One Big Union-The Teamsters

[bobwilcox]

Here is the BLE release on the BMWE affiliating with the Teamsters. In this time of train and engine service employee shortages are we headed for significantly richer contracts? Will the Teamsters bring anything extra to the table or they just another dying industrial union that has seen their base with LTL truckers disapear over the last 25 years since dereg?

BMWE members overwhelmingly approve IBT merger
CLEVELAND, October 27 -- By a 76 percent majority, members of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees today voted in favor of merging with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

The BMWE now joins the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen as a member of the Teamsters’ Rail Conference.

“On behalf of the 55,000 members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, I welcome our Brothers and Sisters of the BMWE into the Rail Conference,” BLET National President Don Hahs said. “I look forward to working together with the BMWE and IBT in a successful partnership.”

With the addition of the BMWE, more than 40 percent of rail labor is now organized under the Teamster umbrella.

“I’m ecstatic about the possibilities for the future with the BLET and BMWE in the same house,” BMWE President Freddie N. Simpson said. “The possibilities are limitless.”

The Teamsters Rail Conference was established in January 2004. In the beginning of the year, the BLET became the first division of the Rail Conference when its members overwhelmingly approved its merger with the Teamsters. With the addition of the BMWE division, the Teamsters Rail Conference now represents almost 70,000 rail members. BMWE members build, maintain, inspect, and repair the railroad tracks, bridges, and related structures throughout North America.

[Hugh Jampton]

At this rate everybody's gonna know where Jimmy Hoffa is buried...

[Anonymous]

It's going to be everyone under the same roof before long.

[Anonymous]

ah ha....so THAT'S why my dues keep goin up...

[Junctionfan]

I would think that it would be easier at least for the employer, to negotiate contracts with less unions than more so a consolidation would be good for management.

I might also think that with a consolidation of the two unions, the worker's representation would be stronger.

[Anonymous]

As a UTU member I cannot understand the thinking of why rail unions wi***o join the union which has taken away railraod jobs. Last yr it was the BLE. This union has had a history of problems for several yrs. Twice, the BLE endorsed Regan for Pres. In 1982 BLE staged a nationwide strike because they thought the engr should be the highest paid member of a train crew. The union did not get thgeir demand and instead other work conditions were stuffed down the throat of rail labor which screwed new hires. Six Presidents have served the BLE withing the last 14 yrs. The reason many think that why the Teamsters merged the BLE into their group is that thr truckers may make a run to get their hand in rr retirement. It would take an act of Congress to arprove thisbut with powerful people in Washington, like *** Gephart, who is a Teamsters boy, anything is possible. Have to say the outlook for rail labor and the future as for the industry as a whole looks bleak

[Anonymous]

I just question the whole idea of a union representing rail interests merging with a union that represents trucking interests. Where is the logic in this?? At my terminal the UTU and BLE are each others throats and I don't know what to believe any more. All I know is that the two better stop fighting each other because in the meantime the railroads are finding ways to take away everything the unions have fought for.

[Overmod]

LC, if you're reading this thread, you might care to comment upon the relevance (if any) of the New Unity Partnership initiative at AFL-CIO to what's happening with the BLE and maintenance unions going with Teamsters. One of the avowed points of NUP is

"the forced merger of smaller AFL-CIO affiliated unions with larger affiliates so that there will end up being only some twenty to thirty unions in the country;"

with the idea that there will be

"a much more aggressive use of the pooled resources and manpower that will result in the union mergers, for organizing, work stoppage, and political activities."

Or, in other words, to try and reverse the erosion that has typified 'big labor' over the past few years...

[arbfbe]

The Teamster plan is to get all the transportation unions in the same bed under the Teamster banner. There can be some strength there but it is scary to note that in 2000 the Teamsters and Mr. Hoffa thought G. W. Bush was a good idea for labor. When they found themselves and the rest of organized labor locked out of the White House they changed their tune.