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  • Brotherhd. of Maint. of Way Employ. (BMWE) 1986 Strike (MEC)

  • Guilford Rail System changed its name to Pan Am Railways in 2006. Discussion relating to the current operations of the Boston & Maine, the Maine Central, and the Springfield Terminal railroads (as well as the Delaware & Hudson while it was under Guilford control until 1988). Official site can be found here: PANAMRAILWAYS.COM.
Guilford Rail System changed its name to Pan Am Railways in 2006. Discussion relating to the current operations of the Boston & Maine, the Maine Central, and the Springfield Terminal railroads (as well as the Delaware & Hudson while it was under Guilford control until 1988). Official site can be found here: PANAMRAILWAYS.COM.

Moderator: MEC407

 #987349  by jaymac
 
mbhoward-
To give a civilian(non-rr)-but-long-term observer's response that violates your question's parameters, it is impossible to give a complete reply without addressing the element of personality. To be in accord with MEC407's wishes, I'll avoid a rerun of personality and other qualitative issues on this thread, but you might want to do some surfing on this and other sites and also see if you can access the Fred W. Frailey article in Trains written in the relatively recent past after he rode on the PAR OCS with both Finks, as a careful reading between the lines will supply some background. Work issues -- facts -- are an important part of the story, but motivations and approaches are equally salient since they can be and usually are determinants in outcomes.
 #987376  by gokeefe
 
mbhoward wrote:In order to keep things as objective as possible, a summary of the work issues would suffice. I don't care to get into the personalities as that leads to strong emotions. Exactly what was the railroad trying to do that prompted the strike? What did they seek, and what was the Brotherhood's position? Did either side show any flexibility in the negotiations leading up to the strike? Or were positions 'chiseled in stone' right from the start making a strike inevitable? Thank you.
mbhoward,

jaymac is largely correct that personality was a major component of the issues. I would submit the following brief summary of basically what GTI wanted. Hopefully those who know better will correct any errors.

In short GTI made a proposal of concessions that would have largely rescinded every major aspect of the collective bargaining agreement in place with the BMWE at the Maine Central. Jobs would have been lost, wages reduced, work rules changed and union seniority rules either eliminated or changed. My understanding of the situation is that these were not incremental requests either (1/2% of wages here, work rule change there etc.) they were in fact a wholesale rescission of every protection, wage increase or rule that had been gained since the BMWE had organized the Maintenance of Way employees at the Maine Central.

Personality comes in to play in this scenario in two ways, first that such a broad proposal was even made by management in the first place and second that management chose to negotiate in a manner that made it very clear from the beginning that they would accept nothing less than total and complete collapse by the union. The outcome of this was the labor action and the subsequent Presidential Emergency Board, Supreme Court decision (regarding a related secondary strike at another railroad) and two Congressional Joint resolutions, the last of which imposed binding arbitration.

The breadth and depth of the concessions were such that they were essentially impossible for the union to agree with in the first place. Had they done so some large percentage of those accepting the agreement would have been laid off (and not necessarily in order of seniority). Once the more senior (and perhaps slightly higher paid employees) were laid off those who remained would have been subject to work rules that would permit largely arbitrary or capricious firing by management (essentially "at will" employment). For many of us this may seem the norm, however the employees in the union at the Maine Central had long ago overcome this state of affairs by deciding to organize in order to better their own lot and to protect the economic security of themselves and their families.

Returning to a state of uncertainty and insecurity was to them unthinkable.
 #987400  by MEC407
 
I found this blurb from The New York Times, dated April 11, 1986:
The New York Times wrote:The union struck the Maine Central Railroad, a subsidiary of Guilford Transportation Industries of Billerica, Mass., on March 3 after negotiations broke down on the company's demand for a 20 percent wage cut.

Since then the union has established picket lines at other Guilford subsidiaries in seven northeastern states, triggering walkouts by members of other unions.

Two Federal judges today rejected petitions from railroads to enjoin the union from expanding the strike.
Read more at: http://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/11/us/ar ... trike.html
 #987401  by MEC407
 
I also found a page of Maine Central history that gives a brief synopsis of the strike. I'm not sure how accurate it is, but it seems to match the other accounts I've heard or read:
Maine Central Railroad Page wrote:The early years of Guilford Transportation Industries' control of the MEC were tumultuous, as GTI struggled to modify labor work rules and cut costs. The condition of the railroad declined as the number of trackworkers was reduced through layoffs from 400 to slightly over 100. On March 3, 1986, the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Engineers, which represented the MEC's trackworkers, struck Maine Central and Portland Terminal. The strike soon spread to all unions on MEC, and spilled over to sister railroads B&M and D&H as well.

The MEC continued to operate with non-union and management crews, and the sharp reduction in service alienated many shippers and caused a great deal of business to be lost. On May 17, 1986, President Reagan ordered the 3,500 striking employees to return to work. About 2,500 of these employees returned only to be given pink slips by Guilford management and shown the door again due to the severe loss of business inflicted by the strike.
Read more at: http://home.sprynet.com/~jwhite07/mec/mec.htm
 #987402  by MEC407
 
This is a long but interesting read:

http://ftp.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2 ... -1666.html
 #987403  by MEC407
 
And here is an article from the Chicago Tribune dated May 6, 1986:
Chicago Tribune wrote:``If we`re successful, we`ll rock the boat,`` said Dennis Coffey, Guilford spokesman. ``It`ll bring a change in the rail industry that is long overdue.``
...
The walkout is another stiff test for struggling Guilford Transportation. Guilford was formed in 1981 by Timothy Mellon, the reclusive scion of the Pittsburgh banking family who set out to create a new rail empire by combining two old and failing New England lines.
...
Mellon consistently has shown a flair for big gambles to overcome Guilford`s status as an isolated regional line. He raised eyebrows last year when he bid to buy Conrail from the government; the offer was dismissed as financially inadequate.
...
Guilford has hired some 500 strikebreakers and says it has abolished 3,000 strikers` jobs by instituting new operating practices and more flexible work rules.
...
The replacement workers are being told their jobs are temporary. But Guilford has indicated that after a settlement it would try to keep the new workers on board at the expense of strikers who might not return for months--or at all.
Full article at: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1986 ... -shipments
 #987515  by S1f3432
 
The post by MEC 407 beginning with "Maine Central Railroad page wrote" is misleading
where it says "the strike soon spread to all unions..." The BMWE struck the railroad and the
other engineering dept. employees represented by other craft unions were locked out. I got
a 6:00AM phone call from my supervisor stating "don't bother coming to work- your position
is abolished. As such I was eligible for Railroad Unemployment, but thanks to messed up
paperwork never got anything. Recalling my supervisor having told us that we were all
unemployable anywhere else I was pleasantly surprised when I quickly found work in my
craft in the outside world at comparable compensation levels. And I didn't return.
 #987601  by mbhoward
 
MEC407, thanks for the links. They made for interesting reading. Especially the long read that summarized the legal cases national impications. My only source for this time period has been the book "American Railroads" by Stover. In it, he talks about the period being one of great change in the industry as a whole. He points out total employment was cut in half between 1980 and 1990 while average annual wages actually rose from 25K to almost 50K, exceeding inflation by a wide margin. Reading between the lines, it seems the turmoil in the industry was almost unprecedented.

Stover does talk about unions fighting the increase in the definition of a "day's work" from 100 miles to 130 miles and the loss of the caboose with other end-of-train devices. These issues didn't seem too big to me and in New England, with the distances so short, I didn't think it would be much of an impact. I thought management must have had other issues in mind when they approached the Brotherhood. However, as others have insisted personalities played a large role in what happened, I guess I'm forced to bend my earlier rule about not talking about personalities. I'll do so in as delicate a manner as I can so as not to inflame people.

If management approached the union with such broad, across the board changes that the union had to reject outright, surely management would have known, or should have known, a strike was inevitable. That means some sort of forced mediation was inevitable. In that case, the natural course of the management position would have been to reach for the moon. The logic being since a strike will happen, might as well demand everything you could possibly want, and let the mediator decide. In the end, perhaps we (management) will end up with exactly what we want. As for the union, what was their position? Was it to block everything, or was there some sort of 'schedule' they were willing to sign up to in order to 'manage the decline'? From what I've been reading from all of you, there were no one or two points management had to have and they would have agreed. I'm wondering if there were one or two points the union would have insisted on, then agree to the rest of the demands.

I can't help but wonder if the players at the time realized the significance of the events as they were unfolding, or if this was seen as something local that was spiraling out of control?
 #987616  by gokeefe
 
mbhoward wrote:MEC407, thanks for the links. They made for interesting reading. Especially the long read that summarized the legal cases national impications. My only source for this time period has been the book "American Railroads" by Stover. In it, he talks about the period being one of great change in the industry as a whole. He points out total employment was cut in half between 1980 and 1990 while average annual wages actually rose from 25K to almost 50K, exceeding inflation by a wide margin. Reading between the lines, it seems the turmoil in the industry was almost unprecedented.
Keep in mind that the localized conditions on the Maine Central may or may not have followed this trend. My guess is that they didn't as a lot of the increases here were probably on the Class I railroads which were at the very beginning of the post-Staggers renaissance.
mbhoward wrote:Stover does talk about unions fighting the increase in the definition of a "day's work" from 100 miles to 130 miles and the loss of the caboose with other end-of-train devices. These issues didn't seem too big to me and in New England, with the distances so short, I didn't think it would be much of an impact.
These issues also were not likely relevant to the MoW Employees as they are largely operating rules relevant to engineers and conductors (and brakemen and firemen of course when they were still around).
mbhoward wrote:I thought management must have had other issues in mind when they approached the Brotherhood. However, as others have insisted personalities played a large role in what happened, I guess I'm forced to bend my earlier rule about not talking about personalities. I'll do so in as delicate a manner as I can so as not to inflame people.
Personality is just one part of the issue of the particular person, Mr. David A. Fink, Sr., that people are referring to. His employment experiences at Penn Central in some truly dark times also likely had an enormous influence on his approach to management-labor relations.
mbhoward wrote:If management approached the union with such broad, across the board changes that the union had to reject outright, surely management would have known, or should have known, a strike was inevitable. That means some sort of forced mediation was inevitable. In that case, the natural course of the management position would have been to reach for the moon. The logic being since a strike will happen, might as well demand everything you could possibly want, and let the mediator decide. In the end, perhaps we (management) will end up with exactly what we want.
Actually I'm not entirely certain the logic is that simple. On first read I thought your proposition was very reasonable. However, remember the following very important fact of law. Companies that are the target of a labor action may fire the striking employees and hire permanent replacements. For entities not covered by the RLA deliberately provoking a strike can be an easy way to end the union presence in your workplace, especially if you plan ahead for replacements (of whom you can of course hire at potentially lower wages). You then simply negotiate ad nauseum with the strikers with your ultimate goal to be to keep them out of work as long as possible to make the strike economically unsustainable. This is probably very close to what International Paper did to the United Paperworkers Internationl Union (UPIU) Local #14, Jay, ME in 1987 less than a year after the BMWE strike ended. The key here being that the RLA provides for the convening of a Presidential Emergency Board and other remediation as necessary. Labor actions at private companies not involved in transportation (such as IP) have virtually no effect on the national economy and as such there has never been an impetus to provide for governmental remedies.

Again, the BMWE and MEC's status as entities covered by the RLA is essential to understanding the outcome. So....GTI decides that they are going to negotiate for changes in the contract with the BMWE that will essentially gut the union's protections for workers as well as their wages and any remaining job protection. In short they make an offer the union truly could never accept. This provokes a strike. GTI management of course knows that there is potential for governmental involvement but perhaps miscalculates on a couple of key points. First they believe that the small size of their railroad means that they are unlikely to the target of government intervention. Second they do not in any way shape or form believe that secondary actions at Class I railroads are likely or even conceivable. In short they underestimate the national cohesiveness of the BMWE. Perhaps what they are hoping for most is the aforementioned scenario, a long drawn out strike action which gives them time to get replacements in place and to ultimately fire all of the union workers.

As you might imagine it was one thing for MoW forces to be on strike at the Maine Central, it was entirely another thing for Class I railroads to lose their MoW forces on their heavily trafficked transcontinental freight main lines where they were busy and needed every day of the year. The BMWE's secondary actions made the long term strike scenario impossible and ultimately forced binding arbitration upon the company. The result of which was more or less the status quo ante, which was unacceptable to Guilford. Shortly after that they leased the line to Springfield Terminal in order to get the MEC lines (and the B&M, and the D&H) out from under the legacy CBAs that were in place when they took over the respective railroads.
mbhoward wrote:I can't help but wonder if the players at the time realized the significance of the events as they were unfolding, or if this was seen as something local that was spiraling out of control?

I think it is likely the latter, in part because the way Guilford did it was a lot more expensive than just leasing everything to the ST in the first place. At least in my mind this also brings up an interesting point. Was leasing to the ST something that they didn't want to do? Did this get in the way of something they had in mind for the railroads later? I can't imagine what this might be except that there is some kind of quirk of railroad property law or tax law that made leasing to the ST unattractive initially. Of course there's always the possibility that this was something they hadn't even thought of in the first place either.
 #1364704  by gokeefe
 
While doing some other research I found this very interesting article originally published by the Philadelphia Inquirer on May 6, 1990. It is notable in that it features direct quotes from Timothy Mellon regarding his stance and his reasoning for the company's positions in 1986.
Although his Guilford Transportation Industries Inc. and its subsidiary railroads are privately held and don't issue public financial statements, officials said the company turned around last year. It made a profit on a 30 percent increase in revenues from 1988, when Guilford operated through a strike.
Interesting that Guilford admitting to losing money in 1988.
In the process of running Guilford, the biggest rail operator in New England, Mellon and his managers have become the bane of organized labor for a harsh, confrontational approach to trimming costs.

Guilford also has angered other constituencies that railroads usually seek to please, including freight shippers who use Guilford service and numerous state and local government officials.

For example, Guilford got into a nasty fight two years ago with Amtrak over the condition of 50 miles of Guilford-owned track in Massachusetts and Vermont over which Amtrak runs its popular passenger train, the Montrealer. The fight ended when the Interstate Commerce Commission approved condemnation of the track so Amtrak could own it and refurbish it, allowing resumption of daily service.

In the Boston area, operation of commuter trains was contracted out to Amtrak in 1986 after a strike against Guilford's Boston & Maine Railroad subsidiary stopped the trains.

Guilford has endured criticism for declining to prop up the Delaware & Hudson Railway Co., one of three railroads the parent company owns. When Guilford was unable to change the work rules of its D&H train crews in 1988, it put the money-losing D&H into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, allowing a trustee to try to find a new owner to run it.
This article is also interesting because it discusses the recent bankruptcy of the D&H and subsequent off loading of that asset.
Such disputes have prompted Mellon's critics to call him a stubborn ideologue.

But Mellon says his business ventures are in tune with his belief that inherited wealth should be used to build solid businesses, keeping an industry healthy so that employment in it will increase over time and add permanent strength to the economy.

"I didn't go into the business just for the sake of profit," Mellon said in a recent interview. "I only go into something if it adds to the overall welfare."
The last statement in particular is interesting in that he discusses his personal philosophy in favor of a balanced approach to business.
Guilford executives say they fervently believe that the stands they have taken, particularly in regard to cutting labor costs, not only were necessary to keep rail service alive in New England but should serve as a model for other companies.

The two strikes that occurred at Guilford's Boston & Maine and Maine Central railroad units, starting in 1986, were among the most bitter in the railroad industry in recent years.

The first walkout was prompted by Guilford's efforts to lease the operations of the two railroads to a new division, Springfield Terminal Co., which would then have imposed new wage rates and work rules on all employees.

Springfield Terminal, a subsidiary whose only function was unloading automobiles from railcars onto trucks, had a contract with the United Transportation Union that lowered operating costs of the railroads by having more flexible work rules and lower wages.

A key work-rule change created a new category of railroader, erasing previous craft categories such as engineer or conductor.

But the union contended it had signed the Springfield contract with Guilford only because the auto-unloading terminal was not typical railroad work. Springfield and its work rules, the union contends, should not be used to circumvent contracts for traditional railroad jobs.
There is some detail here that I haven't read about before or understood all that well. I didn't realize that ST was involved in the operations in Massachusetts at all. I thought the arrangement was somehow related to B&M's acquisition of the ST (in Vermont) and that Guilford had made effective use of a "ghost" company that previously had few if any operating employees at all.
Another strike against Guilford, in 1987 and 1988, centered on severance- pay rules, issues still being decided by federal arbitrators. The same sort of issues figured in an announcement last month by the ICC of a formal investigation into "numerous, repeated complaints" from employees over Guilford's practices in paying severance and unemployment benefits.

Ultimately, it took an act of Congress to dictate a settlement of the first strike. Federal abitrators have ruled in the union's favor on some major points, including the way the company attempted to place employees under new contracts through the leases to Springfield Terminal.

But Guilford has accomplished the main goal of the disputes with labor, now paying many of the employees who operate its trains by the hour instead of by the distance a train travels and changing work rules to reduce crew size. A freight train running from Waterville, Maine, to Rotterdam Junction, N.Y., now operates with six crew members, working in two-person teams, rather than a total of 18 crew members.

Guilford was able to reduce its labor costs to less than 35 percent of

revenues, compared with an average for large railroads of 44 percent to 48 percent, vice president Colin Pease said.

Without such a drastic cut in its labor costs, Guilford wouldn't be able to subsist on the types and amount of freight that it hauls, company officials said.

"What seemed like a confrontational approach . . . was really the only approach available to us," Mellon said.

Other major railroads, he said, also will eventually abandon the "old way" - which he says was to avoid strikes at any cost by giving in to labor's demands. Unless they follow the Guilford example, Mellon said, the other railroads will never lower costs significantly.

"We don't really blame labor for this," Pease said. "It's been management's fault" for capitulating to labor's demands.

The ultimate dream of Mellon and his colleagues is to operate like the Florida East Coast, for years one of the only non-union railroads in the country. The FEC endured a long and violent strike, starting in the 1960s, that eventually resulted in the streamlining of the operation when the number of crew members on each train were reduced.

The FEC today is a specialist in efficiently hauling intermodal traffic made up of truck trailers or marine-cargo containers riding on rail flat cars.

"Eighty percent of the Florida East Coast's traffic is southbound from Jacksonville to Miami, and 35 percent of their revenue flows to the bottom line," said Pease. "It's an example of what happens if you can get rid of the encumbrances, such as the work rules."
This section was perhaps the most telling of all. I was very surprised, to say the least, to see Mellon describe the situation as he did. While I'm sure there is a certain element of revisionism here the age of the article suggests a memory of the events that was very fresh and easily recalled.
Guilford's characterization of work rules as encumbrances, of course, is one of many points on which unions disagree with the company. When Guilford combined train-operating jobs into the railroader category, it endangered the lives of employees, the unions say.

"Throughout these years of trying to come to an equitable agreement on work rules with the Guilford system, we've been totally frustrated," said Steve Fitzgerald, a spokesman for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.

The chief concern "has been the plummeting level of safety that resulted

from the use of 'railroaders,' who are expected to know all of the jobs but can't possibly know all the safety aspects," Fitzgerald said. "Guilford

hasn't trained or assigned those employees properly."

Pease replied that Guilford has trained its crews properly and said federal inspectors recently noted marked improvement in the company's safety practices.

Guilford's wish to be like the Florida East Coast could be frustrated by the type of business it has. Guilford mostly hauls paper, lumber, grain and other mixed freight in boxcars - the sorts of cargoes for which trucks tend to compete most seriously.

Most railroads make money by hauling large quantities of bulk commodities, such as coal or chemicals, or by carrying "intermodal" truck trailers and containers on flat cars. Indeed, the FEC gets 80 percent of its revenue hauling intermodal traffic.

One of the brightest spots for Guilford in recent months has been an agreement with Conrail that calls for the two railroads jointly to haul most of Ford Motor Co.'s new cars and trucks bound for dealers in New England.

The vehicles ride from the assembly plants to a Guilford terminal at Ayer, Mass., where they are transferred to special trucks for delivery to the dealers.
When the company says that they were pursuing safety improvments apparently they weren't kidding. Guilford received the Bronze Medal of the E. H. Harriman Award for railroad safety in 1999 and the Gold Medal in 2004.
 #1383072  by CMurphy
 
I know this is an old thread, but heck I'm old too. Let me say that the Harriman Awards weren't necessarily a gold standard:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._H._Harriman_Award

I read this thread with interest because I worked for the D&H MOW, '74-'78. It is rare that I get to see any of those guys, but one who left for a track inspector's job with NYS told me snippets, that there had been a lot of bad blood between those who stayed and those who walked.

Our union at the time was only as strong as our stewards- so everyone, mgt. and 'brothers,' included. Still, I lead a wildcat strike, and suffered no ill effects from it- but our demands were sane and responsible (not to work in a driving rainstorm in 40 degree weather. Co. solved that by buying us rainsuits!).

I will say that I found the union- or rather, other members on-site with me- to be indispensable. Track work is damn dangerous- huge machines, tools are big and heavy, and steel and stone everywhere. Too often, some bonehead would demand that something be done, clearly not knowing (incompetence) or caring what the total outcome was going to be. I only have both feet and legs beneath rail-height because I wouldn't do an act as ordered, for example.

The NE RR's were a frickin' mess when I was there, and getting worse by the year. One of the articles mentions that MEC MOW had gone from around 400 to 100 workers. You cannot imagine the pressures- and the dangers- of trying to fix those huge pieces of infrastructure, undermanned, and generally underequipped.

Bless all those guys for sticking together. I hope St. Peter spikes Mellon's balls to the tracks.
 #1383105  by jaymac
 
Not that a particularly warm spot in an already warm place may not have already been merited by Mr. Mellon, but the primus inter pares in the policy-setting partnership would seem -- at least to a rank and mere mortal civilian observer -- to be Fink 1.0. The approach of some in the Penn Central power structure of combative and contractive synergism came with him to Guilford in full force. Engineered ROW, equipment, and labor difficulties produced the desired results of an eroded customer base, allowing even more rationalization, permitting diminished service levels to customers with no real alternatives.
The life preservers of Amtrak/NNERPA -- however initially reluctant acceptance was -- and NS along with Fink 2.0 have produced some improvements. One thing that seems not to have improved is how upper management deals with middle management. Posting as a retired member of the American Federation of Teachers, I had ample opportunity to observe that not always the best or most secure people got taken into non-union managerial positions. Those people would, however, be most reflexively responsive to the requests of upper management if maintaining position, prestige, and income were at all important.
Again, I am an outsider with no direct or indirect access to what goes on in the more recent PAR management approach, but the decline in functioning company power, the increase in reliance on foreign power, and some of the seemingly bizarre middle-management decisions concerning crew-checkers via cabs and vans would seem to indicate that an enlightened self-interest approach by upper management is still needed: There are times when the person with an alternate approach might just be a good middle manager.