus drivers working for Texas, New Mexico & Oklahoma Coaches, Inc., has taken on new urgency in the wake of a recent attack on driver Isaac W. "Bill" Foshee.

A member of UTU Local 1697 in Lubbock, Tex., Foshee said the man who attacked him with a pair of scissors makes a good case for the new security measures drivers are seeking in their next contract.

Just after 8 p.m. on December 1, shortly after Foshee had taken over as driver of a bus headed from Dallas to Amarillo, Tex., a man approached him from behind and "just started stabbing," Foshee said.

"I never knew it was coming ’til he hit me," Foshee said.

As the vehicle rolled along at 60 mph on Texas Highway 287, two of the 38 passengers came to Foshee’s aid, helping him knock the assailant into the well near the front door of the bus. Foshee brought the bus to an emergency stop, popped open the door, and the assailant fled, running about a half mile before being collared by the law.

Foshee suffered puncture wounds on the right side of his neck and his left elbow. His assailant was charged with aggravated assault, with bond set at $30,000.

Because TNM&O buses carry no communications equipment, Foshee had to use his own cellular phone to call for emergency first aid.

Foshee noted that company-owned phones or two-way radios and a plastic panel behind the driver’s seat would be helpful to drivers facing similar incidents.

Members of Local 1697 have asked for such communications equipment and protective panels as part of the new contract they are negotiating with TNM&O. Though some of the buses are equipment with protective panels, none have communications equipment.

Sweeney expects less hostile Congress without Gingrich

WASHINGTON -- The leader of the nation's largest labor federation expects less hostile relations with the Republican-controlled Congress now that Newt Gingrich is leaving as House speaker.

"We're hoping that some of the meanness that we've experienced in the past will not continue in the leadership," AFL-CIO president John Sweeney told The Associated Press.

In an interview last week, Sweeney said he has yet to meet with Gingrich's successor, Rep. Bob Livingston, R-La. But the labor leader noted that Livingston, in his past work as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, has generally not indulged GOP colleagues trying to weaken worker protections.

"We're really hoping that we will be able to have a relationship where we can at least be talking about major issues of concern to working families and that the dialogue will be a much better dialogue than we had with his predecessor," Sweeney said.

On key issues facing Congress, Sweeney said:

-- With the Judiciary Committee ready to vote this week on whether to approve articles of impeachment against President Clinton, the labor federation is encouraging union members to contact lawmakers and urge them to focus on other issues when they return to Washington next month. "Our members just aren't supporting impeachment," Sweeney said.

-- Unions will push in 1999 for a minimum-wage increase and believe there will be some Republican support, though "it's a little early to count noses on this," Sweeney said.

-- If lawmakers consider changes next year to fortify Social Security for the coming onslaught of baby boomers, the AFL-CIO will oppose attempts to raise the retirement age or replace guaranteed benefits with personal stock market accounts.

In a wide-ranging discussion, Sweeney also expressed unease about effects on U.S. industry of economic hard times abroad and talked about raising organized labor's public profile through such tactics as picketing nonunion Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

"Really, you're nervous about all the basic industries, but the one that has seemed to have been most dramatically affected at least initially is the steel industry," Sweeney said. Unions have joined with steel companies to urge tough government action, including higher tariffs, that they say would save union jobs endangered by imports made cheap as economies falter in other parts of the world.

Sweeney noted that when Boeing Co. announced this week that it would lay off 20,000 workers over the next two years, the aircraft maker partially attributed the cuts to shrinking markets overseas.

"Who knows which of the other basic industries are going to be similarly affected? What effect it's going to have on autos, rubber, glass ... as well as textiles," he said.

Sweeney joined members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union last week on a protest tour in Missouri and Arkansas that ended with a rally in Bentonville, Ark., Wal-Mart's home base. The giant nonunion retailer is testing supermarkets in Arkansas with an eye toward a new national chain.

"They're opening them up usually near a grocery store that's organized and that pays $12, $13 an hour, provides health insurance and pension benefits, and Wal-Mart's coming in and bringing in people at $7 dollars an hour, no health insurance, no benefits," said Sweeney.

He is urging AFL-CIO credit unions to stop distributing Wal-Mart discount cards. "This is all part of a campaign to build a consciousness about what's happening to workers and their right to organize," Sweeney said.

Sweeney said he is eager to seek cooperation of new Teamsters leaders. But the AFL-CIO chief said he doesn't know James P. Hoffa very well and he thinks it will take the Teamsters time to recover from a divisive interval fight since former president Ron Carey was ousted when investigators found his 1996 campaign had benefited from illegal fund raising.

"I think it's going to be a great challenge to really come forward as united a Teamsters union as they possibly can," Sweeney said.

Hoffa promises to return Teamsters to glory days

WASHINGTON -- Teamsters president-elect James P. Hoffa promised Sunday to guide the union back to the glory days it enjoyed under his father three decades ago but without the mob ties that were the undoing of Jimmy Hoffa.

The 57-year-old Detroit labor lawyer, who appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press," also said the future Teamsters will be more aggressive in negotiating contracts. "We're going to see a new militancy of the Teamsters in our negotiations," he said.

The union reached the pinnacle of its power under Jimmy Hoffa in the 1960s, but both he and the union were tainted by charges of ties to organized crime. Hoffa disappeared in 1975, possibly the victim of mob violence.

"We were the strongest, richest union in the free world," the younger Hoffa said Sunday. "We want to get back to that."

Teamsters election headquarters said by Sunday, Hoffa had 177,200 votes. Tom Leedham had 127,287 votes and John Metz, who didn't campaign, 19,387. Leedham, chief of the union's warehouse division, conceded defeat on Saturday. Vote counting was to resume Monday. Union officials say an estimated 420,000 ballots were cast.

A federal officer was overseeing the procedure under a deal struck with the Justice Department a decade ago to help loosen the grip of organized crime.

Labor Secretary Alexis Herman, on CBS's "Face the Nation," offered Hoffa her congratulations. "He has said that he wants to pursue a goal of fiscal integrity, of organizing rank and file. We support him in that, and I look forward to working with him," Herman said.

Hoffa critics have warned he would restore the old Teamsters establishment to power, inviting the return of corruption, but Hoffa insisted: "The mob killed my father. They are never going to come back in this union. I will see to that."

He said his critics were "linked to the most corrupt Ron Carey administration we've ever seen. That really tells you where they're coming from."

The 1.4-million-member Teamsters have seen their membership decline in recent years and top leaders end up in legal trouble. Incumbent Carey won election under government scrutiny in 1991 and was narrowly re-elected in 1996 over Hoffa. Carey was later ousted after investigators found that his campaign benefited from an illegal fund-raising scheme.

"This union's been through a civil war," Hoffa said. "We've got to pull it together, we've got to restore the financial integrity of this union."

He said he would work to balance the union's budget without raising dues. Hoffa said it would be a "challenge" getting along with AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, who was close to Carey and has been a strong supporter of the Democratic Party. Hoffa said his union, which until Carey's administration traditionally tilted toward the Republicans, would try to be bipartisan.

"I think the AFL-CIO is realizing the mistake they made by being tied to one party or the other," he said. "They take you for granted."

Two "beer-drinking" boys jailed for trespassing in boxcar

HAMILTON, Ohio -- Two boys who survived eight days in a locked boxcar are now locked up in a juvenile detention center awaiting a hearing on criminal trespass charges.

John Wayne Riley, 15, and Billy Ray Grimes Jr., 12, both of Hamilton, appeared in court Friday and entered a plea of "true" -- equivalent to a plea of guilty in adult court -- to charges they had violated probation.

The boys said they boarded the freight train Nov. 23, switched to another boxcar a couple of miles away and then got locked in. They told police they survived by drinking the cargo -- stale beer in mostly empty bottles being returned to a brewery in Trenton, where they were freed when workers heard their cries for help.

Police said they told differing stories of why they got in the train: The older boy claimed they were fleeing bullies, but the younger one said they just wanted to hop a freight.

Because they are juveniles, the court has not disclosed the offenses for which the boys are on probation. They were held for a hearing Friday on the trespassing charges.

French commuters fed up with rail conflict

PARIS -- A French railroad conductors' strike dragged into its 10th day Sunday, with a new poll indicating commuters are fed up and support President Jacques Chirac's call for minimum service during chronic transit walkouts.

Despite a promise Saturday night by the Communist transport minister to hire more ticket checkers, an estimated 4,500 employees remained off the job, leaving about 35 percent of the service idle.

Along with stranding millions of commuters in wintry weather, the walkout was a serious blow to the state railroad, cutting its ridership and revenue as it tries to restructure and struggles to stem its losses.

The strike will help inflate the railroad's 1998 losses to an estimated $125 million, instead of the earlier-projected $89 million, the Journal de Dimanche reported Sunday.

The newspaper published a poll indicting 82 percent of those questioned support Chirac's call Friday for minimum service during strikes in the public sector. Only 16 percent disagreed with the conservative president.

Talks remained at a standstill, with union-management meetings planned Monday and Tuesday that SNCF officials insisted were only aimed at exchanging information, not negotiating. The Socialist-leaning French Labor Confederation reiterated its demand for new negotiations and called for 600 new jobs, aimed at cutting the workweek.

The leftist government of Prime Minster Lionel Jospin is facing budget restrictions as it tries to carry out a law cutting the workweek to 35 hours to spread jobs around and fight double-digit unemployment.

Delta pilots, others seek to boost labor position

NEW YORK -- Delta Air Lines pilots said Friday that they will seek to strengthen the power of pilot unions against actions by international airline partners that could hurt pilot jobs and salaries.

The Delta union said its pilots and their counterparts at Delta's code-share partners will seek to add clauses in their labor contracts that would boost their power to refuse accepting added work if pilots at a partner airline go on strike.

Delta, whose code-sharing partners are Austrian Airlines, Finnair, Sabena Group Swissair and TAP Air Portugal, has more than a year before it must start labor talks for a new pilot contract.

The existing contract for Delta pilots does not become amendable until May 2000.

"As we start to craft our opening position for 2000, this is one of the issues we'd like to address,'' said Karen McGuffey, spokeswoman for the AirLine Pilots Association at Delta.

She said the agreement among Delta pilot leaders and their code-share counterparts, who are known as the Global Pilot Alliance, must still be approved by union members.

"This is not enforceable, but it is a goal,'' McGuffey said. "It is up to each airline's pilots to go back to their management groups and work through these agreements on their own property.

The Delta move follows similar efforts by pilots at UAL Corp.'s United Airlines and by other pilot unions who are trying to secure their positions as U.S. airlines align themselves in global alliances.

The alliances let airline partners sell tickets on each other's flights under code-sharing agreements. Pilots fear such pacts could give airline management added power in labor negotiations should management threaten to shift more flying to partners with cheaper labor costs.

The Association of Star Alliance Pilots, whose members include United Airlines pilots, in November added pilot unions from three new airlines -- Air New Zealand, All Nippon Airways and Ansett Transport Industries.

Madison Walton, a spokesman for UAL's AirLine Pilots Association, said the impact of pilot alliances on the airline industry will be tested as airline alliances evolve.

He and McGuffey said the alliances are limited in their ability to sway the actions of individual union members, and the effect of other factors, such as foreign labor laws, remain unclear.

"It's in its development phase,'' Walton said. "The point to be made is, pilot unions around the world are indeed developing mechanisms to protect their pilots' interests as the airlines become more global.''

Canada rail freight down 10.2% in week to Nov. 21

OTTAWA -- Canadian rail freight volume, excluding intermodal traffic, totaled 4.7 million metric tons in the week ended Nov. 21, down 10.2% from a year earlier, Statistics Canada said.

The number of rail cars loaded during the week declined 8.1% from a year earlier. Intermodal (piggyback) volume totaled 372,000 tons in the week, a 4.4% increase from a year earlier.

Total traffic in the week, including carloadings of freight and intermodal traffic, declined 9.3% from a year earlier. For the year to date, traffic totaled 229.6 million tons, down 3.1% from a year earlier.

Union Pacific to by composite ties

HOUSTON – Union Pacific Railroad is buying 1,200 composite TieTeck railroad crossties from North American Technologies Group Inc.

UP will use the crossties in building a new railyard in Spring, Texas, which will handle railcars loaded with plastic pellets produced by Houston area plastics manufacturers. The crossties are made of recycled plastics from grocery bags, rubber from discarded tires and other waste materials.

UP already has several locations with TieTek crossties in service on both straight and curved main lines in areas of high humidity, desert conditions and heavy traffic. NATK said the order means it will have shipped 4,500 TieTek crossties to six separate customers by the end of the year.

STB wants more information on Missouri Central plans

WASHINGTON -- The Surface Transportation Board told the backers of the Missouri Central Railroad, who seek to resume rail service on a long-dormant line in suburban Kansas City, to give more information about its future plans for operating the line.

The STB wants more information about operating plans in the Raytown and Lees Summit, Mo., area, where local communities are challenging the carrier's plans.

The short-line Missouri Central was formed to acquire track from Union Pacific Railroad between Kansas City and St. Louis. Most of the track was the property of Southern Pacific Railroad before it was acquired by UP two years ago.

Because trains have not moved over most of the 270 miles since the early 1980s, the communities tried to convince the STB that the Missouri Central must make an extensive application for new railroad construction. When the STB rejected that approach, the communities filed a petition for reconsideration that included references to future service plans.

D.C. school bus drivers must undergo drug tests

WASHINGTON -- School bus drivers in the nation's capital must undergo drug testing by the end of the week, officials said Thursday as they stepped up an investigation into drug use.

Concerns were raised in October when six drivers were dismissed for failing drug tests, and a clerk in the safety and training office was fired for covering up those test results, said school transportation director Kevin West.

Some officials say the situation is particularly troublesome because the district provides bus service only for special education students.

"I won't be completely satisfied until I know that every bus operator who is transporting our children around, particularly our most vulnerable children, is a safe, secure driver," said District of Columbia Councilman Kevin Chavous, who chairs the council's education committee.

In addition to completing drug tests and having a commercial driver's license, D.C. school bus drivers must have a bus driver's permit, commonly called a "face card." West said about two-thirds of the district's 300 school bus drivers do not have such permits. Drivers staged a protest over the issue last week, initially refusing to operate buses until school officials processed their paperwork.

School administrators expect paperwork to be completed and face cards issued by Tuesday, said Lawrence Crocker, D.C. schools attorney. Before then, police will not cite drivers for violations, he added.

Wisconsin Central looks to Eastern Europe railroads

ROTTERDAM -- U.S.-owned rail operator English Welsh & Scottish Railways, leapfrogging troubled railroads in Western Europe, is considering investments in soon-to-be-privatized railroads in Poland and Estonia.

Investment in foreign rail operations is not new for Wisconsin Central, EW&S's parent company. The Rosemont, Ill., rail holding company already has invested in systems in Tasmania, Australia, in addition to its 100% ownership of EW&S, and is looking at railroads in Jordan.

The two railroads, which might provide a link from growing Baltic seaports to markets in Russia and Central Europe, approached EW&S about possible investment, including outright purchase of the railroads.

The London-based rail operator, owned by Wisconsin Central Ltd., runs most of Britain's freight trains in a privatized system. Railroads in the rest of Western Europe, however, are government-owned and run relatively inefficiently compared with rail systems in Britain, the United States and Canada.

The attraction of the Polish and Estonian railroads is that, unlike Western European carriers, the entire operation, including tracks and signaling systems and rolling stock, is up for sale, said Julian Worth, a senior executive of EW&S.

By contrast, Western European railroads tend to separate infrastructure from train operations and are very unlikely to sell any part of infrastructure. Ownership of the whole lot is important, because it gives the train operator control over costs, Mr. Worth said.

EW&S also is attracted by Poland's buoyant economy and its well-engineered rail system, Mr. Worth said. Poland and Estonia hold promise in terms of access to growing markets and in terms of their willingness to leave behind 50 years of communist control and adopt an entrepreneurial, market-driven economic system, he added.

This contrasts with many railroads in Western Europe, whose government owners tread carefully around labor unions and tend to keep excess employees on the rail companies' payrolls.

In its potential investments in Estonia and Poland, however, EW&S is weighing several potential risk factors, including the possibility of high rail costs on interconnecting systems in Russia, and the continuing political turmoil in that country, which could cut the flow of goods both into and out of the vast republic.