But a Charlatan, That Stuff).'and

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TWA strike left to wither company told the flight attendants that it only had about 200 "openings" left. TWA Chairman Carl Icahn maintained from the strike's outset that the scabs hired were "permanent replacements" for the strikers.

While TWA certainly suffered substantial financial losses during the strike, the beleaguered flight attendants faced an uphill battle without the active support of the other unions at TWA. A brief but instructive example of the difference such support could have meant came in the first days of the strike, when members of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) walked off the job in solidarity with the IFFA-and effectively shut down the airline.

But the company won a quick injunction against the machinists—who then marched back to work on order of IAM President corporations that pay little or no tax now would be subjected to a minimum tax" (June 9, 1986).

But don't get your hopes too high, Rosenbaum cautions. "Buried within the bill, which weighs well over five pounds [1489 pages]," he writes, "are 174 items known as transition rules, special provisions that exempt particular companies, communities and individuals from specific conditions that would otherwise apply."

What this means in plain English is that the tax loopholes for nearly 174 highly profitable corporations, including outfits like General Motors and Union Oil, will remain unplugged. One of these corporations, Phillips Petroleum, would save $100 million in taxes under one of these "transitional rules."

And you can be certain that this will prove to be only the tip of the iceberg of a coming flood of tax exemptions for the richest capitalists before tax "reform" actually becomes law.

As Rosenbaum writes, this part of the bill is "written in such a Delphic prose that, in most cases no one can interpret [who the lucky corporations are] except the author, the taxpayer involved, and the auditors at the Internal Revenue Service."

Also, while claiming to cut away some of the tangle of tax loopholes, the bipartisan Senate has chosen to compensate the wealthy by lowering the maximum rate of taxation from 50 percent to 27 percent for individuals, and from 46 percent to 33 percent for corporations. This means the ruling rich will get many hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks!

More bucks for the rich According to U.S. law, the Senate and House will have to merge two different versions of the new tax rules to create the final bill. The House, with a Democratic Party majority, cynically pretends to champion the interests of the poor against the rich. Their version has a variety of minor provisions designed to sustain this William Winpisinger. The IAM leader even told the flight attendants that since they had refused to merge with the IAM last year they could expect little help from his The IAM and the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) had earlier granted significant concessions to TWA. But even more was demanded from the flight attendants, which Icahn justified with the argument that female flight attendants are not "breadwinners." As for the 15 percent of IFFA members who are male, Icahn advised them to get a "real" job.

Despite Icahn's arrogant denigration of these workers, there was one thing he could not take away from the strikers—their dignity. They fought with enthusiasm, courage, and remarkable solidarity, well aware that the future of their jobs was at stake. There was a sense that this strike-like the Hormel strike in Austin, Minn.—was over far more than disputed wages and benefits. It was a strike for social justice.

That's why were impressive SOCIALIST

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... New England rail strike "Rail labor has the power to turn back this union-busting attack... This country cannot operate very long with the 4 SOCIALIST ACTION JULY 1986 (continued from page 1: “New England rail strike: Union busters' test run”)

they had already hired 600 replacement workers.

While the three railroads involved may seem to be a minor, unrepresentative segment of the U.S. rail industry, Guilford Transportation Industries is not. It is hardly a "maverick" management that does not reflect the thinking, plans, and strategy of the major carriers.

Guiltora Transportation is owned by Timothy Mellon, an heir to the mammoth Mellon banking fortune. His total corporate holdings are in the $30 billion range, and according to Fortune magazine he is one of the wealthiest men in the country.

Mellon's major goal is to purchase a 1000-mile piece of ConRail, which would transform him overnight from the owner of three relatively small railroads into the owner of one of the largest rail companies in the nation. This plan has the active collaboration and support of the federal Department of Transportation.

By breaking the unions on his current lines, Mellon intends to prove himself to the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) and the rest of the rail owners as a viable candidate for the ConRail deal and a serious participant in the planned anti-union restructuring of the entire rail industry.

A few years ago Mellon commissioned a "White Paper" to devise a strategy for accomplishing these goals. It advised ridding his properties of unions by busting the smallest local on the most isolated carrier and to then extend that process throughout his system.

Through sub-contracting and creating a number of short-line operations on branch lines, Guilford Transportation has consciously built up a pool of non-union employees to be used as strike-breaking scabs.

This is a general and coordinated strategy being followed by major carriers through -out the country in preparation for their planned union-busting moves in 1987-88.

In the meantime, Mellon is not without powerful allies in his present strike struggle. Rail owners throughout the country see this as an important test run for sharpening union-busting techniques. Guilford-owned lines are being provided with money, personnel, and equipment from at least six other major carriers, including ConRail.

Union members stick together The response of rank-and-file union members to the Guilford strike has been magnificent and something of a shock to Timothy Mellon. Instead of allowing Melion to isolate the small Brotherhood of Maintenance Way Employees (BMWE) local on the Maine Central, unionists have rallied behind the strike.

In spite of company threats, the picketlines remain solid with the coopera -tion of virtually every craft. Union members have also organized several impressive rallies, such as a rally of 2000 people on May 3 in Greenfield, Mass., and a march of 1000 people through downtown Boston on May 18.

Unfortunately, the performance of the international union leadership has not matched that of the rank-and-file members. From the beginning, the main focus of BMWE International President Ole M. Berg's efforts was to beg and pressure President Reagan to impose a presidential board. He attempted to enlist the aid of scores of local politicians to accomplish this. Despite the fact that many of these politicians have received election contributions from rail unions, the results were nil.

The International has kept the membership and local officers completely in the dark as to what is happening in the strike. They are given virtually no information on what to expect, when it is likely to happen, and how to prepare for it. Nothing is more frustrating for union members than the realization that manage -ment employees know more about what the International is doing than they do.

The turning point in the situation occurred when BMWE members extended the strike to ConRail in retaliation for their strike-busting aid to Guilford. When it became clear that ConRail and other major carriers were about to be successfully shut down-and rail workers were moving toward a major victory through their powerful strike weapon-the government immediately intervened to give Berg what he had been begging for, his presidential board.

There is an important lesson to be learned here. When the company appears to be winning, the politicians always find a way not to invoke a presidential board or a "cooling-off" period. When the union begins to win, they immediately impose such measures.

A dagger aimed at the strike Berg has hailed the imposition of the presidential board as a victory for the union, but what are the facts?

Supposedly, during the 60-day "coolingoff" period everything was to revert to the pre-strike situation, with everybody return -ing to work. But Mellon has refused to take back over 2000 union members on this small railroad. He claims: (1) that the railroad lost business because of the strike and, (2) during the strike a number of switching yards were subcontracted out to non-union labor. Mellon explains that he still "owns" the yards, but he no longer "operates" them.

So the presidential board, before it has even issued its report, has sanctioned a further drastic reduction in the work force and the official replacement of union members by scab labor. That's some victory!

A more accurate assessment was made by Dave Walsh, president of the Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks (BRAC) Local 1089 (Amtrak and ConRail) and one of the organizers of the Boston solidarity march. When asked if the imposition of the board was a victory, he replied, "Not so. In fact, it is a dagger pointed at the heart of the strike. Mellon will use the extra time," he predicted, "to sell off his short lines, dump smaller customers, and consolidate his position."

Mellon did this and more. Correctly understanding that the dangerous extension of the strike to ConRail, which could have led to a quick victory for rail labor, had been effectively turned back by the presidential board; and taking the measure of Berg's leadership with his complete 4100 Soclalist Action/Joe Ryan' reliance on the courts and presidential boards, Mellon went on the offensive with a vengeance.

In late May, Mellon served "Section 6" notices on all the railroad brotherhoods as required by law, informing them and the government of changes he intended to make in his labor contractual agreements.

Those notices called for a single contract to cover all the unions on Guilford lines.

Among other things, the company would eliminate all present job classifications. The only "job classification covered by this agreement is railroader," the notices say. Management would be given the right to assign employees to jobs in any craft it likes.

The main points of the Guilford notices include:

• Seniority protection would be virutally eliminated.

• The carriers would be allowed to hire non-union contract employees to do the work of their own workers.

• Although no wage for the "railroader" classification is mentioned, management would have the right to raise wage rates for individual employees.

• Employees who honor picketlines set up by other unions or who refuse to report

TANOTHER WAGE

to work because of a strike by another union would be subject to dismissal.

• Membership in railroad unions would be at the option of the individual employee, destroying existing union-shop agreements on the railroads.

• All involvement by the National Mediation Board and the National Railroad Adjustment Board in disputes and grievances would be ruled out.

• This new single contract would run until March 31, 1999. In other words, there would be no further negotiations on these matters until the turn of the century.

Mellon understands better

Ole Berg was obviously stunned by the move. The company, he said, "must be out of its mind."

But Timothy Mellon is far from being mentally impaired, as Berg contends. On the contrary, he has done a qualitatively more astute job in leading his side in this struggle (that is, rail owners) than Berg has done in providing leadership for rail workers.

At the nation's largest railroad, the Burlington Northern, President Darius Gaskins hardly thinks Mellon is "out of his mind." Over the last five years, despite an increase in traffic, Burlington Northern has cut over 20,000 jobs. Through speed-ups and the elimination of work rules, Gaskin's stated goal is to cut the remaining 37,000 workforce in half again.

"We would rather do it peacefully," Gaskin says in The Wall Street Journal (May 30, 1986), "but we have to be prepared for confrontation." Guilford's stand, he says, has been "an eye-opener."

Berg is typical of a whole layer of international union officers whose entire union experience spans the long post-World War II period of relative labor peace. They spent their lives making speeches about how labor and management are in a common partnership and if the company does well, the membership will do well.

They spent their careers hustling money and votes for political "friends of labor" in return for supposed "fair treatment" under the Railway Labor Act.

They think that's what unionism is and that's what union leaders do. It's the only game they know.

Now that the carriers, with the collaboration of the government and the courts, have returned to open warfare on the unions, the Bergs of the union movement are at a complete loss.

Rail labor has the power to turn back this union-busting attack. A glimpse of that power was seen with the move to extend the Guilford strike to ConRail and the other collaborating carriers. This country cannot operate very long with the railroads shut down.

But rail labor has to be prepared to use this power to defend itself. It cannot let the courts, through injunctions, and the government, through the Railway Labor Act, hog tie the unions while the Mellons and the Gaskins butcher them at their leisure.

BRAC Local 1089 President Walsh again hits the nail on the head in explaining:

"Rail unions have got to take a stand against these planned moves now. We cannot rely on the courts, the Railway Labor Act, or any presidential board.

"We have to say to the carriers and the courts: Not one more mile of union railroad converted to non-union road by subcontracting, short lines, phony bankruptcies, leasing or whatever method. Not one more union rail job converted to a non-union job.' "We have to develop a nationwide rail solidarity behind this stand and let the courts and the government know we do not intend to stand idly by while injunctions prohibiting our right to strike pave the way for smashing our unions.

J.D. Crawford is a brakeman/switchman at Burlington Northern Railroad.

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4100 railroads shut down.