DUBROSKI ADDRESSES BRITISH LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS' CONVENTION

CLEVELAND, June 19 -- BLE International President Edward Dubroski addressed the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen at the union's 120th annual convention in London, England, on Thursday, June 15.

The BLE's British counterpart, the ASLEF represents locomotive engineers and firemen in Great Britain. Dubroski was invited to speak as a guest of the ASLEF after a delegation of ASLEF representatives visited the BLE's International Division in Cleveland late last summer.

Dubroski's speech focused on the challenges facing rail labor in the wake of international railroad mergers and multi-national railroad ownership, such as Wisconsin Central's ownership interests in New Zealand railways, and in the English, Welsh and Scottish Railway.

"While those who came before us to serve as representatives of locomotive engineers did not face a challenge on such a massive scale, our problems are fundamentally not very different from those that led to the creation of our great organizations in 1863 and 1880," said Dubroski. "In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, our forefathers addressed this problem through the creation of national and international unions.

"The challenge before us today is to expand our horizons to meet the employers on the new, enlarged field of battle they have created. That means building ties among unions representing railroad workers that span the world. Through international solidarity we can strengthen ourselves at home. We must build relationships and exchange information and views, for the betterment of North American engineers and British drivers alike..."

A transcript of President Dubroski's speech is reproduced below.

Good afternoon Brothers and Sisters. I would like to begin by thanking General Secretary Mick Rix for his kind invitation to address your Convention today. The 59,000 members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers in the United States and Canada send you their warmest fraternal greetings, and every wish for a successful Convention.

The Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen has a proud tradition and a strong history of accomplishment. We hope your next 120 years is as productive as your first 120 years.

The BLE is the oldest trade union in North America. We were founded on May 8, 1863, when twelve engineers in Marshall, Michigan -- in the Midwest -- decided that they had taken enough abuse from management. Our first Canadian division was chartered in Toronto on December 5, 1865. By 1887, we had grown to over 25,000 members. And, we even represented Mexican locomotive engineers, until the 1918 revolution in that country.

I am the 19th Chief Executive of the BLE, and was elected to that office on July 31st of last year. However, I am the first BLE chief to be elected by the rank and file in our 137 year history, which has special meaning to me. Prior to becoming President, I served three years as First Vice President, five years as General Secretary-Treasurer and five years as a Vice President. My railroad career started in 1955, when I hired as a trackman on the Central Railroad of New Jersey.

On the way here today, I saw a young boy selling puppies. He had a sign that said "Labour puppies for sale." I asked Mick what Labour puppies were, and he said, "That's odd. Last week the sign said 'Tory puppies for sale.'"

We stopped and Mick asked the boy, "Didn't your sign last week say 'Tory puppies for sale'?" The boy said, "Yes, sir, that's true." And Mick said, "Well, why does the sign now say 'Labour puppies for sale.'?" The boy answered, "Because, sir, their eyes are open now."

This is a very difficult and challenging time to be a trade union leader. We are in the midst of a technological revolution that rivals the Industrial Revolution of the 17th and 18th Centuries, and which is eliminating borders throughout the world.

The vast majority of manufacturing and financial power -- and of resources -- is controlled by an very small number of extremely wealthy and powerful multi-national corporations. The loyalty of these corporate giants is no longer to the Union Jack or the Stars and Stripes ... it is to a flag with a field of green, and a dollar sign or a pound symbol in the center.

Political borders, too, are being broken down. On your continent, this has taken the form of the European Community. On mine, it is NAFTA ... the North American Free Trade Agreement. And -- on a global scale -- there is the World Trade Organization.

What drives the globalization of capital are the same forces that historically have driven economies for centuries ... maintaining and increasing profit margins through an endless search to find cheaper resources and access to the most valuable of all commodities at the lowest price ... human labor. As a result, production is shifted to those countries where there is little or no union presence, no legal protection to prevent exploitation of women and children, and no environmental safeguards, which add to the cost of manufacturing.

Relocation of manufacturing to Less Developed Countries and Least Developed Countries has a direct effect on our job security, because traffic patterns built on decades of domestic production are disrupted. Millions of jobs have been shipped out of developed nations, reducing the tonnage of goods available for transportation by rail.

Within a country as large as the U.S., shifting production from heavily unionized regions, like the Northeast and the Midwest, to non-union areas, like the Southeast and the Southwest, also causes upheaval. Thus, even though the jobs of our members cannot be directly sent overseas, we suffer from indirect effects of job exportation.

There are two other ways that the global economy affects us. The first comes from multi-national ownership of railroads. A number of U.S. railroads are heavily invested in railroads outside the States. Also, merger plans have been announced by the largest railroad in Canada and the second largest railroad in the U.S.

As an example, I would point to the Wisconsin Central Railroad, which has ownership interests in New Zealand, and in the English, Welsh and Scottish Railway. Because labor laws pertaining to union representation in New Zealand differ from the United States, the Wisconsin Central is using that country as a proving ground for remote control locomotive and engineer-only crew operations, for introduction in the U.S. when the bugs are worked out. So, capital mobility is used to erode working conditions and job security even in nations where unions are stronger.

The other impact of global capital is a more fundamental change in the manner in which value is created. For centuries, economies have been built on the creation of value in the process of manufacturing and transporting goods to markets. However, more recently, the most rapid value creation in the major economies has flowed from the buying and selling of businesses.

Thus, the last two decades have been marked by larger and larger corporate mergers, in which stock prices have increased on the expectation of future "synergies" of the new combination, rather than actual performance of the component firms. This movement has further concentrated capital, world-wide.

We also have seen wild increases in stock prices for firms involved in the technology sector, which are completely disconnected to capitalization and profits. Because these prices are based on speculation -- rather than performance or traditional value measures -- stock markets more resemble casinos, and market indexes rise and fall like roller coasters.

In North America, this has taken the form of massive railroad mergers and consolidations. Our industry is rapidly taking a form where there will be just two trans-continental railroads in the U.S. and Canada, which will be supported by a network of hundreds of regional carriers and short lines. In Great Britain, it has meant privatization of the state railway system, where pieces are spun off at artificially low prices to facilitate speculation. And the servicing of the debt created by both types of transactions comes at the cost of our members' wages and working conditions.

The pressure to maintain and increase profit rates while paying for these deals has an even more tragic effect. Just four days after your delegation visited our headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio, you experienced the disaster at Paddington Station, which took the lives of two drivers. Numerous public reports have acknowledged that the signal involved in the accident had been the subject of your complaints for a number of years and -- despite prior incidents -- the problem had not been addressed.

The situation has not been any better for BLE members. Thirty-three locomotive engineers in the U.S. and Canada were killed in accidents during the 1990s, with six of those deaths occurring just within the last year. In our view, all these deaths were preventable.

Despite the fact that our organizations and our members are separated by the vast waters of the Atlantic Ocean, in reality we are closer today than ever before. What we have struggled to achieve during our combined 257 years of existence is threatened by the same forces.

Global capital undermines the manufacturing base on which much of our freight traffic is built and steers government subsidies to competing modes of transportation. The silly notion that passenger rail service must provide a profit, rather than a service, jeopardizes passenger networks in both Great Britain and North America. And we battle the same groups of owners and investors for our fair share of the wealth our labor creates. These forces drive our wages and working conditions -- and the safety of our members -- in a race to the bottom.

While those who came before us to serve as representatives of locomotive engineers did not face a challenge on such a massive scale, our problems are fundamentally not very different from those that led to the creation of our great organizations in 1863 and 1880. In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, our forefathers addressed this problem through the creation of national and international unions.

The challenge before us today is to expand our horizons to meet the employers on the new, enlarged field of battle they have created. That means building ties among unions representing railroad workers that span the world. Through international solidarity we can strengthen ourselves at home. We must build relationships and exchange information and views, for the betterment of North American engineers and British drivers alike, because what the Wisconsin Centrals of the world do in England, Scotland, Wales, New Zealand and the States will -- at some point -- affect all of us.

During the past year, we have begun to forge those bonds. I am proud of the association we are creating together, and I am honored and privileged to work shoulder to shoulder with the fine leaders of your union. The best defense against the tyranny of international capital is through international labor solidarity, and I thank you for accepting the BLE as a partner in this endeavor.

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June 19, 2000
bentley@ble.org