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Wednesday, February 27, 2008
I SEE A FAN IN OUR FUTUREHello again, this is Mike Carper. I see a fan in our future brothers and sisters. The
fan is spinning on high speed. And look, off in the distance, something headed this way; a large mass or clump, if you
will, of something.
I offer, for your consideration, the following; a portion of a press release regarding
the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). The FRA, by the way, Is the agency which, despite the fervent hopes of a desperate
few, absolutely will have jurisdiction over the FRONT RUNNER commuter railroad system.
This week the FRA issued new regulations regarding the agency's testing of TE&Y employees on
certain operating rules(That's Train, Engine and Yard-M.C.). FRA will increase the frequency of its testing and
will have the option of fining employees between $7,500 and $16,000 for noncompliance(emphasis added). Of particular
interest is that all crew members can be held liable for a violation, not just the violating person.
Also note that the FRA can test without the presence of a railroad manager.
"can test without the
presence of a railroad manager." Now that is a phrase that has to catch the eye of anyone looking forward to a career
as a grossly underpaid railroad engineer. OH!, pardon me, I certainly must have meant to say commuter
train operator. As I am certain that we all know quite well that Engineers are
paid wages ranging from twenty seven dollars per hour to as much as thirty two dollars per hour and more.
I
guess that, if your eyes and ears are open, you are seeing the beginning of the end of a failed plan. The plan is to
undermine over one hundred and fifty years of rail labor organization. So that a handful of undertrained and underpaid "commuter
train operators" (read trained monkeys) can bring to Utah the cheapest and most dangerous passenger rail transportation in
history. It is time, brothers and sisters, to take note of what is being done. Not only are our own wages being
held down, and by this I primarily mean our operating brothers and sisters, both bus and rail, we are also being used
as a wedge against our railroad brothers and sisters. Our railroad brothers and sisters who, without the help of the
twin organizations of the UTA and the ATU, have already been engaged in a life and death struggle to protect their living
standards and work rule protections. The idea behind unions is to improve the lives of all of us who work for a living. The
idea behind unions is to provide protection for those of us who work, against the threat of injury and death on the job. The
idea behind unions is to stand togeather for the good of all, now and in the future. It's a good idea. I say, let's
get us a union.
2:25 am mst
Friday, February 15, 2008
WHOOP!!!, THERE IT IS!!!Hi everyone, this is Mike Carper here. I know that some of you
look in from time to time and probably get a little frustrated at the lack of anything new. But I'll tell you; If you
will contact us with any questions or information you have or concerns that you want to share, it will help to make this a
more interesting and useful site.
I just have a couple of things to share with you today: If
you haven't done so already; take a look at some of the other pages in this site, they contain important information that
may raise questions which we can work together in finding the answers to. You should especially look at the Railroad
101 page. If you do look at the 101 page you will discover that there are at least four commuter train operations which are
paying conductors in excess of twenty five dollars per hour. I mention this because the ATU local 382, which has
two full time officers, at least one of whom makes considerably more money than any bargaining unit
employee, has agreed to permit the UTA to operate without conductors. This action compromises safety while doing serious
harm to the job security and wages of our union brothers and sisters in the rail industry. An industry
in which job safety rules and decent wages, have been payed for with the blood of rail road workers for well over 150
years. There are at least two good reasons that conductors are paid well. One is that they have a UNION and the other
is that they are well trained, knowledgeable and bare an awesome responsibility for the safety of the general, as well
as the riding, public.
Another issue I would like to raise is with the president of the ATU
Local 382. I have it upon solid authority that Mr. Baty addressed the commuter "operator" trainees (calling them
engineers might necessitate proper pay) this past week and informed them that Bus Operators working in the cities mentioned
on the 101 page make the same pay as the rail workers listed there. I challenge Mr. Baty to provide some evidence as
to the veracity of this claim. Quite frankly, I am convinced that he simply concocted this story as some sort of meager defense
for the leadership of local 382. In short, I believe that he is simply lying. This defense does carry with it a significant
pitfall; if bus operators are making upwards of twenty six dollars per hour in those areas, why has the ATU
seen fit to agree to a meager eighteen dollars for Salt Lake Operators. Also, if Bus Operators are making the
same wages as Engineers In those cities, how could that possibly justify lowering Engineer wages to the level of
underpaid Bus Operators in Salt Lake City? Part of the problem Brothers and Sisters is that under the wing of the
UTA, the ATU, has a protected status as the sole provider of information to ATU bargaining unit employees. You can
help by sharing this web site with co-workers and encouraging them to at least check it out.
I also wanted to share with you some good news on the labor front. Rail unions have won an important victory with a recent Presidential
Emergency Board finding. The Presidential Emergency Board was appointed by President Bush for the purpose of avoiding
a strike of rail workers on AMTRAK. Among the facts that the PEB "found" were the following. The bulk of responsibility
for the failure to ink a deal with the AMTRAK rail unions, over an unprecedented eight year period does, indeed, rest
with AMTRAK management and its intransigence toward bargaining in good faith.
You
will also be fascinated to know that the board found that, not only is it appropriate to look to the rail industry in general
for guidance in determing proper wages, benefits and work rules, but commuter systems likely provide a more correct model.
The board noted that commuter rail employees generally receive HIGHER WAGES than their counterparts in freight.
In a related development, the United Transportation Union (UTU), which was not a participant in
the PEB, has reached a tentative agreement with AMTRAK. In this tentative agreement AMTRAK has agreed to no reduction in Assistant
Conductors (AC) jobs, they had wanted to eliminate four hundred AC positions. The new agreement will provide a raise
from the current conductor wage of approximately twenty four dollars per hour, twenty one for ACs. I don't not have specifics
as to the amount of the raise. And finally, there will be back pay for the entire eight year period.
I will try to get some of the actual highlights from the PEB report published to this site very soon. In the meantime, anyone
interested enough can simply google Presidential Emergency Board to find the site on which the PEB's report is available
in PDF format.
7:51 pm mst
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