Following plans to merge Union Pacific Railroad (UP) and Norfolk Southern (NS), two of the largest rail unions in the USA have shown their opposition to the USD85 billion merger.
The Teamsters Rail Conference – comprising the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers & Trainmen (BLET) and the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes (BMWE) and which representing 53 percent of the unionised workforce at UP and NS – conducted five months of investigation, held meetings across the USA to listen to union members employed at both UP and NP, and negotiated directly with UP’s ceo Jim Vena. They concluded that the merger would erode the competitiveness of railways when compared with other forms of transportation and identified detrimental effects to workers, including increased use of unsafe practices.
The merger aims to create the USA’s first transcontinental railroad and the combined entity would control a rail system that spans the USA from California to the East Coast. The Teamsters Rail Conference believes this network, spanning 43 states and 50,000 miles of track, would be a de facto monopoly.
“This debt-ridden tie-up won’t make rail more competitive with trucks as merger proponents claim,” said BLET national president Mark Wallace. “We believe this transcontinental railroad will make shipping by rail less attractive as the merged carrier passes off rail lines that serve small towns, factories and farms to short line railroads while running miles-long slow-moving trains on the main line. For rail customers it will be a choice between ‘hell or the highway.”
Moreover, 40 chemical companies have signed a letter in opposition to the merger, with more than 60 trade associations and chambers of commerce also voicing their disapproval.
Teamsters Rail Conference warned that the merger could lead to unsafe practices, with the union chiefly pointing a finger at UP as the dominant partner – citing its supposed corner-cutting and lack of reforms. Teamsters Rail Conference also demonstrated concern for the length of trains that it operates, as well as a possible reduction in both the number of trains and employees on said trains.
“We don’t believe anything Vena says about how workers would be treated in the Supersized Union Pacific,” said BMWE president Tony Cardwell. “The agreements reached with some other unions related to job protections post-merger have loopholes big enough to traverse freight trains through. We refuse to accept the same terms in return for our unions’ support for the merger.”
UP has negotiated with some rail unions contract language for job securing covering the length of their members’ careers, but the terms omitted where or how far away a worker can be transferred, demoted, or when and how they can be forced into another role, according to Teamsters Rail Conference. It also leaves out what happens when the merged railroad unloads a rail line through sale or lease, a likely outcome if the merged carrier sells a line. Because the jobs leave with the line, job protections no longer apply.
“Mergers can be messy and the very act of merging two railroad cultures creates safety risks,” said Wallace, adding that: “We have met with Vena and others on his team over the past five months. The UP ceo has failed to convince us that he has the best interests of customers, workers and the communities served by rail on his agenda. As a result, it’s now our job, with the full backing of the Teamsters union, to convince the STB [Surface Transportation Board] that this merger should be rejected.”
