Amtrak workers face dilemma of strategy in possible strike

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Скот LAST THE IAM Eastern machinists have now been on strike for over 11 months.

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I 16 months for $4, [ ] 1 year for $8 B SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 1990 BOSTON-Close to 25,000 Amtrak employees are facing a strike for the first time in the history of the national passenger rail system. After 18 months of negotiations, every sign indicates that the employers are pressing to impose a major defeat on the rail Such a defeat would then serve as the model for a master agreement with other railworkers. A few years ago, the same tactic was tried on Guilford Industries' Maine Central Railroad, owned by Timothy Mellon. It was thwarted when the solidarity of railworkers along the line forced the employers to back off, at least temporarily.

"If there's no contract by April 1," said a national spokesperson for the union, "I Mark Schneider is an Amtrak employee and member of TCU 1089 in Boston.

... Eastern (continued from page I) when he got us out on strike-downsize the airline. That's exactly what we went on strike to stop. We wanted it to stop and save the airline.

"[Lorenzo] was stripping Eastern. We lost 14,000 jobs in three years. And they were selling airplanes, selling routes, selling gates. So, everybody went on strike to keep this from happening, and it was a united front. And it still is. Even though the pilots and the flight attendants by law can't picket, they're still out there supporting us. Since they've taken down their picket lines, not one pilot has come back to work for Eastern.

"So what happens? We go out there, we stop them, we knock them cold. In fact, this is probably the most successful strike there has been in the airline industry. The man is losing $3 million a day. And we still have him basically shut down. But, through the bankruptcy court, through a friendly judge in the bankruptcy court, he has done exactly what he wanted to do. He has made my airline just a shell.

"What we have gained? We can't afford to have many more strikes like these. Right now, there are three contracts up in the airline industry. Do you think those people are going to go on strike after this? No way. And the industry knows that.

"[The airlines] say, 'Hey, I can do what Lorenzo did. The Machinists haven't done anything. I'm gonna push it like Lorenzo did.' Pretty soon your average wage comes down, your benefits are lost, the whole thing.

"I don't know what's going to happen from this point on. But I think that if we had been more aggressive early on, we could have stopped a lot of this."

Recalling a meeting between Eastern strikers and Boston-area rail workers during the early days of the strike, Conley remarked:

"I left that meeting, I was so full of fight. I just wanted to shut down the rail. I knew how determined you guys were, and I knew what was happening to me-I'd just given up a 27-year career. "I went to you guys for help, and the enthusiasm was overwhelming. In that context, I want to shut down the railroads. I did then; I do now."

Lorenzo has found real friends in the courts, Conley pointed out. "Basically, the bankruptcy court is controlling this strike. We got completely stripped of most of our rights. And when the company found this out, they would hold it over your head.

"I don't how many calls I got [from the company], 'If you don't do this, we're going to take you right back into court.' And, of course, they know and I know that if it goes back to the court, we lose. In the 11 months that we've been out, we have not won one David Walsh is the past president of District 1089, Transportation Communications Union (on Amtrak). Roger Sheppard is a member of IBEW Local 103. would say we'll call for a strike vote of the membership. After that, the president [Bush] would probably order a 90-day cooling-off period-[under the Railway Labor Act] after which time a shutdown would begin. Despite federal mediation last year, no progress has been reached on a contract.

A major issue in dispute is an attempt to impose huge cutbacks in healthcare coverage. According to the December 1989 issue of Interchange, journal of the Transportation Communication International Union (largest of the railroad unions), "The settlement [wanted by management] would come directly from members' pockets."

Another unresolved issue is the five-tier entry wage instituted in the last contract. New hires begin at 75 percent of the full wage scale and take five years to catch up, at 5 percent annual increments. This has naturally led to a high turnover among junior employees in what was once a more stable DOES PRANKL CORNERS YOU BET YOUR UPE HE DOES BOYCOTT CONTINENTAL decision in that court. There have 60 decisions coming out of that we have not gotten one.

"Every time Frank Lorenzo has gone into that court, for an extension or selling assets, he's got everything he wanted. Now, you tell been 50 or court, and workforce. The union seeks to recover past losses suffered under "concession bargaining" policies.

Amtrak workers have traditionally negotiated their contract as part of a master agreement between most of the companies and the numerous railroad unions. Two contracts back, Amtrak workers "deferred" a 12 percent pay hike granted to other rail workers during the inflationary 1970s. Amtrak, as a passenger carrier, said it did not have the money.

When negotiations in the most recent contract failed to recover the 12 percent, Amtrak workers indicated in a poll that they preferred to conduct a separate negotiation this time around.

While this policy allows union negotiators to focus on the specific issues important to Amtrak workers, it gives the false impression that real victories can be won by Amtrak workers in isolation from their fellow workers on the freight lines and on Tina Bescock/ Soclalist Action TAMAR m me, do union people belong in courtswhether it's a bankruptcy court or anything?"

"Hit'em hard"

Conley agreed that Eastern workers would have be en very successful in making a call Name Addre Amtrak.

A separate strike by Amtrak workers, while the remaining rail and passenger lines continue to operate, would provide the employers with a tremendous advantage.

Sensing the potential isolation of the Amtrak workers, company negotiators have called for major wage and benefit takebacks. In addition, they are maneuvering in Congress to exempt the railroad's employees from the Federal Employers' Liability Act and the Railroad Retirement System.

Amtrak is a privately owned company, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. Supervised and mandated by the federal government, it has shown remarkable profits. Its subsidy from Congress is down from $683 million a year to a current level of $500 million a year. The $183 million difference has been generated in wage and benefit concessions and increased productivity.

The attacks on railworkers have proceeded steadily, with employers constantly seeking to free themselves from the constraints of union contracts which were the product of bitter struggles of railworkers in past decades. As in the past, the power of the rail unions stems from their capacity to act with unity and solidarity in the face of employer attempts to return the industry to the dark days of the U.S. labor movement.

to the entire labor movement to come out and engage in mass, peaceful picketing at the airports. "From the day you go on strike you should be planning these things-cooperation from other unions, doing what you have to do. Hit 'em hard, hit 'em quick.

"First you've got to do it yourself, then any help you get from fellow trade unionists. The last thing you want to count on is the politicians."

United action on the part of labor is needed to win strikes today, Conley stated.

"Don't you think the companies know that they have the advantage," he said. "Until we can cure that—and that's not a strike, it has to be a labor movement. We have to see what's happening to organized labor, what's happening when they close a plant and get rid of you, and they're allowed to do it-even if they just move the plant to another town.

"Even some of the retail stores, they close down here and open in another town, open non-union, and pay the people less money. The rules that we operate by in organized labor have got to be changed. We've got to get a level playing field, or every strike we fight is going to be a tough strike."

must be picket Commenting on the use of Ray Roger's Corporate Campaign organization in the Eastern strike, Conley pointed out that "the people at corporate headquarters will listen to you if you're doing what you're supposed to be doing on the picket line, halting their operation, shutting it down....

"Your primary thrust should be the strikers and organized labor on that picket line, protecting their rights, whether it's shutting down a railroad, or whatever it takes. Disrupting, letting people know where you're at. If that's working, and you've got enough people, and you want to do a corporate campaign where you can get pressure on the corporate people, that's fine. But your priority has to be that picket line.

"I think that it would have been a lot quicker to get the corporate managers' attention had we shut down Amtrak than it would have been to ring all the buildings in Boston."

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