NEW ORLEANS — At its winter Executive Committee meeting, leaders of the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department (TTD) unanimously adopted a resolution pledging to stand together in “an aggressive and unified” response to thwart raids against their membership by the independent United Transportation Union (UTU).
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (BLE), an AFL-CIO affiliate in its 139th year of representing workers on North American freight and passenger railroads, is facing raids by UTU that, if successful, could force workers on a “path of isolation” at a time when the labor movement must be stronger and more unified than ever before given the “politically hostile environment in Washington.”
This action by UTU “violates the very principles on which this movement was founded more than a century ago and misdirects energies from the real mission of the AFL-CIO and its affiliates: to organize the unorganized under the banner of solidarity,” the Executive Committee declared.
“This dispute should be settled peacefully inside the House of Labor and we must not lose focus on our mission to give millions of new workers a voice on the job, in their communities and in the political process,” said TTD President Sonny Hall. “At the same time we must be unified against senseless raids that could result in denying thousands of railroad workers the right to be represented by strong unions.”
The UTU is petitioning the National Mediation Board (NMB) to rewrite the rail industry’s craft and class system in order to frustrate the union representation rights of locomotive engineers and thousands of other railroad employees. The TTD resolution strongly urged the NMB to continue to enforce the craft and class system, saying that for over a century it has been the cornerstone of representation and collective bargaining in the rail industry and has led to the recruitment of highly skilled and specialized railroad employees.
Noting that late last year the BLE’s rank-and-file overwhelmingly voted to reject a proposal to merge with the UTU, the TTD leaders called upon the UTU to “honor the wishes of BLE members, suspend raids against the BLE, withdraw the case before the NMB, and reclaim its seats at the AFL-CIO and the Transportation Trades Department.”
For a copy of the resolution, visit www.ttd.org or www.ble.org.