JOB PROTECTION FOR RAILROAD EMPLOYEES An agreement providing OD protection for present qualified employees of the Pennsylvania and New York Centrai ratiroaus aiter consummation of the proposed Penn-Centrai merger was signed recently. The agreement was approved by Stuart . Saunders, chairman of the board of the Pennsvivania Railroad. Alfred E. Periman, president of the New York Central System and oficiais of 17 railway labor umons, affiliated with the Railway Labor Executives Association. A spokesman called the agreement "graphic and refreshing proof that collective bargaining can work successfully in an atmosphere of understanding, wherein labor and management can resolve their differences without resorting to emergency boards, arbitration or governmental intervention." The agreement basically provides reduction of employment through natural attrition of retirements, deaths, and resignations but will further limit work force reductions to 5 per cent annually of an established base of the total number of qualified employees in each craft represented by the labor organizations. The proposed Pennsylvania New York Central Transportation Company will be permitted to transfer work and employees or allocate forces within the several crafts throughout the consolidated rail system. The pact also protects the merged company by providing for temporary layoffs necessitated by emergency conditions such as floods, hurricanes and also major declines in business. "C. Both unions retain the right to maintain such recognition within either of these units as they are granted in accordance with the terms of the Executive Order and to continue giving service and representation to their members in either unit until the other is certified as exclusive representative. "D. With respect to the unit in which it is pledging to suspend its organizing efforts, each of the unions agrees that it will not interfere in any way in that unit and should the active union fail to obtain exclusive recognition, the terms of this agreement will immediately be not binding on the other with respect to that unit. arbitrator Donald Shaughnessy and NMU arbitrator Theodore Kheel will avoid future stalemates by calling in a third or neutral arbitrator. Federation Should Take the Form of the Joint Board Approach A maritime federation will have to be worked out to include representatives of such organizations as NMU, SIU, SUP, MEBA, MM&P, ARA, ROU, etc. The result: One coalition -rather than two. At times Joe Curran has challenged Paul Hall to a "sudden-death vote." This is not the correct approach. It would only leave bitterness and ruin in its wake. A convention on a voluntary basis should take place of all maritime "National Maritime Union of unions, including of course, the East America, AFL-CIO Signed Shannon J. Wall, Vice Seafarers International Union, and West Coast longshoremen. This convention should be dedicated to ending the destructive results of “fragmentation." An important item on the agenda would be how to amend manning tables, pay, fringe benefits Signed: Morris Weisberger, and work rules which are unrealistic Vice President Date: January 30, 1964." NMU-MEBA Arbitration Pact Another Positive Move.-Mentioned previously was the failure of arbitration in the America case, where despite the glowing reports of NMU concerning its "no-strike" provisions (Ted Kheel, Arbitrator), the America did not sail. Kheel had no jurisdiction over the MEBA engineer who was the center of the America conflict. In order to avoid a repetition NMU and MEBA have finally gotten together with the American Merchant Marine Institute and signed an agreement to prevent the repetition of the America case where arbitrators' awards were in conflict. The solution: MEBA "For an enlarged discussion see Edward B. Shils and Sidney L. Miller, Jr., cited at footnote 3. or archaic in terms of present-day world challenges to our Merchant Marine. Solutions are required not only to encourage the return of American owned PANHONLIB registered vessels, but also to assure the survival of the present unsubsidized fleet under American registry." Even our protected domestic fleet is no longer immune from competition. Increasingly efficient pipeline transportation, oil imports and other developments may retard or decrease the demand for vessels and American crews in domestic trade. If solutions are to be found, maritime unions must freely cooperate to introduce the newer technologies to make the United States competitive. What is needed in the maritime industry is something of the "joint In board" approach. If the maritime industry were to take advantage of the mature bargaining experience of such unions as the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the maritime industry might find a good model to emulate. ILGWU joint board bargaining in various metropolitan areas, it is possible to find representatives of dress locals, knit goods locals, and blouse locals all on the joint board. When it is time to bargain, each of the groups has a chance to present its position. Their relative points of view are consolidated, weighed and evaluated. Out of the "input" comes a general package requested for the entire industry. Included are common demands for wages, hours, pensions, health and welfare funds, etc. Each local attempts to retain its local autonomy. However, there are times when each must draw back from its individual demands. In the long run, each local benefits by the general protective umbrella of the over-all institution. This writer believes that such a program would be possible if labor leaders in the maritime industry, without government intervention, were able to put their own house in order. Unfortunately, the AFL-CIO itself has not been successful up to this point in putting aside the historic animosities of the old American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Council of Industrial Organization (CIO). When this is finally done, the great AFL-CIO federation should serve as a model for what is badly needed in the maritime industry, namely, a strong central body with an integrated and all-pervasive program of labor relations. [The End] JOB PROTECTION FOR RAILROAD EMPLOYEES An agreement providing job protection for present qualified employees of the Pennsylvania and New York Central railroads after consummation of the proposed Penn-Central merger was signed recently. The agreement was approved by Stuart T. Saunders, chairman of the board of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Alfred E. Perlman, president of the New York Central System and officials of 17 railway labor unions, affiliated with the Railway Labor Executives' Association. A spokesman called the agreement "graphic and refreshing proof that collective bargaining can work successfully in an atmosphere of understanding, wherein labor and management can resolve their differences without resorting to emergency boards, arbitration or governmental intervention." The agreement basically provides reduction of employment through natural attrition of retirements, deaths, and resignations but will further limit work force reductions to 5 per cent annually of an established base of the total number of qualified employees in each craft represented by the labor organizations. The proposed Pennsylvania New York Central Transportation Company will be permitted to transfer work and employees or allocate forces within the several crafts throughout the consolidated rail system. The pact also protects the merged company by providing for temporary layoffs necessitated by emergency conditions such as floods, hurricanes and also major declines in business. X. Ad Hoc Compulsory Arbitration in the Railroad Industry In the history of Congressional efforts to find a solution to the problem of how to settle strikes which endanger the public interest, the passage of Senate Joint Resolution 102 in 1963, which became Public Law 88-108, is felt by some to mark a major milestone. To others it does not. No piece of labor legislation in history has had more attention paid to explaining that it did not do what it unquestionably did, than Public Law 88-108. There was reluctance in and outside of Congress to face up to the fact that, whether, in a technical sense, this was compulsory arbitration, it was a dictated settlement, just as the 1916 Adamson Act provided for a dictated settlement. The 1916 settlement granted most of the demands of the unions; the 1963 settlement terms were more acceptable to management, but both settlements were imposed by the Congress and the President, backed up by public opinion. This suggests that Public Law 88-108 will not be willingly viewed as a precedent. As a matter of governmental philosophy, the executive branch has generally, when no immediate dispute was threatening, favored the "choice-of-procedures" approach to intervention. This approach, in essence, asserts that the role of government lies in not committing itself in advance to any pattern of behavior in a dispute situation, which, in turn, forces both labor and management to exert a maximum effort to settle their disputes through collective bargaining. (See item "f".) The role of the Government then becomes normally limited to encouraging and assisting such bargaining to a successful conclusion. Whatever acts Government takes are directed to making bargaining the preferred solution. While a desire to encourage collective bargaining was certainly a part of the 1963 railroad settlement (and of the 1916 one, as well), most people would not consider that it was this desire which motivated the congressional and Presidential actions in these two crises. The actions taken were dictated by the failure of collective bargaining to work, not be a desire to make it work. They were dictated substitutes for agreements not reached by bargaining. The "choice-of-procedures" approach assumes that the solution to the strike emergency is to get collective bargaining to work. But this assumes away our problem, which is that a strike emergency is caused by collective bargaining not working. One reason that bargaining does not work may be the expectation of Government intervention to prevent any strike. In other words, for "choice-of-procedures" to really work, the Government must be completely free to intervene or not to intervene. Only then will genuine bargaining take place. But Government does not, but definition, in an emergency situation, have this choice. On the other hand, Public Law 88-108 may mark a major milestone in Federal intervention in emergency disputes. The milestone reads "On the road to Federal regulation of labor-management relations." |