(States News Service circulated the following on October 1.)
WASHINGTON — Amtrak’s president and chief executive, David L. Gunn, expressed confidence yesterday that trains will roll on Friday, despite a threatened one-day work stoppage by unions to protest what they consider to be inadequate funding for the national passenger railroad.
Amtrak management is seeking an injunction against six unions, representing nearly 8,000 railroad workers, and Gunn expressed doubt the labor action would occur. Gunn, however, said there was no chance the railroad would try to operate with nonunion employees that day, should Amtrak lose in court. He called the planned job action “the least wise move I’ve ever seen, to threaten Congress and the public with a strike. The way we get what we need is to demonstrate that we’re running a good show.”
Amtrak asked Congress for $1.8 billion for fiscal 2004. The House has passed a bill to provide $900 million. The Senate is debating a $1.4 billion package. Amtrak received $1.04 billion last fiscal year. Gunn said Amtrak “has a lot of friends in Congress, in both houses . . . We have a good chance of getting adequate funding.” He dismissed “sweeping reformers” who want Amtrak to make a profit, or who want to privatize the rail service.
“How you get from where we are now, running some 200-odd trains every day, to where they want to go is not at all clear,” he said. “To privatize, you need a profitable business. That’s Economics 101. We are not profitable, and we are not going to be profitable.” Nevertheless, Gunn, who took Amtrak’s throttle in May 2002, expressed confidence it has turned a corner. “At the risk of being hauled out of here in a straitjacket, I really enjoy my job, and I’m optimistic about the future of Amtrak,” he said. “We know how to fix the railroads.”