Threatened BMWE Strike Could Cripple, or Kill, Amtrak
A view from the horses ass

The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes (BMWE) is poised for the third time in 16 years to take Amtrak to the brink of a shutdown. To the horror of all Amtrak workers, that could accomplish the permanent shutdown of Amtrak that has eluded the most conservative of budget hawks and Amtrak critics. 

Previously, the uncompromising BMWE was successful in thwarting contracting out of work and preserving a pay scale equivalent to employees of profitable freight railroads. BMWE's elevated sense of entitlement this round of collective bargaining is to avoid a $30 increase in employee healthcare insurance premiums that other Amtrak labor unions have accepted, notwithstanding that Amtrak's health care package towers above most in America and that Amtrak workers' healthcare insurance premiums--even with a $30 per month boost-are a fraction of what is paid by federal workers and most in the private sector. 

Amtrak has never turned a profit and likely never will. Its labor costs already consume 90% of ticket revenue and exceed 50% of of Amtrak's total costs, compared with just 24­ percent for freight railroads. While median income for all Americans slid 12% since 2000, Amtrak's unionized workers have enjoyed a 35% wage boost, and Amtrak is offering another 15% increase over five years. 

The irony is that the National Mediation Board may be forced to release the BMWE from mediation over this impasse on healthcare cost sharing owing to what even the most ardent of Amtrak supporters consider a ludicrous previous arbitration decision declaring that the appropriate pattern in Amtrak labor talks is the pay and benefits scale in place on profitable freight railroads. 

The BMWE wants monthly healthcare cost sharing capped at $200 (negotiated on freight railroads) rather than $230 other Amtrak unionized workers have accepted. 

The strategy may backfire in one of three hurtful ways . 

• A strike - and there has never been an Amtrak system wide shut down--could be so costly that Amtrak may be unable to restart its operations, tossing 20,000 workers into unemployment lines. An end to Amtrak also would put the financial security of Railroad Retirement in jeopardy, affecting 800,000 active and retired railroaders. 

• A new arbitration decision - arbitrators, unlike courts, frequently reverse previous decisions--could recognize the appropriate pattern is not that on freight railroads, but on Amtrak's most effective competitor, lower-priced intercity bus operators along the Northeast Corridor whose employees are paid a third of Amtrak wages and whose bare-bones healthcare insurance is more costly.

• Were there to be a work stoppage, congressional budget hawks could successfully shepherd legislation imposing a contract that slashes wages and benefits and mandates contracting out of all Northeast Corridor maintenance. 

When upstart low-fare Southwest Airlines stole market share from Greyhound, and Greyhound workers refused to face reality, bankruptcy, lower wages, and unemployment followed. Intransigence among unions representing workers on bankrupt airlines put many in unemployment lines; those remaining lost pension benefits and had to accept lower wages. 

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and the United Transportation Union (UTU) previously bit the reality bullet and agreed to smaller crew sizes and hourly wages in place of more costly mileage rates. Amtrak's tentative contract with the UTU opens a collaborative new door, forging a link between incentive wages and employee safety, customer service, and other indices of conductor productivity. 

Amtrak is not a freight railroad with profits and easy access to capital markets. It barely survives on huge state and federal subsidies, and in this era of government budget tightening, Amtrak's future is even more problematic. 

The National Mediation Board, under provisions of the Railway Labor Act, has leeway to keep BMWE hotheads in mediation until more sober thinking among its leadership prevails. It should do so. To send Amtrak hurtling toward an abyss, a house of unpalatable horrors for all its workers, over a modest increase in healthcare insurance premiums is play an eventual unwinnable game of Russian roulette. Amtrak workers, its passengers, and America deserve better. 

REBUTTAL

Frank Wilner has been a writer and reporter on the railroad industry for nearly forty years.  He is a well known hatchet man who will always serve his paymaster at the expense of the facts.  Recently, he wrote an article about the current status of bargaining between Amtrak and the BMWED for the management magazine, “Railway Age.”  [The article can be found here] 

He certainly lived up to his reputation of reporting the facts incorrectly.  For instance, he reports that it is the BMWED that is forcing Amtrak to a strike with unreasonable demands and does not even mention that we are in a coalition with the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, who are also demanding the same wage and benefit package as us.  Frank Wilner reports on bargaining and does not even know who is sitting at the bargaining table.  Additionally he asserts that a BMWED strike would destroy Amtrak.  Strikes in the railroad industry are heavily regulated by the Federal government and no one believes that this particular government would permit a strike on Amtrak that would actually threaten Amtrak’s existence.  This is just more fear baiting by management’s little tool, Frank Wilner.  For an accurate report of the current status of bargaining please read the membership letter sent by General Chairman Dodd of the BMWED and General Chairman Ingersoll of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen late last year. 

Frank Wilner did get one thing straight in his recent article.  We are seeking the same wage and benefit package recently negotiated on the freight railroads.  This package is better than the wage and benefit package that has been agreed to by some of the other Amtrak unions.  While Frank Wilner apparently believes he has been elected to represent Amtrak workers, all of the Unions who have previously settled on Amtrak have offered support and have wished the BMWED and the BRS good luck in our current endeavor.  We are seeking the national freight pattern because this is the pattern that has governed our bargaining relationship for forty years in voluntary agreements with management.  It is also the pattern that has been recommended, by three different Presidential Emergency Boards, as the appropriate pattern we should use to settle our disputes.  These emergency boards have been appointed by both Republican and Democratic Presidents. 

The agreements reached with Amtrak over the past forty years have been negotiated during a period of time when by any measure used Amtrak has become a healthy and vibrant company.   Frank Wilner’s premise that good labor agreements are a threat to Amtrak’s existence is simply not proven by the facts.   We believe that we are entitled to more than the freight patterns because of the unique dangers that we face on the Northeast Corridor which are not faced by any other railroad worker in the country. However, we also recognize that we have made this argument to the same three Presidential Emergency Boards that have recommended our national freight pattern as the settlement and have lost it.  We should be way beyond the hysterical nonsense written by Frank Wilner.  It is time for everyone to behave like adults and settle our contracts using the same formula that has served the parties well for forty years, or agree to be released from the services of the National Mediation Board so that a process can begin and we can ultimately obtain help from a Presidential Emergency Board to settle our differences.

Finally, Frank Wilner’s premise that Amtrak workers should further subsidize the Amtrak operation with substandard compensation is bad public policy.  Passenger Railroads do not make money, but they do contribute greatly to the economic success of the nation.  Passenger Railroads are also expensive to maintain and operate efficiently and safely.  Congress is entitled to a correct accounting of what it will cost to operate the railroad.  In terms of labor costs, it has been determined by overwhelming precedent that the costs of maintenance of way and signal work should be governed by those agreements reached voluntarily in the private sector.  Once Congress understands the correct costs of operating the railroad they can elect to fund it or not fund it, but the men and women who have made Amtrak successful with our blood, sweat and tears should not be asked to also subsidize the operation with our paychecks.