BY AMY HUSK
NEW YORK - At 6:00 a.m. August 14, members of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees (BMWE) struck the Consolidated Rail Corp. (Conrail). The system-wide strike was called by top BMWE officials after Conrail broke an agreement with the union and contracted with a nonunion outfit to construct track in Marysville, Ohio. The BMWE represents about 3,400 track maintenance workers throughout Conrail. They are responsible for laying and maintaining tracks, railroad bridges, and buildings.

Most of the 16,000 other union workers refused to cross the BMWE picket lines, including thousands of conductors, brakemen, and yardmasters who are members of the United Transportation Union (UTU); engineers who are in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers or the UTU; and train dispatchers. This solidarity quickly shut down the operations of the nation's fifth-largest freight railroad, until the picket lines were forced down by court order that same afternoon.

Court uses Railway Act against strikers
Like all rail unions, the BMWE is constrained by the National Railway Labor Act. Passed by Congress in 1926, and since extended to cover the airlines industry, this antilabor law is a labyrinth of red tape that trammels union power, especially the use of strikes. In this walkout, Conrail's attorneys were in court within hours, and U.S. district judge John Giles issued an order demanding the rail workers return to the job.

Nonetheless, the nine-and-a-half hour strike gave a picture of the power of rail labor and a glimpse of the discussion and spirit of resistance among workers in the rail industry today, where workers are feeling the results of years of substantial crew cuts and other reductions in the work force.

In an attempt to keep the trains moving despite the strike, Conrail forced many of the crews that had started work the night before to keep working. But as these crews reached the maximum 12 hours that they could work as mandated by law, the railroad began to grind to a halt. At the Oak Island yard in Newark, New Jersey, supervisors came out to the gate around 9:30 a.m. and told workers that the yard was shutting down and everyone should go home.

"It's about time someone had the guts to stand up to Conrail!" shouted one UTU member at Oak Island when he arrived. Another asked, "Where are our signs? Shouldn't we have signs to show our support?'

At the Conway Yard outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, one of the largest yards in the country, only a few locomotives were moving at what is normally a busy time of day. Rail conductors, engineers, and car inspectors who came to work not knowing of the strike gathered for hours in a parking lot across the street from the entrance, discussing the issues in the strike and demonstrating their solidarity. One recently hired brakeman, who used to work as a coal miner, said he hadn't seen anything like this since the 1970s. He joined the pickets for a few hours after being called to work early that morning.

In the Cleveland area, every yard was shut down except the one that services the GM plant in Parma, where no picket line was set up. Third-shift crews were held over for their full twelve hours, but most did no work after the strike began.

BMWE member Dave Reid from Avon, Indiana, said, "Nobody's crossing our picket lines, just management. There's trains sitting in the yard that aren't going out."

The railroad grinds to a halt
At Boston's Beacon Park yard, the eastern terminus of Conrail, Steve Falzone, a member of BMWE Local 228 who works 20 miles west of Boston in Framingham, came to picket. Falzone constructed a makeshift sign that read, "BMWE on strike" out of a piece of a cardboard box, and stuck it prominently on his truck. At one point a UTU official drove up, patrolling to make sure that gate was covered and that no UTU members went in to work.

In Baltimore, fewer than 15 BMWE members were available to cover the three gates at the Bayview yard. Their presence shut down most operations. These pickets were buoyed when they learned the combined crafts had shut down the large Enola yard near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the main terminus for Baltimore and Washington trains.

On the lines in Baltimore there was discussion about the need to send the company a message through the strike, even if it was likely - some thought inevitable - that it would be ended quickly through a court injunction. Several workers pointed to the need to send a message to CSX and Norfolk Southern (NS), the two railroads that are in the process of taking over Conrail. Workers discussed whether NS and CSX would be upset that they were getting "disgruntled" workers, and some thought it was good to let them know that workers were "disgruntled."

At the Conrail intermodal facility (a yard where cargo is transferred between trucks and trains) at South Kearney, New Jersey, BMWE strikers were greeted with constant blaring horns from truck drivers expressing their support for the union.

Solidarity from UPS drivers
"I think unionism is on the rise again," declared striker Jeff Briley, "There's a lot more support from other unions. Unions are not just saying `Take care of me and to hell with everyone else.' There's more solidarity. The unions are realizing the need to fight against divide and conquer."

Briley's point was emphasized by the fact that drivers for United Parcel Service refused to drive into the struck facility, forcing UPS to call out supervisors to drive the trucks in. Members of the Teamsters union at UPS won a victory last August after a 15-day nationwide strike that brought UPS operations to a virtual standstill. One UPS driver explained to BMWE strikers that they needed to put more pickets at the gate where the drivers were going in, so they would be more visible to the Teamsters. "After going through nine strikes, there's no way I'm going to cross a picket line," he said.

UPS supervisors frantically scurried around, trying to get between drivers and the strikers before they could talk to each other. A few drivers defiantly stood and talked with the Conrail workers in spite of the bosses, while they waited for supervisors to drive their trucks out.

BMWE striker Robert Dixon pointed out that his son works for UPS and is still working part-time, despite last year's strike settlement that promised to create more full-time positions at UPS. "We'll strike again if we have to," to enforce the agreement, responded one of the UPS workers.

Some BMWE members complained that they did not know about the strike until the night before or the morning of the strike. Many workers approved of the tactic of keeping the work stoppage a secret from the company. Others thought that it could have been better prepared.

Al Dinkelo, a BMWE member who works at the Elizabeth port yard in New Jersey, said, "The strike was very unorganized. If you're going to do something like that, you have to have a master plan." Dinkelo had driven to the North Bergen, New Jersey, to picket after hearing that there was no picket line there. He pointed out that the Teamsters local that organizes UPS drivers who drive into the yard was not notified about the strike, and train crews at North Bergen went into work because they didn't know.

This is the second strike this year by members of the BMWE. In May, about 2,500 BMWE members struck the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe railroad for about five and half hours before they were forced back to work. The strike shut down BNSF operations in nine states when members of other unions refused to cross the picket lines. BMWE members at BNSF were striking to prevent the company from changing the seniority districts and the way in which workers gain seniority in a new position. These changes would have led to track maintenance workers having to travel longer distances away from home to work.

Amy Husk is a member of the UTU at Conrail's Oak Island yard. UTU members Emily Fitzsimmons in Pittsburgh, Sarah Ullman in Boston, and Stu Singer in Washington, D.C., contributed to this article.  
 
 
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