(The following story by Lois Caliri appeared on the Roanoke Times website on November 19.)
ROANOKE, Va. — A proposal that would have produced more jobs rebuilding locomotives at Norfolk Southern’s East End shops has fallen apart.
Union leaders said NS tried to negotiate an agreement that would weaken the unions. Railroad officials said they proposed a “progressive” plan that would guarantee employment for four years.
The prospect of NS increasing employment in Roanoke goes against the company’s recent history. The company today has almost 800 fewer employees in the Roanoke area, 1,398 total, than it did in 1998. Systemwide, it increased by 3,866 employees to 28,051 during the same period.
One union official said NS told union leaders it needed workers to rebuild its locomotives because it fell behind on overhaul work. And it was deciding whether it needed its two locomotive shops – one in Roanoke and the other in Juniata, Pa.
The Juniata shop employs 811 people. The Roanoke shop employs 158, the majority being union. Machinists represent the majority of workers in the Roanoke shop.
A union official representing the machinists and one representing the sheet metal workers declined comment. The union official representing the electricians did not return calls for comment Thursday.
NS put three proposals on the table:
— Outsourcing the jobs.
— Transferring all the work to either the East End shop in Roanoke or to Juniata.
— Hiring new employees at 75 percent of wages.
And the railroad wanted one contract for all the union trades represented at the Roanoke shop: machinists; boilermakers; electricians; sheet metal workers; firemen and oilers; and carmen. The new hires would be called “composite mechanics” or helpers. They would do any job that would be needed. That goes against the grain of unions, which pride themselves in their training and specialized crafts.
The unions rejected the proposal in late October.
“It was a take-it-or-leave-it type of negotiations,” said Richard Edmonds, president and general chairman of the National Conference of Firemen & Oilers.
NS spokesman Frank Brown said company officials wanted to meet potential demand for work.
“We thought it would be a good business idea to work with the labor unions and find ways to make the shops more efficient,” Brown said. “NS proposed a progressive plan that would have provided a level of job security for existing employees, four years in the existing Roanoke shop.
“In exchange for that NS would have received the flexibility of the crafts and we would have received different pay levels, 75 percent of wages for new employees. They’re still very good jobs, and there would not have been any harm to existing employees.”
Edmonds said, “NS is making record profits, doubled the bonuses for its executives, and the little guy keeps taking the hits.”
Bonuses nearly doubled for NS’ top five executives in 2003 from the previous year, according to the company’s proxy statement filed this year with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Brown said the bonuses are performance-based and they are set in advance.
Edmonds said he could not approve the lower wages because of what happened in 1990. He was a union representative in a shop in Knoxville, Tenn. NS asked the firemen and oilers and carmen there to take 75 percent of wages because the railroad could not compete within the industry because of wages and benefits. The unions agreed.
Five years later, NS closed the shops in South Carolina and Tennessee.
“We gave in to the concessions and got nothing in return,” Edmonds said. “I’m not interested in concessionary bargaining … in a time when they’re making this kind of money, doubling the bonuses for the vice presidents and above, only to take away from the worker who makes the least money in the company, the mechanics.”
He also said the railroad degraded the individual crafts by calling the potential new hires “helpers.”
J.V. Waller, chairman of the Brotherhood Railway Carmen, represents two carmen in the Roanoke shop. He objected to having one group of employees working in the same shop making a full rate of pay and the new group working for 75 percent of the wages.
“But it’s more than just the 75 percent,” Waller said. NS’ proposal would have erased the craft lines. “Anytime you relinquish your rights, it’s a step toward union busting.”