[findings of the Presidential Emergency Board (PEB). The…]

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findings of the Presidential Emergency Board (PEB).

The wage freeze of the past three years and the 25 percent cut in real wages we were offered, as well as the new co-payments on health insurance, hit a sore nerve with most people.

The day before the strike, I leafletted the commuters with a B&B (bridge and building) worker, a member of the BMWE. "I ask the commuters," he said, "have they gotten a raise in the last three years?"

I found that each craft had its own specific complaints. Maintenance of way workers, for example, weren't anxious to work under the new rules; they could be ordered on short notice to go anywhere on the railroad (in their own cars) to join roving gangs to replace the gangs working in each district. They would have to work for an indefinite period of time, through the weekends.

A diesel ramp technician explained the massive job elimination possible with the new "incidental work" rule, under which he could be ordered to do the work of virtually any craft.

And for the yard switchmen (already stinging from the recent reduction of crew sizes on the CNW) the new PEB posed the threat of a further reduction of jobs, at least by half, as the road crews would be forced to perform yard duties.

A test of nerves Many strikers showed up to picket for a while at the CNW stack facility, knowing they'd be needed there. While the CNW had been ordered to run the commuter serviceand while it didn't attempt to run any freight-the railroad and the stack company did try to keep the stack facility open.

Picket duty there was a test of nerves befew hours later when a striker was hit by a truck that had been waved through by a supervisor. James Buttons was hit, and the truck didn't slow down.

When asked to call an ambulance, the ever-present police simply said, "Just call 911." No news media covered this incident, although hourly bulletins talked about the status of commuters.

An open-ended discussion Both before and during the strike, every discussion of the most simple basic tasks quickly became a discussion of the probable role of Congress, and how to deal with it. Everyone expected Congress to intervene on the side of the railroads. Hundreds of railroad workers turned out on April 13 for a rally Eva Akesson against government intervention.

In one union meeting before the strike, a UTU member outlined what was necessary to continue the strike-against Congress if need be. When some of us talked about the example of the miners (who had stayed out after the government ordered them back to work), people asked, "Did we mean the Soviet miners?"

There was an open-ended discussion about why a united national strike was necessary. The proposal to keep the commuter lines running was hotly debated. As part of an over-all strategy to win over public opinion and to stand up to Congress, it could be quite effective. But it was proposed, in part, as a way to convince Congress that the unions should be supported —and to avoid a rally in Chicago CHICAGO-Over 300 railroad workers rallied downtown on April 13 to oppose federal intervention against railroad unions and a national contract imposed by Congress.

The Chicago rally was sponsored by Rail Labor Chicago, an ad-hoc committee of union members and officers from several crafts based mainly on the Burlington Northern (BN) and the Chicago and Northwestern (CNW) railroads.

The rally was addressed by Mike Bruton, secretary-treasurer of the Chicago Federation of Labor, and U.S. Congressman Charles Hayes, among others. Hayes told the rally that "you can't trust anyone in Congress to be pro-labor." But he also said that was why railworkers shouldn't strike, if they didn't want the conditions of PEB 219 imposed on them.

In contrast, Lynn Henderson, a switchman on the BN in Minneapolis and an editor of Straight Track newspaper, received the biggest round of applause for pointing out that railworkers face the same struggle today that our brothers and sisters faced in Poland-the fight for independent trade unions free from government control.

By the end of the rally, over 180 rail workers and their families had signed a mailing list for more information as to what they could do.

On the CNW, where railworkers in the United Transportation Union lost hundreds of jobs due to a settlement imposed by Congress after a one-day strike in 1988, some workers thought that we should follow the example of the United Mineworkers union and its successful defiance of government back-to-work orders issued under the TaftHartley act.

By following the example of the miners, rail workers would not only have the right to vote on the contract, but would also become a social movement that reaches out to small farmers, shippers, and everyone affected by the rail carriers' price gouging and cut-backs in freight and passenger service.

The top union officials in Chicago presented the tactic of not shutting down the commuter lines (which transport more than 40,000 commuters daily) as a way to get a "better deal" from Congress, rather than as a way to gain public support so as to stand up to Congress.

But few workers today expect the new PEB to fundamentally alter the job cuts, net wage losses, and drastic work-rule changes of the previous PEB "proposals." As one 17year member of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees said, "We're going to get the exact same thing by the new PEB as the old PEB shoved down our throats." • Jim Miles is a member of United Transportation Union Local 577 rACTION MAY