(The following story by Lois Caliri appeared on The Roanoke Times website on January 16.)
ROANOKE, Va. — The Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen is prepared to strike to protest Norfolk Southern’s closing of a signal shop in Roanoke.
Today is the last of the five days’ notice that NS gave to about 18 local signalmen. The workers will likely keep NS jobs by bumping other signalmen who have less seniority. And they’re likely to move to other states served by NS to find other jobs with the company.
Signalmen install, repair and maintain signal systems, which railroads use to direct train movements.
NS left no choice but to prepare for a strike, said Richard Edelman, a Washington, D.C., attorney representing the union. He said NS was unwilling to arbitrate the signal shop closing process.
The railroad said its decision to close the signal shop is not limited by an agreement between the railroad and the union.
Because the two sides could not iron out the differences, Senior U.S. District Judge James Turk will conduct a hearing at 12:30 p.m. today in Harrisonburg to consider both the possibility of a strike and the shop closure issues.
At issue is whether NS violated a contract that, union officials said, prohibited both sides from making any changes regarding the Roanoke signal shop, the last of the railroad’s signal shops.
“After spending many months on almost a weekly basis bargaining with NSR over issues … news [of NS closing the shop] came as a shock,” said Floyd Mason, a union vice president. “It is disturbing to spend months of bargaining over these and other issues only to have NS only a few weeks after an agreement is reached to implement drastic changes in work rules with no more than a day’s notice.”
Added Edelman, “The one day’s notice, after months of bargaining on a new agreement, demonstrates the general bad faith in dealing with the union on this issue.”
NS, in its court documents, argues that it doesn’t need to go through the collective bargaining process to buy new and rebuilt signal devices from outside vendors.
The railroad “has not otherwise bargained away its right to purchase signal devices, whether newly manufactured or rebuilt,” documents state.
Edelman said some see the closure as further erosion of Roanoke’s railroad legacy. He also said the closure represents NS’ rejection of the union agreement and its workers.
NS said it made a business decision to discontinue operations at the Roanoke signal shop. The railroad, in court documents, said “it will exercise its prerogative to purchase rebuilt signal devices, as well as newly manufactured ones, from outside suppliers.”
NS documents also said union workers will continue to remove defective signal devices and install new or rebuilt ones in accordance with the labor agreement.