UTU Daily News Digest
Information of interest to operating railroad and transportation employees
Tuesday, March 14, 2000
ILLINOIS: Kane officials, residents fighting plan for vast rail yard
CHICAGO -- In the rural Kane County hamlet of Maple Park, a fight is on to block the Union Pacific Railroad's plans to build a freight-loading yard on 425 acres of farmland near the DeKalb County line, the Chicago Sun Times reported.
Many residents of the farm town, population 650, seem horrified.
"It's going to turn this into a heavy industrial area," said Maria Grieco, who lives near the proposed "railport" site along Route 38 east of Maple Park. "That's not what I moved to Kane County for."
Kane County officials are against the plan. Today, the county board is expected to pass a resolution opposing the $192 million project proposed for unincorporated land that would seem to fall under county zoning control.
But it isn't so simple with railroads.
Laws dating to the 19th century allow railroads to condemn -- or forcibly acquire -- land needed for rail projects deemed necessary for the public good.
"We've done that in the past for similar facilities, but that's a very, very last resort," said Union Pacific spokesman John Bromley.
Also, a more recent federal law could allow Union Pacific to override local zoning regulations, which call for the land to be used for agriculture. That law has been interpreted by courts as allowing railroads to override local zoning controls, said attorney Bruce Laidlaw, who is fighting another proposed railport near Ann Arbor, Mich.
That combination could clear the way for the massive railport, where shipping containers would be transferred from trains to semi-trucks.
"It's just not what we envisioned out there," Kane County Board Chairman Mike McCoy said.
WASHINGTON: STB promises quick merger decision
WASHINGTON -- Railroads, shippers, ports and communities are waiting to see if the Surface Transportation Board changes its rail merger guidelines following a four-day hearing on the future structure of the U.S. railroad industry, the Journal of Commerce reported.
STB Chairman Linda Morgan gave no indication what the board would do when the hearing ended Friday, saying only that the agency would act quickly. Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. and Canadian National Railway Co. are scheduled to file a merger application before the end of March.
More than 160 witnesses appeared at the hearing, which was triggered by the December 1999 announcement that BNSF and CN plan to combine to form the largest rail system in North America.
The STB already has made one change, saying it will consider "downstream" effects in any merger. For more than 20 years, the board and its predecessor agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission, followed a one-case-at-a-time policy, reviewing only the application before it with no consideration to the actions a merger might trigger among other railroads.
Despite the STB admonition that the hearing was not about the BNSF-CN transaction, almost all parties focused on that deal. While the BNSF and CN chief executives urged the STB to treat their merger as any other railroad merger, the chief executives of the remaining Class 1 railroads pressed hard for a moratorium on consideration of any mergers.
BNSF and CN currently are the most efficient major railroads in North America, but others are recovering from the last round of mergers, which was marked by severe congestion and service failures.
"I believe that the best course would be to defer big mergers at least until the situation is more stable," said Robert Ritchie, president of Canadian Pacific Railway, which has not been involved in a recent merger but is considered a prime takeover candidate if another merger round begins.
Paul M. Tellier, CN's president, told the board: "There is no good time for a bad merger and no bad time for a good merger."
He and Robert D. Krebs, BNSF chairman, urged the STB to allow shippers to reap the public benefits of the proposed transaction. Tellier asked why his railroad should be punished because other railroads failed to keep promises made in their merger applications.
The majority of shipper witnesses urged the board to declare a moratorium on any rail mergers for two to five years.
Unhappy rail customers were clear that they don't want another merger until the railroads finish implementing the last round of mergers and begin delivering the public benefits that were promised. They expressed the belief that even if BNSF and CN were to have a smooth merger, it would trigger mergers by the other railroads, which would quickly bring the industry to two giant rail systems blanketing the United States and Canada -- the so-called downstream effect.
But some shippers supported the proposed merger.
"Roll the dice," said Scott Cantonwine, president of Cascade Warehouse Co. in Oregon.
Merger supporters said they believe rail consolidation is unstoppable and the STB should not try to block an inevitability.
Shippers also called for greater competition among railroads. Some senior rail executives were disheartened by the prospect that advocates of competitive access may have momentum on their side. Shippers who have suffered from poor rail service believe that only if there is rail-to-rail competition can carriers be forced to provide better service.
United Parcel Service, the largest single customer for several railroads, said the board should require that shippers be granted access to at least two railroads to ensure competition between railroads. Arnie Wellman, a UPS vice president, characterized the company as a captive shipper.
Du Pont, echoing the Chemical Manufacturers Association's opposition to the merger, asked for competition for all customers that were served solely by either BNSF or CN on the date of their announcement.
Many at the hearing agreed that Morgan was building a record that would justify any action she and the other two commissioners decide to take. In past merger cases, the STB, and the ICC before it, have imposed conditions that protected existing competition while declining to create competition where it didn't already exist.
Morgan's interpretation of the laws her agency administers would appear to favor dealing with BNSF and CN as it has other mergers. The STB has not been reauthorized by Congress for more than a year, however, and the board is funded only through September.
The uncertainty over the STB's status creates an opportunity for merger opponents to exert pressure on the board through Congress. While Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., has said he wants a simple reauthorization with no changes in regulatory law, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., urged that the STB adopt a more shipper-friendly policy.
WASHINGTON: Labor's Big Win in Primaries
WASHINGTON -- When the envelopes were opened on Super Tuesday announcing the award winners for this stage of campaign 2000, most fans paid attention only to the already anticipated victories of the two leading actors, Al Gore and George W. Bush, the Washington Post reported.But the prize that may carry the greatest significance for the long term went to the campaign's best supporting actor: Big Labor.
Well, not exactly Big Labor, a term with little meaning now. But so far this year, America's union movement has proven itself to be lean, focused and shrewd. The unions delivered to Gore when it mattered, and they did so without arousing the high-profile antagonism that religious conservatives let loose in Republican ranks. Organized labor's steady march back to political influence began in the 1996 elections and gained speed in 1998. This year could be better still.
Buried in last Tuesday's results was the Democratic primary victory of California State Sen. Hilda Solis Martinez. Incumbents don't usually lose primaries, and the standard account of the race, which is true as far as it goes, is that Martinez had been in office a long time and had, as they say, "lost touch" with his heavily Latino district in suburban Los Angeles.
But what gave Solis the ability to rout Martinez by 2 to 1 was her anointment by the unions. As chair of the labor committee, Solis "killed every anti-union bill that came before her," says Miguel Contreras, the executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. Martinez, in the meantime, had signaled he might support the Clinton administration's request for fast-track trading authority, a position anathema to the unions.
The Solis victory is a warning to incumbents in heavily Democratic districts. The unions can challenge them in primaries with little risk that their seats might go Republican on Election Day.
"We're sending a message," says Contreras. "This is a very blue-collar, union district. We ought to be sending warriors from these districts and not just someone who'll give us a vote occasionally. . . . Marty was not terrible. He didn't have a 40 percent voting record.
He didn't have a 60 percent voting record. He had an 80 percent voting record. But we're looking for 100 percent." It's a hard line that might swing a few votes against the administration's effort to grant permanent normal trading status to China, a move passionately opposed by the labor movement.
In the case of Gore's campaign, the national AFL-CIO not only delivered; it offered its endorsement last fall when it could make the most difference. Gore was on the ropes. The newspapers were full of stories about a Bill Bradley surge and reports of chaos in the Gore operation. In politics, backing a guy when he's down produces lasting gratitude, especially since a failure to endorse at that moment could have crippled Gore's chances.
"The expectation was created that we were going to endorse, so it would have been a major setback if we didn't," says Steve Rosenthal, the AFL-CIO's political director.
And when voting time came in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary--as it turns out, the only two contests that really mattered in the Democratic race--labor's legions made a large difference. In Iowa, voters from union families made up a third of all caucus goers, and they backed Gore by nearly 3 to 1. In New Hampshire, Gore narrowly lost the nonunion vote, but beat Bradley by better than 3 to 2 among union households. The contest was effectively over by Super Tuesday. But even then, voters with union ties were more pro-Gore than the rest of the electorate.
Bush, no friend of the unions, will try to make Gore pay a price for his friendship with labor. Count on hearing the words "Big Labor" in unflattering contexts over the coming months. But as Rosenthal notes, Gore has an advantage in this argument: He is bucking the unions on China policy and will thus have an early opportunity to declare his independence. The trick, Rosenthal admits, will be to have the China fight and then find a way of reuniting against Bush.
Paradoxically, Bush may make that easier if he goes hard after the unions. Rosenthal says three decades of reporting about labor's decline robs what he calls "the union bosses this, the union bosses that" argument of much of its old power. Attacks on unions may galvanize labor's forces without mobilizing much opposition. By providing troops but making itself a smaller target, Lean Labor could prove itself as powerful as Big Labor ever was.
PENNSYLVANIA: In Darby, CSX train blocked traffic for nearly two hours
DARBY BOROUGH -- A CSX Corp. freight train stopped for unexplained reasons in downtown Darby again yesterday, blocking traffic for nearly two hours and upsetting local officials again, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
The mayor considered retaliating by blocking the track with her car again, but decided not to. A spokesman for CSX said the train's engineer and crew would be suspended because of the stoppage. He said an investigation into the disruption would begin immediately.
"We absolutely apologize for the inconveniences the community has been through," said spokesman Bob Sullivan. "But we need to see what the facts are and then we can make an appropriate decision."
On Feb. 24, CSX regional vice president Robert Downing issued an internal memo prohibiting the company's trains from blocking intersections.
Also last month, a federal judge directed CSX to "operate its trains with reasonable regard" to Darby Borough's concerns about "unnecessary blockages" that occur when trains stop, closing intersections to local traffic.
The judge also ruled that if Mayor Paula M. Brown or anyone else interfered with the movement of CSX trains through the borough, they could be found in contempt of court.
On Feb. 13, after a seven-car derailment, Brown blocked the tracks with her 1980 Dodge Diplomat for 12 hours. Brown said it had been the fifth derailment that month. CSX maintained it was the third.
That was the second time within a week that Brown had blocked the track to protest what she said at the time were "repeated, unacceptable stoppages and derailments." Yesterday, Brown threatened to block the tracks again, but was dissuaded by Borough Solicitor Fincourt B. Shelton.
Brown said she did not want to risk violating the federal court order. She added: "Maybe I will have to go to jail so that a kid won't get killed."
Shelton said he had been assured in a half-hour conversation with Downing that the train's engineer and crew would be dismissed immediately for violating the internal directive. Sullivan, however, said last night that the employees would be interviewed before any disciplinary action was taken.
Last month's court order, signed by U.S. District Judge James McGirr Kelly, says future remedies for grievances against CSX should be sought from the "appropriate federal agencies," such as the Federal Railroad Administration and the U.S. Surface Transportation Board.
NEW JERSEY: Work along light rail's path is beginning in South Jersey
PHILADELPHIA -- With the permission of New Jersey Transit, the initial stages of the much-debated and massive Southern New Jersey Light Rail project are cruising forward, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Residents along the passenger line's 34-mile route from Camden to Trenton won't feel the rumble of heavy equipment until later this year, transit officials said.
The Bechtel consortium, which was awarded a $604 million contract last year to design, build, operate and maintain the rail system, will first focus on the design of the line, which is to follow the route of the old Conrail tracks.
"They must now go out and survey the site and do all of their testing," said Daniel Censullo, the senior director of new rail construction for NJ Transit. The testing, for example, will include taking soil samples to determine what kind of foundation can be laid down for rail structures.
"I think we're in good shape. We're out of the gate pretty good," Censullo said.
In late May, transit officials will start work with utility companies to remove and relocate power lines as well as underground water and sewer lines to prepare for construction of the line late this year.
The line, which is to have 20 station stops between the Waterfront Entertainment Centre in Camden and the Trenton Train Station, is slated to begin running in late 2002. Transit officials are also exploring a potential extension in Trenton to the government district.
Censullo said the process of acquiring important public and private properties along the route had begun. About $4 million has been spent on 15 percent to 20 percent of the 100 properties, in either easements or outright acquisitions, that are needed by the end of the year. Officials will not publicly pinpoint those properties.
"We have acquired the critical properties that we need in order to get [Bechtel] going on the earlier construction, and we're well under way in having the rest of the property in hand," Censullo said.
Transit officials said the first significant construction would begin in late summer in Camden near 36th Street. That is where the maintenance facilities and storage yard for the rail system will be built.
Crews will then begin laying the track and building two bridges, one of which will take the line over Rancocas Creek, Censullo said.
The South Jersey rail line is just one of a number of transportation projects in the works. This spring, the first leg of the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail line is slated to open in North Jersey. At first, only seven miles of the 20-mile line will be open, running from Bayonne to Jersey City.
Many local officials in South Jersey have been anticipating the light-rail line, hoping it will help revitalize moribund areas such as the Route 130 corridor, which parallels the Delaware River and cuts through several towns.
Others, however, have been critical. They contend that riders will be scarce because travel patterns in Burlington County, for example, run mostly east and west instead of north and south.
James Weinstein, chairman of the NJ Transit board of directors, said he believed light rail would catch on in South Jersey even though, according to early ridership studies, only 9,300 riders per day are expected to use the line in its first year.
One of those skeptics is Pamela Scott, a Palmyra Borough Council member who talked about her concerns about light rail in her failed bid to become a Burlington County freeholder last fall. Scott said her constituents in Palmyra feel the line was forced on them. Their concerns include safety and the lack of parking available.
CALIFORNIA: Metro Red Line Subway Extension to North Hollywood Set to Open June 24; Metro Rapid Buses Begin Operations on the Same Day
LOS ANGELES -- The Metro Red Line North Hollywood extension will open to the public on Saturday, June 24, the MTA announced in a press release. The extension is currently on budget and six months ahead of the December 31, 2000 deadline for opening as mandated in MTA's construction funding agreement with the federal government.
The opening of a new 6.3-mile extension of the Metro Red Line subway from Hollywood to Universal City and North Hollywood will be the capstone of a rail rapid transit system crisscrossing Los Angeles County.
The new Metro Rail extension will feature three new stations at Hollywood/Highland, Universal City and Lankershim/Chandler in North Hollywood.
With the opening of the North Hollywood extension, the Metro Rail system will have nearly 60 miles of rail in service and 50 stations. This includes 17.4 miles of subway with 16 Metro Red Line stations and two light rail lines that are all linked together.
The Metro Blue Line connects downtown Los Angeles and Long Beach while the Metro Green Line runs along the median of the Century Freeway and links Norwalk and El Segundo. At Union Station in downtown Los Angeles, the Metro Red Line also hooks up with the 416-mile Metrolink commuter rail network that serves Los Angeles and four outlying counties as well as Amtrak rail service to the rest of the country.
"This latest expansion of the Metro Rail system will give the transit dependent, commuters, tourists and others access to major job centers, government, schools, hospitals, shopping, sports, entertainment and cultural venues throughout Los Angeles County," said Los Angeles County Supervisor and MTA Board Chair Yvonne Brathwaite Burke.
Tourists, as well as Los Angeles residents, will find Metro Rail convenient and easy to use to get to various destination points throughout the greater Los Angeles area. The Metro Rail system serves the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, the Watts Towers, Staples Center, all the downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood attractions, Universal City, which is the Southland's most popular tourist destination, and the NoHo Arts District in North Hollywood. Metro Rail also serves LAX airport with a shuttle bus connection to Lot C.
In addition, at the same time the subway extension opens to North Hollywood in June, MTA also will debut its new Metro Rapid buses on Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley and along Wilshire Boulevard to expedite bus connections to the subway stations.
Modeled after a rapid bus system in Curitiba, Brazil, MTA's Metro Rapid buses will be outfitted with special transmitters to extend green lights, make fewer stops than regular buses, run frequently, utilize new low floor buses and special stations to facilitate passenger loading. All Metro Rapid buses will be new state-of-the-art compressed natural gas buses with a distinctive red and white color scheme for easy identification.
ARKANSAS: Daily Amtrak service set to begin
LITTLE ROCK -- Amtrak will begin daily passenger train service through Arkansas, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.
Arkansas' only Amtrak train, the Chicago-Dallas-San Antonio-Los Angeles Texas Eagle, currently stops four days a week at Walnut Ridge, Little Rock, Malvern, Arkadelphia and Texarkana.
"Daily frequency is the minimum necessary for that train to be an effective transportation resource," said Dr. Bill Pollard, a Conway dentist and president of the Arkansas Association of Railroad Passengers.
He said the 300-passenger-capacity Eagle and its Sunset Limited connecting train to California together carried around 222,000 passengers in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 1999. That compared with 202,912 passengers a year earlier.
Amtrak did not pinpoint a starting date for the daily service, but Pollard said he expected it to begin by late May or early June. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who chairs the Senate Surface Transportation subcommittee with jurisdiction over Amtrak, said May 31 is the starting date.
WASHINGTON: Teamsters caught in China trade flap
WASHINGTON -- On the sidelines of its battle against President Clinton's landmark trade agreement with China, the Teamsters labor union has launched a little-noticed campaign urging the White House to grant one of its largest employers access to the Chinese market, according to congressional aides and documents, Reuters reported.
The campaign, aimed at convincing the administration to award package delivery giant United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS.N) highly coveted air rights to China, has opened the Teamsters up to charges of ``hypocrisy'' from supporters of Clinton's trade agreement.
U.S.-China Business Council President Robert Kapp and others said it made little sense for the 1.4 million-member union to fight for market access for UPS, while pressing Congress to reject a pact that would open a wide range of Chinese markets, and directly benefit UPS and its work force by increasing trade between the two countries.
"It's not a contradiction at all,'' countered Teamsters spokesman Chip Roth. "We never said we were against trade. We're for fair trade, and this (UPS deal) will create good paying jobs in the United States.''
Clinton's trade agreement with China, hammered out last year, is a critical piece of Beijing's application to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), though the government must still complete negotiations with the European Union and other nations before entering the Geneva-based body, which sets international trade rules.
In exchange for China opening its markets, Clinton says Congress must grant Beijing permanent normal trade relations (NTR) -- a status it now gets only after an annual congressional review. Permanent NTR would guarantee Chinese goods the same low-tariff access to U.S. markets as products from nearly every other nation.
Big business has earmarked more than $10 million for a lobbying campaign in support of the initiative.
But permanent NTR faces stiff opposition in the House of Representatives from Democrats, closely allied with organized labor. They say the trade agreement would cost many Americans their jobs by clearing the way for U.S. companies to move factories to China, where they can take advantage of low-paid workers and lax environmental rules.
More than any other union leader, Teamsters President James Hoffa has led the charge, demanding that Beijing improve labor standards and human rights before joining the WTO.
He appealed to union members to flood lawmakers' offices with letters and phone calls urging them to vote against permanent NTR, driving a wedge between the president and his own party in Congress ahead of U.S. elections in November.
At the same time, the Teamsters have lobbied top Clinton administration officials to support Atlanta-based UPS in its battle against Delta Air Lines Inc., AMR Corp's American Airlines and Polar Air Cargo, for the China air route. UPS currently flies its own planes into Hong Kong and Taiwan, but not directly into China. Instead, it has served customers in China through a joint venture, and has relied on third parties to transport packages across national borders into China.
Hoffa wrote a letter to Clinton's Transportation Secretary, Rodney Slater, arguing that UPS's entry into the Chinese market would "bring, for the first time, competition in the air express market, which is healthy for the economy and translates into more jobs throughout the United States.''
UPS already employs over 185,000 Teamster members. If it is awarded air rights to China, the company estimates that it would add 1,200 mostly unionized jobs in the United States, and predicted another 77,000 spin-off jobs would be created for the U.S. economy if it gained direct air access to the world's most populous nation.
Clinton's trade agreement with China, by contrast, would put American jobs in peril, the Teamsters argue. "(Permanent) NTR for China, as it's constructed, will lead to an exodus of jobs from the United States,'' Roth said.
Major corporations, including UPS, counter that the trade agreement would benefit the U.S. economy and its workers because China will be bound to WTO rules. UPS could be one of the biggest beneficiaries, as package traffic between the United States and China increases.
"Surely the leader of a union as big and as powerful as the Teamsters understands implicitly that more cargo and more traffic will move between the countries if the United States and China, thanks to passage of permanent NTR, are linked in a full, reciprocal WTO-member relationship than if the U.S. turns down permanent NTR,'' Kapp said.
In addition to the Teamsters, the International Association of Machinists and the Independent Pilots Association have sided with UPS in its bid to serve the U.S.-China market. Dozens of lawmakers have also backed UPS, including House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt. The Department of Transportation is expected to award the new route this summer.
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