Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 17, 1991 TAG: 9104170461
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES BUSINESS WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
United Transportation Union officials in Roanoke received a telegram Tuesday from their headquarters in Cleveland saying: "You are to withdraw your members from service at 7 a.m. local time zone, Wednesday . . . and immediately establish picket lines."
UTU officials said their members will begin picketing 35 Norfolk Southern sites around Roanoke as soon as the strike begins, including the office buildings on North Jefferson Street, the old passenger station in front of Hotel Roanoke and the former Colonial American Bank building downtown.
"What we do is picket all the locations that our people might be required to report" to, said Percy Moore, general chairman of the UTU's enginemen committee. Each union draws up its own picket schedule, officials said, although in many cases the strikers will be walking "multi-union" picket lines.
Crews manning trains at the time of the 7 a.m. walkout will guide them to their scheduled destinations before going out on strike, Roanoke-area union leaders said. Yard workers and other hourly employees are expected to leave their jobs.
Unions were free to strike anytime after 12:01 a.m. today, the deadline for an extended "cooling-off" period between the nation's railroads and their 235,000 union workers. Union and rail officials have been deadlocked for more than three years over wages, work rules and health care.
Union and rail officials continue to insist that Congress will intervene in the dispute soon after the deadine and order the unions back to work for fear that a nationwide rail shutdown will deepen the recession.
"Consensus is that the committees will draft some kind of legislation to put us back to work and then put it to the House and Senate for a vote," said Dan Anderson, general chairman of System Council 6 of the International Brotherhood of Firemen and Oilers. "That could take hours or days."
"I can't imagine [Congress] going home on Friday leaving it unresolved," said L.P. King, general chairman of UTU's conductors' committee.
The White House, acknowledging that a strike was inevitable, formally called on Congress Tuesday to rush through legislation imposing a settlement under the Railway Labor Act - the same process used to settle the last national rail strike in 1982 after four days.
The House subcommittee responsible for drafting such a bill scheduled a meeting for 8 a.m. today. "Things are set so that legislation [imposing a settlement] could be on the floor of the House as early as late Wednesday night," a Democratic congressional source said.
"We've got a very, very precarious economy that's just on its way coming back. We cannot afford to have that recovery interrupted by an unnecessary strike," Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner said Tuesday.
A nationwide strike is expected to immediately choke the flow of one-third of the nation's goods and idle as many as 550,000 other American workers who depend on rail-delivered goods to complete their jobs.
A four-day rail strike in 1982 effectively shut down the nation's rail system and stalled passenger trains around the country. At the time, officials estimated the walkout cost the U.S. economy up to $1 billion per day.
Chrysler Corp. said in a statement, "Obviously, a rail strike of any length could result in massive closings. Our industry is already facing tough times, and this would be another blow which would slow our recovery."
Union officials in Roanoke have accused the carriers of trying to orchestrate a rail crisis with the intention of forcing a lopsided agreement on the powerful unions. The railroads "are gambling that the Senate and the Congress will give them what they cannot legally get at the bargaining table," the UTU's King said. "They're moving to bust us."
Union officials steadfastly object to the recommendations of a presidential emergency board appointed last year to study the dispute. They say the board's proposals, issued in January, would be "totally devastating" to rail unions. Carriers criticized the board for not going far enough.
"It's just common sense: Nobody wins in a strike; you never regain what you lost," said J.L. Ensor, a longtime Norfolk Southern engineer who also is local chairman for UTU-E Local 559. "I don't mind being forced back to work. But give us a PEB board that knows what the hell they're doing.
"We've been without a contract for three years," Ensor continued. "What's another six months going to matter" while a new board fashions another compromise that may be more acceptable to labor concerns.
R.A. Bomber, another UTU engineer, agreed. "If we don't do something now and win something now, these younger boys are going to have it a whole lot worse than we do."
Local union leaders spent much of Tuesday talking with news reporters and with their negotiators in Washington in hopes of finding even a glimmer of a breakthrough. Stacks of strike signs were ready for distribution to members, and strike captains made last-minute changes to their strike assignments.
In Richmond, state Secretary of Economic Development Larry Framme said a strike of more than a few days will have a "significant impact" on Virginia's economy, which is trying to pull out of a recession.
Norfolk Southern - which last year moved about 11,000 tons of freight per day - announced last week that it would cease rail operations this morning if a strike began. Union members dismissed the announcement, saying the carrier would idle its trains only for a short time.
Robert Auman, a company spokesman in Roanoke, would not estimate how the shutdown might affect the Norfolk-based transportation company. "It depends on the length of time," he said. "There is no way of knowing at this time."
CSX Transportation Inc., the rail arm of Richmond-based CSX Corp., will shut down if a strike lasts more than a few days. It would take three to five days after a strike begins to "clean our system," spokesman Norman Going said. "That involves taking the freight that's in our system . . . to a facility where we can keep it safe."
The Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times contributed to this report. \ RAIL STRIKE
Unions - Some 235,000 rail workers in 11 unions are expected to walk out. Three unions already have reached tentative agreements with rail carriers, but they are expected to honor picket lines.
Railroads - More than 100 freight carriers - including Virginia-based Norfolk Southern Corp. and CSX Transportation Inc. - are involved in the dispute.
Issues - Union workers have not had pay raise since Jan. 1, 1988, and have been working for more than three years without a new contract. Carriers say union workers are overpaid, and many are unnecessary. Talks stalled over wages, work rules and health care.
Last strike - A 1982 strike lasted for four days until Congress intervened underthe Railway Labor Act of 1926.
by CNB