(The following story by Dan Tracy appeared on the Orlando Sentinel website on July 28, 2009.)
ORLANDO, Fla. — One by one, SunRail commuter-train supporters are quieting the critics.
They’ve won Lakeland’s endorsement and gotten trial lawyers to back off. By seeking millions of extra federal dollars and altering liability provisions, they hope to quell even more adversaries.
But one foe might be intractable: the unions.
Organized-labor officials complain the state is using SunRail to bust the unions that dominate much of the railroad industry — and they can’t allow that to happen.
“The goal, of course, is to go nonunion. We just get eliminated,” said John Gaige, a 62-year-old union signalman who works in South Florida.
State officials deny the charge. They contend they are neither pro- nor anti-union, but promoting a right-to-work place where employers can hire whomever they choose.
“We want a fair, open, competitive procurement process. To us, the more competitive, the better. We’re not precluding anyone,” said Dick Kane, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, which would own the tracks SunRail intends to use.
SunRail would run for 61.5 miles through Central Florida, with 17 stops, from DeLand in Volusia County through downtown Orlando to Poinciana in Osceola County. Four counties and the city of Orlando would be responsible for operating the $1.2 billion venture, though they would hire private companies to do the work.
The state Legislature still would have to approve an insurance arrangement deciding who pays if there is an accident because Florida intends to purchase the tracks from the CSX railroad company based in Jacksonville.
That’s where the unions come into play. They handle most of the track and operations work for CSX and want to hold onto it, regardless of who owns the rails.
Union officials say they won’t budge because SunRail is being promoted as the template for all future commuter trains in the state. In other words, if the union is excluded from SunRail, workers could lose out on hundreds of new jobs if planned projects in Jacksonville and Tampa are realized.
And Gaige and at least seven other signalmen could lose their union jobs, too, if SunRail ever passes the Legislature.
Rich Edelman, an attorney who represents the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, said a memo written by DOT officials in 2005 proves the state is out to break the union.
The document says, in part, “Ideally, the FDOT proposal would provide the freedom to undertake the operations and maintenance of the corridor using non-union contract labor, which would be the most effective and efficient approach.”
Kane said that record does not represent the department’s policy and was little more than a compilation of discussion points. Whether a union is hired, he said, would be up to the firm that wins the bid to provide signalmen and other workers.
But Edelman said the union has never been consulted by the state about what might or might not happen: “They’ve never even made us an offer that is too bad to turn down.”
CSX spokesman Gary Sease said any union workers who lose out to SunRail “are guaranteed jobs elsewhere in Florida. In addition, we have offered six years of wage protection should they be adversely affected, which is not expected. There are few guarantees out there as generous as these in today’s economic environment.”
Union opposition to SunRail is important because it has plenty of pull with the 14 Democrats who reside in the 40-member Senate. Only three Democrats voted for SunRail during the last session; the venture went down by a 16-23 count (one senator was absent).
Sen. Al Lawson, the Democratic caucus chairman from Tallahassee, said it would be difficult for his members to go en masse against the unions. “Obviously, you don’t want to abandon your big supporters,” he said.
But, he said, he is intrigued by the efforts of Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, a Democrat, to make SunRail more acceptable to opponents.
“I’ll look at it and see if it makes sense,” Lawson said.
Along with the unions, questions about liability and the project’s cost largely scuttled SunRail during the past legislative session.
That prompted Dyer, who leads the local SunRail effort, to revamp the plan. He is promising to shift some of the financial burden from the state to CSX in case of a mishap.
And following the lead of U.S. Reps. Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, and John Mica, R- Winter Park, Dyer is asking for additional federal funding for the train, possibly as much as $550 million. That would reduce the amount the state pays by at least $250 million.
Those proposals have won the backing of Alex Sink, the state’s chief financial officer and presumptive Democratic gubernatorial candidate. She previously questioned the project.
After the Legislature defeated SunRail two years ago, Dyer won over Lakeland — which would receive extra freight traffic rerouted by SunRail — by getting FDOT to promise to study alternative routes. And trial lawyers dropped their opposition after he changed some language in the liability bill concerning the right to sue after an accident.
Now Dyer is trying to set up meetings with Lawson, the unions and state Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, SunRail’s most vocal opponent. Few think Dyer can get Dockery to change her mind because she has so many objections.
But that won’t stop Dyer from trying, though his first priority is the unions. He won’t say what he can offer to assuage their concerns.
“The labor issue is something that needs to be worked out,” he said. “We are actively in discussions with labor, and we are looking at ways we can address the concerns of those that work within the corridor.”