Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 18, 1991 TAG: 9104180592
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES/ BUSINESS WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Daniel Lang, spokesman for the Association of American Railroads, said that as of about 8 a.m. today, 95 percent of the nation's picket lines were disbanded. Roanoke-area union leaders said they began ordering their men back to work around 2 a.m.
"The strike is over," Lang said.
A Norfolk Southern Corp. spokesman in Roanoke said this morning that "trains have resumed movement and we expect operations to be back to normal by the end of the day." The carrier shut down during the strike rather than run trains with supervisors.
Bush was awakened and signed the bill at 1:39 a.m. in the White House residential quarters, spokesman John Herrick said. The measure, which was passed by Congress just before midnight Wednesday, could put some 235,000 rail workers back on the job today.
The measure sets up a new presidential emergency board to deal with remaining issues such as work rules and conditions and would impose a final contract settlement within 65 days if labor and management fail to do so. Union employees have worked more than three years without a contract and have not had a raise since Jan. 1, 1988.
During the 65 days, neither side could change the working conditions of members of eight unions. New contracts involving three other unions that earlier reached agreement with the companies would be allowed to go into effect.
The bill also puts into effect some provisions of a previous board's recommendations that were not in dispute, notably a 3 percent wage increase in July and a provision requiring rail workers for the first time to share their health insurance costs.
Both the unions and the railroads would have to accept whatever the new panel recommends if they cannot agree among themselves. Unions could not resort to another strike and railroads could not engage in a lockout.
Union leaders in Roanoke - many of whom represent rail workers across the Southeast - called the quick congressional action "a major victory. We said all along we would go back to work with a new board," said L.P. King Jr., general chairman of the conductors' committee for the United Transportation Union.
"We ain't won the war," he said. "The hardest part's yet to come."
"That's exactly what we were looking for," said Dan Anderson, general chairman of System Council 6 of the International Brotherhood of Firemen & Oilers. The bill "certainly strengthens our position that PEB 219 was totally inadequate."
"Obviously, they didn't get what they wanted. The railroads wanted 219, Bush wanted 219, [Transportation Secretary Samuel] Skinner wanted 219," Anderson said.
Robert Auman, the Norfolk Southern spokesman, sidestepped questions this morning about the quick end to the strike, referring questions to the railroad association in Washington.
"We are grateful there was so little disruption to the industries we serve," he said. "We are grateful to President Bush and Congress for their quick action."
The House passed the measure 400-5. The Senate immediately bypassed normal parliamentary procedures, declaring the bill "deemed to be passed" on arrival, and sent it to the White House without any formal vote.
Eleven unions representing 235,000 workers were involved in the nationwide dispute, the first since 1982. About 7,800 of Norfolk Southern's 28,697 workers in rail operations live in Virginia, and about 85 percent of them are union members, company officials say.
The largest concentration of workers - some 3,500, more than 10 percent of the company's entire work force - live in the Roanoke Valley. Officials say those workers were paid more than $133 million last year.
Meanwhile, the first - and only - day of the strike saw railroaders like Keith Prunty and his striking comrades at Shaffers Crossing saying all they want is a tiny piece of the Norfolk Southern pie.
"We'd just like to make ends meet a little better," said Sherman Deane, an electrician with Local 813 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. "Your head's at the top of the water, more or less."
"I'm taking home less money than I was three years ago," said John Bailey, a sheet-metal worker. "Just like your taxes have gone up, ours have, too."
The litany from Wednesday's picket lines around Roanoke was familiar: Wages aren't keeping pace with inflation; rising health-care costs are being shunted to the workers; Norfolk Southern executives are paid too much and supervisors talk openly about their bonuses while workers go without raises.
"The biggest problem is medical [costs], wages and all. It messes with us," said Prunty, a sheet-metal worker from Rocky Mount who belongs to Local 52 of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association. "It messes [with the men in] Transportation. It's really trying to break the union."
Union and Norfolk Southern officials in Roanoke said late Wednesday that the strike against the country's major freight carriers was unmarred by violence or verbal harassment. "It's been very calm," said Don Piedmont, a spokesman for the railroad. "I've heard of no problems or even tension."
But the UTU's King accused Norfolk Southern supervisors of trying to call strikers in to work despite the walkout. "We've had people that have been hassled all day long," he said.
"They're trying to intimidate the hell out of our guys by getting them to break the picket lines," he said. "They backed off this afternoon."
Picket lines were quiet, sometimes jovial, as members walked the four-hour shifts assigned them by their strike committee captains. Still, the apparent good nature belied a rising tension among the union ranks, Prunty said.
"People are getting tired. In the last week or so, I've seen more tension than in the whole time I've been here." He joined the railroad 13 years - and two strikes - ago.
Union members said the strike of 1991 would be marked by the resolve of the rank-and-file, the belief that now is the time to preserve labor's past gains in the face of historic change and consolidation in the rail industry.
A "Railworkers Solidarity March" scheduled for today at 3:30 p.m. was canceled this morning, officials said.
"I think most of the railroad workers will be back on the job by that time," said Gerald Meadows, president of the Roanoke United Central Labor Council. The group sponsored a similar rally last weekend in downtown Roanoke.
by CNB