July 2004 Locomotive Engineers And Trainmen News

BLET responds to UTU President

(BLET Editor's Note: The following is the text of a letter from BLET National President Don M. Hahs to UTU President Paul Thompson.)

July 16, 2004

Paul C. Thompson
President - UTU
14600 Detroit Ave
Cleveland, OH 44107-4250

Dear Mr. Thompson:

This will acknowledge your letter dated July 13, 2004, wherein you stated that since being elevated to International President of the UTU you have repeatedly done all you could to make peace with BLET. You suggested a review of the BLE/UTU Merger document to determine if the concerns of the BLE membership could somehow be addressed. You further state that my response to your proposal was that peace is impossible unless the UTU joins the BLE in an affiliation with the Teamsters.

In actual fact, my reply to your suggestion was that the BLE has now merged into IBT by a favorable vote of 81% of the BLE membership. The BLET is a member of the IBT Rail Conference and that any discussion would now have to include the IBT. I offered to set up a meeting between UTU and IBT representatives to determine if any common ground for additional discussions could be found. BLET did not request to be a part of the proposed meeting. You refused to meet.

In the same discussion, you related several concerns about IBT, to which I said that a meeting may allay what appeared to be personal concerns you have with IBT. I also suggested you survey the UTU membership to determine if they are interested in UTU opening discussions with IBT. A suggestion you also refused. At that time, while you were not receptive to a meeting with IBT, I did not believe you had drawn a line in the sand on the issue.

Now I find at the end of your July 14, 2004, web page post titled "UTU responds to unprovoked BLE&T raid," a quote attributed to you at the UTU regional meeting in Boston which does appear to draw a line in the sand. The quote is "Not in my administration will we ever become a member of the Teamsters organization."

Given your stated position on an affiliation with IBT of which the BLET is now a part, you leave the UTU membership without hope of being represented by the strongest transportation union in North America, unless they join the BLET. Your members know that the UTU's failure to join together with other rail unions has seriously undercut the collective strength of all rail labor at the bargaining table. Your members know that the Teamsters Union has a well deserved reputation for getting good contracts for its members in the transportation sector, from United Parcel Service to the major freight companies, to air freight, to carhaul, and elsewhere. And your members know that the Teamsters Union is committed to re-establishing strength and solidarity in rail labor through the recent merger with the BLE, the pending merger with the BMWE and IBT's overtures to other rail unions. IBT has guaranteed to preserve the autonomy of these proud organizations while supporting them in their fight to regain strong contracts for their members

BLE members overwhelmingly approved the merger with the Teamsters. A recent poll shows the vast majority of BMWE members support a similar merger. When you tried to raid the Teamsters/BLET General Committee at Canadian Pacific, your own members turned against you and voted for Teamsters/BLET representation. Again, I challenge you to conduct an impartial poll of your members to ascertain if they want to be part of the new Rail Conference within the Teamsters.

Your letter is a fabric of misrepresentations and half-truths, which was obviously written in a spirit of desperation on your part, accusing the BLET of raiding the membership of the UTU. We do not consider offering trainmen the opportunity to join the BLET as an act of raiding. While the BLET is not raiding the membership of the UTU, I assume that your desperation may be fueled by the fact that in the last several months more than 1,500 former UTU members have seen the wisdom in joining the BLET and recognizing the strength that the Teamsters bring to rail labor.

I find it outlandish that the UTU would accuse any other union of raiding in view of the fact that the UTU leadership found it necessary to disaffiliate itself from the AFL-CIO to avoid the sanctions involved in its raiding of this organization.
Do you remember the UTU's effort to destroy this organization back in 1997 through what has become known as its "Bosnian Amendment"?
Do you remember the petition filed by former UTU President Charles Little in January 1998 with the National Mediation Board attempting to get the Board to rule that a single craft existed on the Union Pacific Railroad and force a representation election on that property?
Do you remember the petition filed with the National Mediation Board by the UTU in 2001 for a single craft determination and a representation election on the Kansas City Southern Railroad?
Do you remember the "war chest" created at the 1999 UTU convention to destroy the BLE?
If you do not remember those efforts on the part of the leadership of the UTU to destroy the BLE, you should remember the most recent effort of your Legislative Department to get a bill introduced in the House of Representatives which would require the National Mediation Board to conduct a survey of all railroad employees described in the first division of Section 3 (h) of the Railway Labor Act to determine the membership of those employees in any labor organization? The bill would require the NMB to certify for each rail carrier as a representative of the employees described in Subsection A of that rail carrier, the labor organization with the greatest number of members who were surveyed under this proposed bill. I am enclosing a copy of this proposed bill for your reference.
And last but by far not least, UTU, after committing more than once to work with the BLE on remote control, entered into a letter of intent with the carriers conference to grab remote control work for so called UTU represented employees while the BLE was in the middle of its International Convention.
Your allegation that the Van Wart Study Commission of 1982 was a result of the strike by the BLE is completely untrue. UTU voluntarily accepted the recommendation for creating "the Study Commission" before the BLE strike of 1982. The findings of that study commission, in part, eventually led to the disastrous 1985 UTU Halloween Agreement. Former UTU International President Charles Little even admitted that the 1985 Halloween Agreement was probably one of the biggest mistakes the UTU ever made. That agreement resulted in almost 20 years of substandard pay for operating employees in the railroad industry.
Another point in your letter described the successes of the UTU in negotiating national agreements. In looking at the last four UTU negotiated national agreements, I would be embarrassed to describe those agreements as successes. I doubt that UTU members would characterize those agreements as anything other than failures. You continue to tout the UTU's "zero cost health care option" in your latest agreement. The latest numbers available indicate that less than .5 percent of UTU members have chosen this option for their health care plan because they understand that if they get sick or become injured, this plan will cost them thousands of dollars. While the most recent UTU national agreement did address the post-85 pay issue, it also created a new sub class of operating employee through entry rates that we will have to deal with in future negotiations.
Teamster/BLET have organized a dozen new shortlines since we started discussing our merger. Each year the Teamsters Union organizes more than 10,000 new workers through NRLA and NMB administered elections.
During the latest National Master Freight Agreement the IBT "got the hammer back," forcing freight employers to once again recognize the right to strike even during the term of the contract. The Master Freight Agreement has had no negative effect on freight railroads.
The IBT fought Overnite for three years until the IBT was betrayed by a federal court decision that came out of Overnite's home town in Richmond, Virginia. Even so, Overnite had to spend hundreds of millions of dollars opposing IBT. And, because of IBT's aggressive campaign, Overnite employees saw their wages increase by more than $5 per hour and now enjoy many other improvements.
It is interesting that you raise Central States Pension Fund, since nothing at Central States could affect rail employees who are, as you point out, covered by Railroad Retirement. The problems at Central States are no different from those affecting hundreds of other pension funds as a result of the adverse equity markets in 2000-2002. IBT is working hard with the government, employers and pension experts to preserve good Teamster pensions and to solve these problems.

Mr. Thompson, it's easy to throw stones and spread disinformation to mislead, but that will not help rebuild Rail Labor. The reality is that everyone knows that Rail Labor is in crisis and that unity and solidarity are the only way forward. We call on you to put aside the rancor and look at what is best for the members of UTU and Rail Labor as a whole.

Very truly yours,

/s/

Don M. Hahs

President