The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers has signed an agreement with a third freight railroad to grab remote-control jobs from UTU members.

The BLE also signed a separate agreement with Amtrak that permits for contracting out of work and opens the door for contracting out of track maintenance, signal and shopcraft work.

The freight agreements signed by the BLE are with BNSF, CSX and Norfolk Southern. Under the scope rule in those agreements recently signed, remote-control operation of locomotives in road service would be performed by BLE-represented engineers.

"Once again, the BLE is showing itself to be a parasite that feeds off other crafts’ jobs, yet calls itself a labor union," said UTU International President Paul Thompson.

"Solidarity is an alien concept to the BLE, which thumbed its nose at solidarity when the UTU was created in 1969, and again turned its back on solidarity when we sought again to merge a few years ago," Thompson said. "It is the organization that once sold the fireman’s job for $1.50 per day, and which now has signed contracts to take trainmen jobs and eliminate others."

The UTU already has filed in a federal court a lawsuit against CSX challenging the legality of such contracts that would infringe on UTU agreements and eliminate UTU-represented jobs, putting UTU members on the street.

"The carriers entered into those agreements knowing full well they violate UTU contracts and constitute a major dispute under the Railway Labor Act," Thompson said. "Before the ink was even dry on those BLE agreements, BNSF and NS filed their own lawsuits to bar the UTU from a work stoppage. All three lawsuits also are pending before federal courts.

"The BLE and their Teamster handlers may tack the word 'trainmen' to the end of their already scandalous name," Thompson said, "but an organization that trades away trainmen jobs and signs contracts that ignore entry-level pay for newly hired trainmen is hardly deserving of being called by the name it chooses -- much less being called a labor union.

"Other rail labor unions are about to suffer BLE pillaging as a result of the Amtrak agreement," Thompson said. "The contracting-out provision signed by the BLE will serve as a pattern for the BMWE, signalmen and shopcraft unions, who stand to suffer significant member losses from contracting out. It also opens the door for more contracting out by freight railroads.

"For many years, UTU-represented employees have recognized the BLE’s strategy is to find other bodies to trade-off for their own members’ benefit," Thompson said. "Some in rail labor have been critical of the UTU’s position in response. But the cold, hard facts are that the carriers can always count on the BLE to sell out anyone if it will benefit the BLE. It is unfortunate that the non-ops have not recognized this trait before."

Thompson said that unlike the BLE, the UTU will continue to fight for improved training and equal pay for equal work, and has filed a separate lawsuit in federal court to force the National Carriers' Conference Committee to return to the bargaining table with the UTU and address the issue of training and entry-level pay as the carriers pledged to do in writing in 2002 as part of the previous round of national handling.

"On Amtrak, the UTU continues to demand in negotiations that the job of assistant conductor be preserved as a matter of public safety and national security," Thompson said.

Created exclusively for www.utu.org by Local 257 member Alan Nash.