The BLET wrongly charges that UTU proposes to eliminate locomotive engineer jobs on the BNSF in Washington and Oregon.

The truth is that BNSF Railway is seeking to eliminate -- with the assistance of their lapdog union, the BLET -- job protections that the UTU painstakingly achieved for its members.

We smell a pair of skunks -- and their names are BNSF Railway and BLET.

Here is what the BNSF, with the assistance of its lapdog BLET, is seeking to eliminate:

•A crew consist agreement requiring two UTU-represented employees -- a switch foreman and a switchman -- on each crew;

•A rule granting UTU-represented employees the exclusive right to operate remotely controlled locomotives;

•A rule granting UTU employees the exclusive right to perform all ground service work;

•Rules stipulating that a UTU-represented employee (conductor or foreman) is the employee in charge of the crew.

What is going on here is that the BLET has no job protection for its own members, and is trying to sell out the job protections the UTU has achieved for its members.

Fact: The BLET has no rule requiring BNSF to use a BLET-represented employee on any crew.

Fact: The BLET has no rule requiring BNSF to use a BLET-represented employee to operate RCL locomotives.

Fact: The BLET has no rule entitling a BLET-represented employee to perform switchman's work.

Fact: The BLET has no rule stipulating that an engineer will be the employee in charge of a crew.

Fact: The BLET could have had a guarantee of 50 percent of all remote control assignments. That guarantee was offered by the UTU if the BLE merged with the UTU. Instead, the BLE chose to merge with a truck driver's union.

So what has BLET General Chairman Dennis R. Pierce done to remedy the failure of BLET to protect its own members? Pierce climbed in bed with BNSF management and proposed eliminating a UTU-represented remote control position and replacing that position with a locomotive engineer.

Pierce's screw-another-craft proposal came after the BNSF threatened to sell off various yards to short-line operators, who would not be required to honor existing labor agreements. The BNSF said it would relent if the BLET and UTU agreed to concessions to reduce labor costs by 25 percent.

The UTU, knowing the BNSF is lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut, said, "Hell, no. We won't be intimidated." The UTU knows how the BNSF operates -- such as the BN's failed attempt years ago to use its subsidiary, Winona Bridge, to beat UTU crew-consist agreements.

But the BNSF is a crafty devil, ready to exploit differences between the UTU and the BLET through a divide-and-conquer strategy.

This is just as BN did by selling off Montana Rail Link years ago -- with the BLET jumping into bed with the carrier and freezing the UTU out of representation. Of course, the UTU struck the BN and made it stick in court, eventually winning a good measure of labor protection for trainmen who lost their jobs on BN.

But when BNSF tried its scam again -- by threatening to sell yards to short-line operators -- the BLET again took the bait while the UTU again told the carrier to pound salt.

That bait was taken -- hook, line and sinker -- by the BLET's Pierce, who made what he calls a "compromise." The BLET, said Pierce, "suggested that the carrier operate with two-man crews in the yard -- one BLET-represented locomotive engineer and one UTU-represented remote control operator."

These yard assignments currently consist of one locomotive engineer and two yardmen, or two remote control yardmen assignments.

If you reduce the crew to two -- an engineer and a UTU-represented remote control operator -- where is Pierce's compromise?

The compromise is a BLET sell-out of one UTU-represented train service position while preserving the engineer on the assignment.

And, on a two-person remote control assignment, with two UTU-represented RCL operators, where is Pierce's compromise?

Again, the compromise is a BLET sell-out of another craft, leaving one engineer and one UTU-represented RCL operator.

Disgracefully, the BLET's so-called compromise eliminates UTU positions protected by crew-consist agreements and remote control agreements in favor of the engineer.

Those being the facts, the BLET is now trying to blame the UTU.

It was only after the UTU became aware of the BLET's attempt to sell-out a UTU-represented employee that the UTU made its own proposal to the BNSF.

The UTU proposed two RCL operators, with one RCL operator being a conductor qualified as an engineer.

This would have satisfied UTU's crew-consist agreements, protected UTU-represented employees and addressed BNSF's concerns.

The BNSF turned down the UTU proposal in favor of the BLET's because the BNSF is attempting to open up crew consist -- and the BLET is an all-too-willing partner in this carrier treachery.

What we have is another tawdry example of how the BLET operates -- disguising its own ineptness in failing to protect engineers by seeking to sell-out another craft -- and then blaming the UTU. It's like the child who murdered his parents and then who pleads for mercy on account of his being an orphan.

As with the Lake Erie Plan, as with its capitulation in the Montana Rail Link deal, as with the sell-out of conductors on VIA Rail, as with its collaboration with carriers in helping to eliminate the fireman's craft in the 1960s, as with its scabbing when attempts were made to restore firemen, and as with its scabbing against the UTU on the Soo Line in the 1990s, the BLET is back to its foul ways.

Had the BLE and UTU come together under the UTU's craft-autonomy protection, carriers would not be able to play the two organizations against one another. Instead, the BLE chose to align itself with a truck drivers' union.