Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 12, 1991 TAG: 9104120452
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES BUSINESS WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
If that were to happen, it apparently would be the first time the Virginia-based carrier has chosen not to run its trains during a labor dispute.
"As of now, it is our intention that if Norfolk Southern is struck, or there is a nationwide strike, we will not operate," said Don Piedmont, a company spokesman in Roanoke. "Nobody can remember . . . whether we stopped operating [during a strike] before or not."
More than 24,000 of the Norfolk transportation company's 30,000 employees are union members, officials say. The company's lines run from the Atlantic Coast as far west as Kansas City; from New Orleans as far north as Detroit and Buffalo, N.Y.
Union representatives greeted news of Norfolk Southern's plans Thursday with pleasant surprise - and some puzzlement.
"That's good news," said Robert Hart, general counsel for the United Transportation Union in Cleveland. "It'll increase the pressure on the Congress, particularly if one or two more big carriers . . . elect to shut down completely.
"If they shut down, it will put more pressure on the industries along the line," he said. Those companies likely would prod federal lawmakers to end the strike, order the unions back to work and reappoint a committee to resolve the issues dividing labor and management.
A presidential emergency board issued a compromise proposal in January after negotiators reached an impasse in nearly three years of talks. But unions called many of the board's recommendations devastating, while rail carriers criticized the plan for not going far enough.
Monday, members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce - including Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon - were briefed on the likelihood of a strike and told they should be prepared to act once the strike deadline passes at 12:01 a.m. next Wednesday.
Lawmakers, rail officials and union leaders predicted this week that if a strike begins Congress will intervene quickly to avert further damage to an economy already in recession.
Indeed, a decision by Norfolk Southern to shut down rail operations would interrupt deliveries and erode - if only slightly - revenue for the current quarter. A weeklong strike, for example, would mean that as many as 18,000 coal cars would not be loaded and delivered.
Still, several union officials said they were puzzled by Norfolk Southern's stated intention to shut down if there is a strike - especially since the company ran its trains during work stoppages in 1978 and 1982.
"They haven't done it in the past," said Dan Anderson, an official with System Council 6 of the International Brotherhood of Firemen and Oilers. "But never before have they been faced with a multi-union strike. It'll be a little tougher for them."
Norfolk Southern's Piedmont refused to discuss the company's plans to shut down. Anderson, however, suggested that a secondary motive might be to "hold down problems" that could arise between union members and strikebreakers.
"The people are dug in for this one," Anderson said. "We've got a new Congress. We don't know what they're going to do."
Diane Curry, executive director of publications for the Transportation-Communication International Union, agreed. "I'm mystified by it, too. This dispute gets stranger and stranger."
But an official at the American Association of Railroads in Washington said Thursday that Norfolk Southern's decision was not surprising.
"My understanding is that if there are pickets on their lines, they [the railroads] are going to cease to operate," said Dan Lang, the trade group's vice president for public affairs. "A lot of it depends on if there's a nationwide strike or if it's selective."
The "cooling-off" period for the 3-year-old contract dispute between the nation's major freight railroads and unions is set to expire Wednesday after the contract was extended for 60 days because of the Persian Gulf War.
Negotiators for the carriers and the 10 unions representing 235,000 members are trying to resolve disputes over wages, work rules and the rising cost of health care. Only one of the 10 unions appears to have struck a tentative agreement with the railroads.
Wednesday, the Transportation-Communications Union announced that its officers had tentatively approved a proposed agreement covering wages and work rules for 50,000 clerical, computer and white-collar rail-industry employees.
by CNB