CLEVELAND, August 29 — BLE International President Don Hahs issued the following statement in response to UTU President Byron Boyd’s “state of the union” address delivered at a regional meeting in Philadelphia and posted to the UTU website on August 25.
In the two years I have served as President of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, it has grown increasingly tiresome to respond to each and every false claim and distorted fact contained in United Transportation Union news releases. But Byron Boyd’s “state of the union” address of August 25 deserves a response.
First, Boyd has skewed the facts regarding locomotive engineers in Canada. Locomotive engineers at the Canadian Pacific Railway are not drawn to the UTU because of its “progressive and successful approach to contract negotiation,” as Boyd boasts.
In reality, UTU began a raid of BLE members at Canada’s second-largest railway on the July 4 weekend. UTU deceptively characterized this raid to their members (and BLE members) as a means to get in the way of the BLE-IBT merger in Canada.
Further, Boyd had the audacity to say, “More than 73 percent of train and engine service employees on CPR in Canada have signed UTU membership applications.”
The fact of the matter is that nearly all locomotive engineers who mistakenly signed UTU membership applications have since filed revocation notices. Most of the BLE members who signed the forms said they were misled or deceived by UTU representatives assigned by the UTU international about what to say.
The UTU has pulled out of the AFL-CIO in the United States to avoid sanctions for raiding the BLE. In Canada, the BLE has appealed to the Canadian Labour Congress for relief in light of the UTU’s raid at CP Rail.
Second, Boyd speaks out of both sides of his mouth when talking about the issue of remote control. Boyd accuses BLE of “hypocrisy” and employing “twisted logic” on the issue. The real hypocrites are Boyd and some of his cronies.
On December 9, 1999, the UTU issued a press release, which read in part:
“UTU is totally opposed to remote-control operations and we have campaigned actively against them in North America and around the world. Lives have been needlessly lost because of remote controls in switching operations, and they are a danger to every operating employee… The use of remote-controlled locomotives in switching operations is expected to lead to the loss of scores of jobs for operating employees.”
The UTU’s “active campaign” against remote control for safety reasons went out the window when the carriers rewarded them with an agreement to represent employees using remote control. It’s all about representation rights and administration of the agreement, not about safety. In nearly every remote control accident, UTU has agreed with the carriers that the accidents were caused by operator error and were not the fault of the technology or the fault of the carriers, who are forcing two people –- and in some cases one — to do the work of three.
The following statement by UTU General Chairperson John Hancock supporting a BLE-UTU merger was posted on the UTU’s website on September 7, 2001.
“The issue that is most important in this merger is the use of remote control on locomotives. This technology is in use in Canada and every other country, and it works. What the carriers want to do it pit one organization against the other to see who is going to work the remote control for the lowest amount of money. That will put a lot of railroad workers on the street.”
In a further display of UTU hypocrisy regarding remote control, one needs look no further than Mr. James Brunkenhoefer, UTU’s National Legisltive Director, who made the following statement during the FRA’s public hearings on remote control in Appleton, Wisc., on December 4 and 5, 1996:
“Only by being a party to a pointless death and disaster will the FRA and rail carriers be forced to rethink this insanity. We are urging them to rethink now, before the inevitable happens,” said the UTU.” — Railway Age, February 1997
Further, at the Federal Railroad Administration’s Technical Conference regarding remote control locomotives on July 19, 2000, the UTU pledged to stand side-by-side with BLE to see that remote control operations were implemented in the safest manner possible, and agreed to limit the use of remote control to those operations currently existing.
Apparently, UTU forgot its promise to stand beside BLE when it signed the remote control letter of intent with the nation’s railroads, without BLE’s knowledge or consent.
UTU did not make “every attempt” to include the BLE in the remote control agreement, as Boyd professes. The letter was signed while the BLE was in convention and on the very day I was elected president. It seems as though they extended one hand in friendship while the other plunged a knife into our backs.
Third, Boyd boasts about the “75 percent favorable vote” on the UTU’s latest national contract. While this may be true, a close look reveals a common UTU strategy to distort the facts. It may be true that the contract passed by a “75 percent favorable vote,” but in reality, only 30 percent of active UTU members participated in the ratification process (close to 18,000 votes). In other words, roughly 70 percent of UTU members did not think highly enough of the contract to even vote.
Fourth, I take exception to the way Boyd, again, falsely portrayed the BLE’s Montana Rail Link agreement on remote control
Boyd and other leaders of the UTU have devoted a great deal of time to spreading false information about the BLE’s MRL agreement. They have resorted to telling outright lies by stating that the MRL agreement has no protections for ground crew employees.
The fact of the matter is that the MRL agreement protects all workers -– ground service personnel included -– who were employed on the effective date of the agreement.
The MRL’s attrition-based agreement will protect employees for the next 30 years while the UTU-negotiated agreement with the Class 1 railroads protects workers for a six-year period.
For further evidence, I’ll quote BLE General Chairman Dennis Pierce, whose June 10, 2003, letter provided an extensive explanation of the MRL remote control agreement:
“(T)he MRL agreement includes “attrition” based protection that protects all who were employed on the effective date of the agreement. Those truly protected employees cannot be furloughed so long as they can hold the third position on a remote assignment. To date, there have been no crew size reductions due to this attrition-based model, and many of the employees protected by the MRL agreement will carry this protection for nearly 30 years. In fact, the youngest protected person employed by MRL on the date of the agreement was 25 years old at the time. He is protected and can work the third position on a regularly assigned remote job, rather than being furloughed, for a total of 35 years. Conversely, UTU not only agreed to a model that immediately eliminated one third of the positions in yard service, it agreed to protective benefits in the form of guaranteed extra board slots protecting all extra service, one for each remote assignment, for a six year period. Six years will come and go while attrition-based protection on MRL will be there for the involved employees until the end of their railroad career. Again, it is no real mental challenge to see which model best protected the work rights and best interests of the involved employees.
“A true comparison of the compensation related to remote control also shows which model best protected the financial interests of the involved employees. As information, the pre existing crew consist minimum on MRL was a two man minimum, engineer and switch foreman. Although MRL historically assigned a switchman as a third crew member, the agreement did not require it. BLE’s remote agreement changed these minimums, expanding the required crew size to three, two engineers and a switch foreman, the third position to eventually be reduced through the attrition model described above. The day this service was implemented on MRL, two of the three crew members were given a raise in pay; the switch foreman increased to engineer rate and the switchman increased to switch foreman rate. Conversely on BNSF, UTU assisted the Carrier in eliminating the highest paid position on the crew on day one and went to two man crews immediately. Eliminating the engineer’s position not only capped the involved employees at switch foreman and switchman’s rates, it also resulted in the cancellation of many Locomotive Engineer Training Programs on BNSF. Under the MRL model, positions in the Locomotive Engineer Training Program have increased in the past two years. In fact, the employees on MRL are currently voting on a new proposal that will afford them guaranteed access to engineer training when they have worked for approximately one year. It is clear that BLE’s model provides promotion as well as the increases in compensation that have historically accompanied promotion.”