UTU Daily News Digest

Information of interest to operating railroad and transportation employees

Monday, February 21, 2000

CANADA: Truckers block Trans-Canada Highway in gas-price protest

AMHERST, N.S. -- Hundreds of truckers set up two blockades on the Trans-Canada Highway at the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick boundary early Monday to protest rising fuel prices and toll highways, wire services reported.

The truckers allowed cars and pickup trucks to pass through, but blocked commercial traffic.

Truckers' spokesman Earle Germaine said many truckers he has talked to say they won't budge until the governments of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick shut down the toll booths.

He said mail, food and other goods are being held up by the blockade.

The protest also affects the route to the Confederation Bridge to Prince Edward Island.

The blockades were set up just a few hours after some independent Ontario truckers decided to park their rigs and stay off the highway until their concerns over gas prices were heard.

Royce Barlow, an owner-operator from Cobourg, Ontario, vowed that if protesters do not receive a suitable response, they may resort to more serious tactics.

Earlier Sunday, about 1,000 of the province's independent truckers packed a conference room in Oshawa, east of Toronto, to co-ordinate the shutdown.

They promised the protest in Ontario would be peaceful, legal and would not involve blocking highways.

The truckers are protesting a steep rise in the price of diesel fuel - from C$0.35 a liter in January 1999 to C$0.69 or C$0.70 last week.

Trucker Arie Vermeer from Belleville said his wages have plunged in the last year as a result.

"I used to take (home) C$1,200 to C$1,500 a week (after fuel costs) and now I take in C$700 a week," he said. "Sometimes if I pop a tire it's down to C$300 and I have a mortgage and children."

Ontario truckers also say that on average they are being paid a rate that has remained virtually unchanged for the last 20 years.

---

CANADA: SEIU leadership vote to leave U.S. based union and merge with CAW

TORONTO -- At a meeting of the Canadian leadership of the Service Employees International Union held at the Delta Chelsea Hotel yesterday, elected representatives from SEIU locals across Ontario voted on a resolution to disaffiliate from their U.S.-based SEIU International Union and merge with the 243,000-member CAW, a wire service reported.

The proposal to disaffiliate from SEIU International and merge with CAW was endorsed by a majority of SEIU locals in Ontario, representing more than 30,000 SEIU Canada members. "We need to belong to a Canadian organization that can speak up for our members here in Canada," said Local 210 President Ken Brown. "We're facing made-in-Canada problems, especially in health care, where so many of our members work."

"We continue to be inhibited by Washington in our efforts to respond to the problems and challenges our members face in Canada."

Brown tendered his resignation as International Vice-President of the SEIU International Executive Board earlier today.

Members of each local will have the opportunity to vote on the proposal at meetings scheduled for Thursday, March 2. "We're a democratic organization," Brown emphasized. "The Canadian membership will make the final determination."

Brown said he and other SEIU Canada leaders had voted to merge with the CAW because of its record in bargaining and organizing, in addition to the range of services it offers members. He emphasized the CAW's strength and profile would help his members win better contracts at the bargaining table and pressure government to maintain a healthy public-sector, where the majority of SEIU Canada members work.

CAW President Buzz Hargrove said he welcomed the SEIU proposal. "Should the membership support their leaders' proposal, the resulting merger will be immensely beneficial to the members of both our unions," Hargrove said. "These SEIU members will bring to us their vast experience in a wide range of important sectors in our economy," he said.

"I am confident for our part that the CAW's resources, combined with our ability as a Canadian union to find Canadian solutions for made-in-Canada challenges, will help SEIU members," Hargrove said.

---

INDIA: Train fire kills 18

NEW DELHI -- A fire engulfed six coaches of a railroad train in western India early Saturday, killing 18 people and injuring 20 others, Press Trust of India news agency said.

First reports said the fire started in the pantry car and spread to five other coaches in the speeding Punjab Mail near Bhusawal in Maharashtra state, 375 kilometers (235 miles) north of Bombay, PTI said.

Most passengers were sleeping when the fire broke out. Other details were not immediately available.

The train left Bombay, the capital of Maharashtra state, on Friday night and was bound for Fereozepur in northern India.

---

CALIFORNIA: 6 teens arrested in derailment attempt

NEWHALL -- Six Santa Clarita Valley teenagers were taken into custody for attempting to derail a Union Pacific train, authorities said last week, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The boys, ages 13 to 16, hung a cinder-block tied to a rubber hose from the Via Princessa bridge overpass Feb. 7, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Santa Clarita station.

The train engineer saw the block hanging at eye level and halted the train to inspect the tracks, the Sheriff's Department said. The engineer then found a metal bar across the tracks.

"I think it was just some kids messing around," Sgt. Richard Larue said. But "anything lying across the track like that . . . could lead to train derailment."

The youths also vandalized several new homes near the bridge, the Sheriff's Department said, causing an estimated $7,000 in damage.

The youths were arrested two days after the train incident, Larue said.

One boy was in detention at Sylmar Juvenile Hall on Wednesday and the other five were released to their parents, he said.

---

ENGLAND: London Train Probe Focuses on Fires

LONDON -- Twin fires ripped through two passenger trains after they collided at high speed in west London in October, police told an inquest into the 31 deaths Monday, the Associated Press reported.

Superintendent Nicholas Bracken of the British Transport Police, the senior officer investigating the accident, told the nine members of the inquest jury that fire broke out on the engine car of the high-speed Great Western commuter train that had been heading east into London's Paddington Station.

Fuel tanks on the smaller, westbound Thames Train also caught fire, Bracken said.

The colliding trains ''had a combined speed of 100 miles per hour,'' said Bracken, who used a model of the crash scene to explain his evidence.

Westminster coroner Dr. Paul Knapman adjourned the hearing briefly so that relatives of the victims could examine the model.

The Oct. 5 collision - which also injured 244 other people - happened after the driver of the Thames train jumped a red light two miles west of Paddington Station during the morning rush hour.

Constable Gavin Cerasale, the first policeman on the scene, said he made for the crash site after seeing a plume of black smoke.

''I jumped out of (my) vehicle and could see the flames and smoke through the security gates in front of me'' at the trackside, he said. Witnesses told him they had seen a train ''flip in the air.''

The accident was Britain's worst rail crash since 1988, when three trains collided outside London's Clapham Junction Station, killing 35 people.

The inquest continues Tuesday.

---

CALIFORNIA: More parking ordered for Universal City subway stop

LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles City Council ordered transit officials last week to provide 250 parking spaces at the Universal City subway station when it opens, or risk loss of city funds, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The ultimatum comes after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority infuriated subway neighbors by avoiding a commitment to provide enough parking to keep subway commuters from leaving their cars on area residential streets.

The San Fernando Valley's two Red Line stations, which could be the last subway terminals built for years, are due to open in early summer.

Although MTA officials said they believe they can meet the ultimatum, some neighbors of the station said 250 spaces is still not enough, and they called on the transit agency to consider delaying the planned June opening.

"They are going to have a serious shortage of parking, which is going to lead to gridlock," predicted Tony Lucente, president of the Studio City Residents Assn.
"They seriously need to consider when they are going to open that station. Unfortunately it [delay] has to be one of their options," Lucente said.

The council also Wednesday approved $2 million to assist more than 100 merchants who lost business during construction of the North Hollywood subway station.

Officials said the parking problem was caused by delays in awarding construction contracts and a contractor's need to use half of the parking lot as a staging area for building a bridge over the Ventura Freeway. The project was put six months behind schedule when the MTA was forced to rebid the contract.

Eventually, the subway station was proposed for 437 spaces but officials disclosed earlier this month that only about 220 were expected to be ready in time for the opening.

The MTA planned to phase in the remaining spaces, but all of the station's parking--and 236 spaces proposed in an auxiliary lot planned for Ventura Boulevard--will not be available until March 2001.

That alarmed city and county officials, who held high-level talks on Tuesday to push for a resolution to the parking issue.

"The potential lack of parking at the Universal City station will discourage the use of the Red Line and undermine the very purpose of the significant contribution of public dollars to its construction," Councilman Hal Bernson said.

The council approved Bernson's proposal to condition its allocation of $34 million in transit tax money for the subway project on the MTA providing at least 250 parking spaces when the Universal City station opens in June.

Marc Littman, an MTA spokesman, said in order to comply, the contractor may be required to use a smaller staging area, but he also said the MTA has the option of moving back the date of the Universal City station opening.

Initially scheduled to open in May, the estimates were later moved to mid-June. Littman said no firm date has been set and the MTA management will probably evaluate the progress of construction and testing in April before setting a firm opening date.

Legally, the MTA has until December to open the station and comply with agreements signed for federal funding of the project, Littman said.

The transit agency is also looking to see if auxiliary parking might be available at a Caltrans park-and-ride lot nearby and at the Hollywood Bowl, in which case shuttle buses would be provided to get commuters to the Universal City Station.

Merchants' complaints of lost business from subway construction have been voiced for years. More than 100 merchants along Lankershim Boulevard and on cross streets say they suffered a significant loss of business during the North Hollywood subway construction, which at times forced closure of the streets.

To make amends, the City Council Wednesday approved $2 million that will be used to create a Business Improvement District to upgrade storefronts, beautify pedestrian areas and market the area as a place to visit and shop.

The money will allow North Hollywood merchants "to recover from the damage they suffered," said Councilman Joel Wachs, who represents part of the area.

Council President John Ferraro, who represents the rest of North Hollywood, said the Business Improvement District will help the merchants take full advantage of the increased business that will be generated when the subway station opens.

"More people will be riding the Red Line and frequenting the merchants in the area," Ferraro predicted.