(The following column by Randolph Heaster was posted on the Kansas City Star website on March 7.)
KANSAS CITY — The drawn-out bargaining process in the railroad industry yielded a tentative agreement with several unions representing 66,000 U.S. rail workers last week.
But negotiations with the railroads’ biggest union remain in a stalemate.
Groups representing five major railroads, including Kansas City Southern, and seven rail unions said they reached a five-year tentative pact that must now be ratified by the workers. The contract would be applied retroactively and run through 2009.
Although details of the agreement were not released, the Rail Labor Bargaining Coalition said wage increases and controls on health insurance co-payments were obtained by the unions. Among the bigger unions belonging to the coalition are the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division, both of which are now part of the Teamsters union.
The negotiations took more than two years.
“We reached a positive outcome because of our unity,” Don Hahs, BLET national president, said in a statement. “It was a team effort with all RLBC (coalition) unions working together toward one goal — negotiating a strong contract for our members.”
In addition to Kansas City Southern, carriers represented by the National Carriers’ Conference Committee included BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific.
“While this agreement is the first in the current bargaining round, we are confident that it will set a pattern for successful resolution of negotiations with other rail unions,” Robert F. Allen, chairman of the railroads’ bargaining group, said in a statement.
Six other rail unions have yet to reach a new contract, including the United Transportation Union. Representing conductors, brakemen and yard workers, the UTU has about 46,000 members affected by the negotiations.
The carrier group broke off talks with the UTU in late January, said Frank Wilner, a union spokesman. The group called it an impasse, but the railroad committee has not yet filed such a declaration with the National Mediation Board, Wilner said.
Such a filing could lead to a process that would create a Presidential Emergency Board to make recommendations on a new contract, but that could take an additional three months. The union wants to keep talking, Wilner said.
Among the union’s key issues yet to be addressed by the carriers are training and entry-level pay, Wilner said.
Labor lawyer dies
Jim Walsh, one of the founders of a prominent labor law firm in Kansas City, died last week at age 70.
At the firm Jolley Walsh Hurley Raisher & Aubry, Walsh became well known for his strong support of workers’ rights. He helped change federal laws to eliminate bias in benefit payments to female workers, and Walsh also was a co-creator of the “Target Program” for construction unions. That nationwide program helped union contractors compete with nonunion contractors on certain construction projects through a fund that subsidized union wages.
“He was one of the early pioneers in the legal labor community in terms of promoting ‘out of the box’ thinking,” said Garry Kemp, business manager of the Greater Kansas City Building and Construction Trades Council AFL-CIO. “He was additionally appreciated and respected in the labor community not only for his legal skills, but his tremendous sense of humor.”
Walsh, who also was involved in several charitable ventures in the area, was known for his booming voice and gregarious nature.
“His passing means the loss of a robust voice for the working men and women of Kansas City, and also for those who lived outside the prosperity enjoyed by most of Kansas City,” said Don Aubrey, one of the law firm’s partners.