Railroad Workers Industrial Union 520

By X341189

Since the mid-1990s, the major U.S. railroads (“Class Is”) have been hiring new trainmen to staff the nation’s freight trains. Passenger carriers such as Amtrak together with various metropolitan commuter railroads in cities like New York, Boston, L.A. and Chicago are also regularly seeking employees. This offers an invaluable opportunity for young activists to hire out in an industrial setting and make some money, all the while:

• learning about the transportation industry;
• working under and understanding a union contract;
• becoming familiar with the great history of the class struggle on the railway;
• taking part in the rank-and-file movement of railroad workers; and
• joining with your fellow workers to build the One Big Union in a key sector of the economy.

The recession has eased and nearly all furloughed railroaders have been called back to work. The railroads are once again hiring in terminals all across the U.S. and Canada. Their websites are flush with job openings in all the crafts, especially in train & engine service. Since everything to do with personnel on the railroad is seniority driven, NOW is the time to hire out so you don’t get left behind and have to follow a crowd of others for your entire career.

For those who would hire out in “Transportation” the new hire usually begins work as a “brakeman” or “conductor trainee”. After a specified period of time and the requisite tests, the new hire is promoted to Conductor. Then at some point in the future, depending upon seniority and the “needs of the carrier”, the conductor will be selected to attend engine school. Following an extended (6 months- to-a-year) on-the-job training, s/he will be promoted to licensed locomotive engineer. (If “train and engine” is not your scene, the railroads are also hiring -- although not as regularly -- track maintainers, train dispatchers, signal maintainers, car inspectors, clerks, electricians, machinists, laborers and others in the shop crafts).

All “train and engine” (T&E) jobs are union jobs, paying between $30,000 and $100,000 per year with full benefits. Union membership is obligatory upon successful completion of a probationary period of usually 60-90 days upon “marking up”. The T&E employee has a choice of joining the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers & Trainmen (descendent of the oldest craft union in the U.S.) or the United Transportation Union (UTU), an amalgamation of four old craft unions that merged in 1969 – the Switchmen (SUNA), Trainmen (BRT), Conductors (OCA) and Firemen (BLF). Dues usually range between $70 and $120 per month. Most Locals (UTU) and Divisions (BLET) hold regular monthly membership meetings.

Bristol train driver, Patrick Spackman, sacked for swearing by First Great Western, has referred the Morning Star to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC).

On 6 June the Morning Star, self-styled "daily paper of the left", reported Mr Spackman's sacking for swearing, which the company claimed had been "threatening."

However, two days later, the paper claimed that he had, in fact, been sacked for "violent harassment in the workplace against a respected senior lay union representative."

Mr Spackman responded: "This is completely untrue. I complained to the Morning Star but haven't even had the courtesy of an acknowledgment from them. So I've referred the matter to the PCC who now have a copy of my dismissal letter which clearly shows why I was sacked. I look forward to a public apology and retraction from the Morning Star."

Mr Spackman, who intends to take his dismissal to employment tribunal, is being represented by the Industrial Workers of the World, the union generally referred to as "the Wobblies."

A union spokesperson commented: "Someone seems to have set the Morning Star up here. But a bit of basic checking would have avoided the problem. Needless to say, the 'union representative' referred to by the Morning Star is not a member of the IWW".