
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 2, 1990                   TAG: 9005020707
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS BUSINESS WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

JUDGE TURK GRANTS INJUCTION TO PREVENT STRIKE AGAINST NW

A federal judge in Roanoke has granted the Norfolk and Western Railway a permanent injunction barring a strike against the company by the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees union.

The railroad, a division of the Norfolk Southern Corp., claimed in early April that the union was preparing to strike the company. The court issued a temporary restraining order against the union on April 7 at the NW's request.

The issue at dispute was the railroad's assignment of supervisors to perform track inspection and repair duties. The union claimed that the supervisors were doing work that should have been done by union workers.

U.S. District Court Judge James Turk issued an order on Tuesday permanently enjoining the union from striking, conducting a work stoppage or picketing the company over the dispute.

Turk found the union's argument with the railroad a "minor dispute" under the Railway Labor Act and said the dispute should be arbitrated.

In February, the NW increased its force of assistant track supervisors and assigned them to regularly accompany union foremen on track inspections.

Although the supervisors had occasionally accompanied the union track patrolmen in the past, the patrolmen generally rode alone or with a union laborer, who would help the patrolmen with minor track repairs.

The union had argued that the company had changed the terms of its bargaining agreement with the railroad by assigning the supervisors to the track inspections and having them perform minor track repairs that were done by a union labor in the past.

Such a "major dispute" should be resolved by bargaining and mediation rather than by arbitration, the union had argued. Although Turk disagreed with the union on the severity of the dispute and how it should be settled, he offered no opinion on the merits of the positions taken by each side.

Joe Pugh, general chairman for the union in Roanoke, said this morning he had not yet seen Turk's order and has no comment on it at this point.

by CNB