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

DATE: THURSDAY, April 11, 1991                   TAG: 9104110073
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES/ BUSINESS WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

RAIL UNION OKS TENTATIVE PACT/ NATIONAL STRIKE NEXT WEEK STILL LIKELY

Representatives of 50,000 clerical, computer and white-collar rail industry employees - including some 4,100 Norfolk Southern Corp. workers - on Wednesday approved a tentative agreement reached last week by rail and union negotiators.

The president of the Transportation-Communications International Union, Richard Kilroy, said the vote "paves the way" for a mail-ballot ratification that will be sent to all members covered by the tentative pact. Officials refused to discuss details of the agreement.

The agreement - approved in Rockville, Md., by what one official called "a substantial majority" - does not cover the 21,000 members of the TCU's carmen division.

But more than a single agreement is almost certainly necessary to avert a national strike next week. Nine unions still have not reached agreements with the railroads and rail unions have a long history of honoring each other's picket lines.

Local union representatives declined late Wednesday to comment on the tentative pact, which came less than two weeks before an extended "cooling-off" period for the unions and rail carriers is set to expire.

"I've got some of the details, but I'd rather not quote any," said S.L. Manning, a district chairman with system board 96 of the TCU.

"People want to know what's going on," Dan Quam, a longtime clerk for Norfolk Southern, said when asked about the tentative agreement. "We've been three years without a raise and we'd like to see something better than what we got."

Union contracts expired in 1988, when negotiations on wages and work rules began. By February of last year, the parties were deadlocked; a month later, the major rail carriers and all but one rail union agreed to submit all issues to a presidential emergency board.

The board issued its report last January. The cooling-off period was set to expire 30 days later, on Feb. 15. That deadline was extended 60 days because of the Persian Gulf War.

"It's part of the long, drawn-out process that leaves you mad," Quam said. "There's a lot of dissension over there. Some people blame the union, but the union's hands are tied."

Negotiators trying to head off a nationwide rail strike were buoyed that the vote by the clerks' representatives might suggest a larger settlement is possible.

"Everybody was hoping and praying for a ray of hope, and that's improved the general pessimism that was prevailing before that breakthrough," said George Whaley, a spokesman for the Association of American Railroads, which represents the nation's major freight lines.

by CNB