Brother Greg,

Attached you will find an e-mail sent to all BLET SR LCs about that very issue for your ready reference, review and distribution.  If you have any further questions, please get back to me.

Fraternally,

Gil Gore

 Brothers,

 I am forwarding this message to you so that you can appropriately respond to any inquiries by our Brothers and Sisters in the UTU or BLET regarding the recent agreement made by the BLET UP Western Lines Committee with Union Pacific.  The agreement was secured due to a service crisis in California.  As you are all aware, officers have been operating as trainmen on the West Coast for several months now under the UTU agreement.  Many of those officers working as trainmen came from our territory.  You can view the agreement at http://www.bleupwl.org/Agreements/SPWestAgreementModificationsVIIRevised4.26.04.pdf .  It does allow officers to work as locomotive engineers however, they can only exercise that right if there are no other sources of supply available.  There is also a sunset date on that privilege, however the OT after 12 hours continues on forever for those employees with a hire date prior to the agreement.  It is ludicrous for the UTU to file suit on this issue, when they have been allowing officers from all over the railroad to work as trainmen for months in that same area.  The only thing they received for doing it was the officers were required to pay full union dues to the UTU.  It sounds as though Brothers Pruitt and Hannah have done considerably better.  Possibly a little sour grapes on the part of the UTU?  Just wanted you to have the straight “skinny” on this issue should you receive an inquiry.

Fraternally,

Gil Gore

From: D.W. Hannah [mailto:dwh@bleupwl.org]
Sent: Friday, May 07, 2004 9:39 AM
Subject: RE: UTU sues UP over contract violations?

Brothers and Sisters:

Yes this article pertains to my tentative agreement, wherein I have obtained overtime after 12 hours on duty for post 86 engineers regardless of miles run.  However, “sheep lie.”  No one is being denied promotion rights.  Across the UP system there is massive hiring, and I have promotion classes going on all across my property.  The UTU is jealous over the tentative BLET Agreement that I current have out for ratification.  The Johnny Come Lately UTU tried and failed to obtain the same agreement provisions that I achieved in our proposed agreement, and when they failed to do so they filed a frivolous lawsuit.  I find it very strange that the UTU would take this position since they have allowed Carrier Officers to work in all the territories across the former SP West as Conductors and Switchmen since September 3, 2003, and they continue to do so today.  Many Carrier officers are working as Conductor and Switchmen today (and paying dues to the UTU General Committee) collecting both their officer salaries and the monies they earn as switchmen and conductors.    

I intend to ask our National President to respond to the UTU article with the true facts and not more UTU distortion of the facts.

UP is now in a very aggressive hiring and training thousands of new employees and NO ONE is being denied promotion opportunities to engine service.  Quite the contrary, the UTU-E agreement on this property requires firemen in training to work in the roundhouse for extended periods of time.  The Carrier asked that this portion of their training be advanced, and therein eliminate the hostling periods of these FIT’s and release these FIT’s to training service on the road, instead of the roundhouse, and the UTU-E refused. 

My tentative agreement has many fixes to issues on the former SP West, and I am proud of those agreement changes.  These issues will result in many millions of dollars a year for the people I represent.  No officer can operate a train unless the source of supply is exhausted, and only then when BLET agrees that they can do so.  No work opportunities were given away, and no one is being denied promotion.  The new agreement language for the many millions of dollars we will receive is permanent; the officer portions of that agreement have an automatic “Sunset Date” and ends permanently.  This is planned to coincide with all the new hires and the newly promoted engineers that we will have working on the property.

UTU President Thompson stated that the BLE has a history of not protecting other crafts.  Bullshit.  Did the UTU think twice about “other crafts” when they became the Carrier’s “partner in labor” with remote control and eliminate all our engineer positions.  People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

Fraternally,

Bill Hannah

To:All Local Chairpersons, UTU UP Western Lines

From:John Previsich and Kevin Klein, GCs

This is to advise of the outcome of a recent meeting between Union Pacific Railroad and the UTU Western Lines General Committees held to discuss a number of issues related to UP's ongoing service crisis, including an agreement recently reached between UP and BLE.

The meeting was held in Omaha on April 28 and 29, 2004. Discussion of the issues included UTU setting forth its position that the recent agreement between UP and BLE is in  violation of the UTU's collective bargaining agreements and is illegal if implemented without the concurrence of UTU. 

The parties failed to reach agreement, and in order to enforce our agreements UTU filed suit against UP in U.S. District Court in Oakland, CA., on May 6, 2004. A copy of the UTU press release is reproduced below:

 

UTU sues UP over contract violations

CLEVELAND -- The United Transportation Union has taken Union Pacific (UP) to court over the railroad's violation of a labor agreement.

The UTU on Thursday, May 6, asked a federal district court in Oakland, Calif., to issue an injunction, which would prohibit UP's further use of management employees to operate its locomotives.

"By using company officers to operate its locomotives, Union Pacific is denying more than 2,100 UTU-represented conductors, brakemen and yardmen promotion to locomotive engineer as provided in a 1985 national agreement between the UTU and the UP," said UTU International President Paul Thompson.

"UP must use company officers, such as road foremen and trainmasters, to operate its locomotives, because it has historically sought to avoid the costs of having to promote conductors, brakemen and yardmen to higher-paying engineer positions and to avoid training new employees to fill the vacant conductor, brakemen and yardmen positions," Thompson said. The railroad's officers primarily are operating UP trains over lines of the former Southern Pacific (acquired by the UP in 1996) in Southern California and Arizona.

"Union Pacific has repeatedly acknowledged a shortage of employees qualified to operate its freight trains," Thompson said. "Each acknowledgement is accompanied by a promise of new hiring and training. But the railroad has always been a day late and a dollar short with respect to hiring and training. Insufficient operating crews are contributing to severe service disruptions across Union Pacific's system, which have caused the railroad to take the unprecedented step of telling many customers to shift their business to trucks."

The 1985 agreement between the UTU and Union Pacific provides, in part, that "when selecting new applicants for engine service (locomotive engineer), opportunity shall first be given to employees in train and yard service (conductors, brakemen and yardmen) on the basis of their relative seniority standing ..."

Instead, Union Pacific on April 23 entered into a tentative agreement with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (BLE), a division of the Teamsters union, to permit railroad officers to fill locomotive engineer vacancies rather than promote eligible and qualified conductors, brakemen and yardmen as provided by the railroad's 1985 national agreement with the UTU.

"The BLE has a history of not protecting other crafts and this is another sad example," Thompson said. "But our principal beef here is with Union Pacific because it is responsible for hiring, promotion and training of its operating crews.

"We are asking a federal court to prohibit the railroad from violating its labor agreement," Thompson said. "The result would be promotion of eligible and qualified conductors, brakemen and yardmen to all locomotive engineer vacancies and hiring of sufficient new conductors, brakemen and yardmen at the other end of the employment pipeline.

"The UTU has gone many extra miles in attempting to help Union Pacific out of its service failures," Thompson said. "When Union Pacific suffered a system-wide meltdown seven years ago, we defended the carrier before regulatory agencies and encouraged our members to work months on end without rest days, holidays or vacations. In exchange, we were promised by Union Pacific that it would hire sufficient new operating crews. The railroad failed to meet that promise.

"More recently, the railroad came to us again for assistance," Thompson said. "Again, we delivered. We went arm-in-arm with Union Pacific to U.S. immigration officials to gain permission for furloughed Canadian operating employees to cross the U.S. border to operate UP trains temporarily until the railroad could hire and train UTU conductors, brakemen and yardmen," Thompson said.

"But once again, after the UTU helped UP out of the fire, the railroad again failed to deliver on its promise of promotion, training and new hiring," Thompson said. "Instead, it entered into the agreement with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers to use company officers to fill vacancies in an effort once again to avoid hiring new crews.

"Clearly, Union Pacific is a railroad that cannot be trusted to do as it promises," Thompson said. "The UTU has no choice but to ask a federal court to force the railroad to honor its labor agreements. Until Union Pacific honors those agreements, there is little likelihood it will correct its extreme service failures and be in a position to handle its customers' freight this summer and fall," Thompson said.

The UTU, with 125,000 members employed by railroads, commuter agencies, transit lines, bus companies and airlines, is the largest railroad union in North America . The UTU represents some 14,500 Union Pacific employees.

 

 

 

 

 

Send mail to greg@blet73.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: 05/02/04