(The International Brotherhood of Teamsters issued the following news release on January 30.)
WASHINGTON — In an unprecedented demonstration of worker solidarity, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) has joined forces with the United Transportation Union (UTU) to fight the latest round of corporate scheming to slash rail jobs and sacrifice safety for a fatter bottom line.
Rail corporations maintain that an experimental program called positive train control (PTC) will render thousands of jobs obsolete, and have proposed massive cuts to crews for freight trains.
“The rail carriers are tragically mistaken if they believe we will stand by and let them sacrifice American workers so they can fill the pockets of a few rich corporate executives,” said Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa. “When you cut the jobs of experienced rail workers from both the BLET and UTU, you are not only hurting the families of those men and women, but compromising the overall safety of the rail system nationwide.”
Rail corporations are, by their own admission, years away from implementing PTC and no study exists that has fully explored the impact of reduced crews on the safety and reliability of the rails. With heightened threats to our nation’s security from terrorists, the carriers’ proposal is outrageous.
“Our nation lives each day under the threat of terrorist attacks, and cutting already overworked crews is not the answer to securing the rail system,” Hoffa said. “BLET and UTU have united to let the rail corporations know this is a battle they will not win.”
The BLET is a division of the Teamsters Rail Conference that also represents the members of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes. Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents more than 1.4 million hardworking women and men throughout North America.