Sellout of rail workers represents new stage in gov't strike-breaking

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workers have worked without a contract for three years which, in effect, 'Congress deliberately set up a procedure under which rail labor was ruled guilty until proven innocent.' 6 SOCIALIST ACTION SEPTEMBER 1991 Rail "Good morning, suckers. Welcome to the oldest floating permanent crap game in Washington. Like the suckers in 'Guys and Dolls,' you are risking your futures on the roll of the dice. ... By being here, by having Congress legislate that three outsiders will finally and in binding fashion, without review by anyone, determine what your collective-bargaining agreements will be, you have abrogated your responsibilities."

It was with these arrogant and disdainful remarks that Chairman Robert Harris opened the proceedings of the Emergency Board set up by Congress when it passed legislation last April forcing striking railroad union members back to work.

Harris made clear just who the suckers were when on July 19 the three-person Congressional Emergency Board ruled against the rail unions and for the railroad companies on all issues that had led to the But even more ominously, the legislative action by Congress and its board represents an entirely new stage of govemment intervention and control of the unions. Through Congress, the government has now written and imposed a nationwide contract on workers in an entire industry, while stripping them of any vote or say on the conditions under which they will work.

Rail workers had been working without a new contract for three years-enduring a three-year wage freeze. During the entire three years, rail owners refused to engage in one day of legitimate negotiations. They were convinced that if they just sat tight the politicians would intervene to impose a contract that would give them infinitely more than they could possibly achieve through any legitimate negotiations process.

Finally, last April 17, after exhausting all the "cooling off" and Emergency Board stalling provisions incorporated in the Railway Labor Act, unions representing 235,000 rail workers went on strike against the 10 largest railroad carriers in the country and 88 other smaller lines, in a solid, nationwide rail strike. The rail industry was successfully and dramatically shut down from coast to coast.

Less than 24 hours later, the Democratic Party-dominated Congress—not renowned for either its decisiveness nor its swiftness-rammed through a joint resolution forcing striking workers back on the job and setting up a new "special board" empowered to impose a contract on the rail unions within 65 days. The measure was passed with only five dissenting votes in the House and a unanimous consent resolution in the Senate.

The immediate cause of the strike was the entirely pro-company contract recommendations handed down by Presidential Emergency Board 219 (PEB 219), which was appointed by Bush in 1990 under the Railway Labor Act.

Overall reduction of wages The contract recommendations issued in January 1990 by Bush's PEB 219 gave the rail owners virtually everything they wanted.

1) It shifted the financial burden of health, medical and hospitalization benefits onto the workers in the industry.

2) It drastically changed work rules, which can within months eliminate 22,000 jobs and further erode already dangerous safety conditions in the industry.

3) It reduced the real wages of rail workers by 20-30 percent over the course of the contract.

Traditionally in rail, wage increases are retroactive back to when the previous contract expired. This is crucial because the stalling procedures contained in the Railway Labor Act can be used to assure an extended period without a new contract. Without retroactivity, this entire period constitutes a wage freeze.

PEB 219 included no retroactive wage provisions and instead substituted a paltry $2000 "lump sum" payment, which the Board called a "signing bonus." This works out to about $.03 per hour for the three years railroad workers were without a contract. But significantly, even this paltry amount, given in the form of a lump sum payment, does not become a part of the continuing wage rate.

The Board's recommendation amounted to a 10.3 percent total wage increase over nearly seven years.

This amounts to an annual wage increase of 1.4 percent in an economy with an annual inflation rate of at least 5 percent.

This is the contract that the new board, created by Congress, has now imposed on railworkers. And it should come as no surprise that this Congressional Board has reaffirmed in total all of PEB 219's original recommendations.

Guilty until proven innocent House Joint Resolution 222, jointly written by Ted Kennedy on the Democratic side and Orrin Hatch on the Republican side, made it crystal clear that the main constituted a three-year wage freeze. intention of the new "Congressional Emergency Board" was to reaffirm the horrendous recommendations of Bush's PEB 219.

To begin with, the resolution empowered Bush to name all three members of the new "Congressional Board." It went on to specify, "One member of the special board shall be an individual who was a member of Presidential Emergency Board No. 219." three member board ush obed thanes. three-member board-Robert Harris, George S. Ives, and Marjorie Gootnik. As expected and planned, it was a railroad-carrier board from top to bottom.

The new board's chairman, Robert Harris, had not only had been the chairman of Bush's PEB 219; he also chaired the Chicago and North Western Railroad (C&NW) PEB three years ago, which Congress then used to impose a disastrous crew-size contract on the C&NW unions.

In another crucial section, Joint House Resolution 222 states, "Issues on which Presidential Emergency Board No. 219 made no specific recommendation shall not be subject to consideration by the special board."

Virtually all the demands raised by the unions-such as additional vacation, holiday, and personal-leave days, longevity pay, shortline protection, entry rates and modification of the two-tier wage system introduced in the 1985 contract, were arrogantly swept aside and not even addressed by PEB 219.

But the most revealing section in exposing the real intentions of the new "Congressional Emergency Board" was "Section (d): Procedure And Determination," which laid out the basis on which the board would carry out its deliberations and make a decision.

This section stated, "In making a determination under this subsection, the special board shall accord a presumption of validity to the recommendations of Presidential Emergency Board No. 219." It affirmed that the recommendation of PEB 219 would only be modified if the unions could prove that it "is demonstrably inequitable or was based on a material error or material misunderstanding."

In other words, Congress deliberately set up a procedure under which rail labor was ruled guilty until proven innocent.

Hardin misses the point Ever since World War II, the strategy followed by top rail union officials has been based totally on relying on "labor friends" in Congress to barter a good deal under the the unions' own strength and its ultimate ability to strike.

This failed strategy has now culminated in a government-written and imposed contract that drastically reduces the standard of living for rail workers and threatens the continued functioning of the rail unions themselves.

How badly top union officials miscalculated is reflected in the statement made by UTU President Fred T. Hardin when, just hours before the treacherous Congressional action ordering striking workers back to work and setting up the "special board," he boasted, "The railroads are going to be disappointed if they think Congress will panic and force a quick settlement."

President Hardin was also mistaken when he implied in the May issue of the UTU News that the passage of Joint House Resolution 222 and the setting up of the new board was a victory for rail labor.

Faced with the disastrous results of Joint House Resolution 222 and the Congressional Board, Hardin has now shifted his hopes from the politicians in Congress to the politicians in black robes. In a letter to all UTU General Chairpersons, he announced the union's intention of filing a suit against the government based on the Fifth Amendment provision prohibiting the government from taking "private property for public use without just compensation."

In this same letter, Pres. Hardin observes that: "Around the time of our strike, the miners in the Soviet Union were also on strike, and neither President Gorbachev, nor the Supreme Soviet, nor the Soviet army could put them back against their will. But in what is still the greatest republic in human history, we are stripped of our right not only to strike, but also of hard-won contract rights that were none of PEB 219's or the government's business."

There is a lesson in this observation, but Hardin completely misses it. The difference between the coal miners' strike in the Soviet Union and the rail strike in the United States was not that Gorbachev and the Supreme Soviet were more sympathetic to the rights of striking workers than Bush and Congress. On the contrary, Gorbachev also ordered the striking miners back to work, and the Supreme Soviet passed emergency legislation specifically stripping miners and railroad workers of the right to strike on the basis that they were "essential workers."

The difference was that the miners and their union leadership defied the emergency legislation and Gorbachev's order, remaining on strike until significant concessions were offered.

Congress plans sham hearings.

Hardin also approvingly reports that: "Many members of Congress have voiced their anger and criticism of the Special Board in carrying out the intent of Congress in the legislation that stopped the strike and established the Special Board. Sub-Committee Chairman Al Swift, at the request of members of Congress, has scheduled a hearing on Oct. 3, 1991, ... on options available to Congress for ensuring due process in labor-management disputes in the rail industry."

These hearings—which have no power or inclination to reverse anything—are a sham. They will be a cynical platform for those who perpetrated this act, including its Chairman, Al Swift, to now verbally take their distance from it.

Democratic Parto Congressman Swift is a so-called friend of labor from Washington state. He headed up the key House Transportation subcommittee and along with Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch played a decisive role in lining up votes for House Joint Resolution 222. After the passage of H.R. 222, Swift praised the Republican-Democratic solidarity on suppressing the strike. "I have not seen an issue as potentially contentious as this one," he boasted, "resolved with so little partisan politics."

Rail-union members are paying a heavy price for the union policies that have relied on Democratic "friends of labor" For the first time, many are now seriously questioning this strategy. They are tired of being betrayed.

What is needed is a serious discussion throughout all the rail unions to hammer out a different strategy, one based on class independence from these politicians and on the will to exercise their right to strike.

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Proposed Crime Bill seen as direct attack on human and civil rights Following are excerpts from an interview with Don White of the Los Angeles Committee on Secret Trials and the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES). The interview was conducted by Socialist Action reporter Kathleen O'Nan on Aug. 7, 1991.

Socialist Action: What is the Committee Against Secret Trials and what are its objectives?

Don White: The Ad-hoc Committee Against Secret Trials (CAST) is a coalition of human and civil rights, solidarity, immigrant, and community organizations which have come together to educate the American people about the Crime Bills that are being introduced in Congress. One already passed the U.S. Senate on July 11, and the House version comes up right after the present recess.

We're trying to make it clear that these are political bills in the facade of a crime package. They're trying to push through provisions that would impact immigrants, criminalize youth, and extend the death penalty. It's a basic attack on the Bill of Rights. So CAST and similar groups around the country have come together to stop this Crime Bill and to make sure people understand its implications.

SA: What is the history of the Crime Bill?

DW: For decades in this country, red-baiting-the charge of communism—has been used to try to neutralize the progressive movement. This bill is really in the same tradition, although the charge of communism is being replaced by the charge of terrorism and narco-terrorism. It also comes off the success that Bush has felt as a result of the Gulf I would also say that the government has studied very carefully the LA Eight Case in Los Angeles. You'll remember that almost five years ago, the goverment seized seven Palestinians and the Kenyan wife of one of the Palestinians. And they tried to immediately deport them for their political activities.

In studying what went wrong for the government's case, why after five years the Eight are still in this country fighting it out in the courts, we think the government is trying through its present Crime Bill to eliminate all of the recourses that those folks have.

SA: What are the major provisions of this bill?

DW: The bill is massive, so the membership of CAST broke it down into four general areas. The four areas are: 1) The secret trial provision and the criminalization of material aid to struggles in other countries; 2) the extension of the death penalty; 3) the criminalization of youth; and 4) the overall attack on the Bill of Rights.

Under its Terrorist Alien Removal Provision [the bill] would establish a special court in this country similar to ones in existence in South Africa, [Northern] Ireland, and other places where the government rigidly controls political activity. A panel of five judges appointed by the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court would hear terrorist activity deportation cases.

Terrorist activity would include giving financial or other material aid to any individual or group that has ever been involved in what the government says is illegal, violent activity in order to change a government's policy. The definition is so broad that it covers even small contributions for humanitarian aid, [for example] to hospitals operated by the FMILN in El Salvador.

If the House version [were passed] a non-citizen could be arrested, taken into custody, and held for a secret trial. He or she would not have the right to an attorney. The charges would not be public. The whole proceeding would be secret. And the government could immediately deport them. If no government could be found to accept them, they would languish in a U.S. jail.

Fifty-one new crimes would be added to the list of those punishable by death. Youth-even as young as 14-if they are identified as a "drug kingpins" could be sentenced to death and executed even though they were not part of a criminal act that took a human life.

This expansion of the death penalty is particularly rallying people who are concerned that it is applied according to racial and ethnic lines. Not only are the overwhelming percentage of executed people from minority communities, but recent studies in Georgia have shown that if the victim is white, the perpetrator is incredibly more likely to be executed than if the victim is Black or Latino, etc.

The bill attacks young people, especially minority youth, under the pretext of curbing youth violence. For example, juvenile records would be available for the first time, not only to national law enforcement agencies, but to employers and licensing agencies. Young people 13 or 14 years of age, accused of relatively minor offenses, would have their finger prints entered into the FBI pool. This is a stigma that could follow these young people all through their lives.

This bill provides $150 million for the re-opening of [recently closed military] facilities, but as military style boot camps for inmates under the age of 25. Many African American activists working in CAST particularly condemn this provision. They don't want their young people put in boot camps. It is clear to most people what this might lead tocannon fodder for the U.S. military for future aggressions.

Both versions of the Crime Bill dramatically reduce rights under habeas corpus and reduce the constitutionally guaranteed avenues of appeal. It allows evidence to be introduced for the first time whether or not it was obtained with a warrant, whether or not police had good-faith suspicion that a felony was in progress.

It includes a national security exemption allowing the FBI to access telephone and credit card records without a court order and without notice to the individual. It expands the government's power for drug testing and pretrial HIV testing. It strips the federal courts of the power to correct violations of the Bill of Rights in death penalty cases.

SA: Why doesn't the public know more about this?

DW: The public is pretty poorly informed. When the president unveiled his original Crime Bill package on March 11, 1990, he urged the Congress to enact it within a hundred days.

He used an appeal to patriotism. He actually called upon the Congress to honor our soldiers returning from the Persian Gulf by quickly enacting a bill that would fight crime. The headlines always refer to "Crime Bill," but what the American people don't understand is that a non-citizen can have a totally secret trial and be deported or languish in U.S. jails without any public process.

A citizen like myself could be arrested and sentenced to 10 years for committing a terrorist act by sending money to an FMLN field hospital. People don't realize that boot camps for urban youth are being established. This is not fighting crime; this is attempting to undercut the legitimate rights of people to organize and to aid the liberation of people in other parts of the world.

Once it is passed by the Congress and signed into law, it may be too late. Now is the time to rally our forces to prevent the most incredible attack on human and civil rights that we have seen in many, many years.