The Week the Trains Stopped

How a little local dispute led to a ruckus on the rails in 42 states

Moving with the force of a runaway freight, a strike by railroad clerks swept the country last week and, before it ended, seriously snarled most of the nation's train traffic and threatened to derail much of the economy. If nothing else, the four-day ruckus showed just how dependent the U.S. still is on its rail system--and how quickly it can be disrupted by a single union.

The walkout by the 235,000-member Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks (B.R.A.C.) stemmed from a dispute by just one local against just one line, the Virginia-based Norfolk & Western Railway, which has been struck by the clerks for more than two months. But other B.R.A.C. locals, raising picket signs in sympathy, tied up operations at 74 lines in 42 states, idling up to 350,000 of the nation's half a million rail workers, stranding thousands of commuters and millions of tons of freight. President Carter stepped in after three days of chaos. Acting under the emergency provisions of the Railway Labor Act, he called for mandatory mediation of the dispute, which requires the clerks to return to work for a 60-day cooling-off period.

Snags immediately developed. B.R.A.C. Chief Fred Kroll refused to heed Carter's order until he got a court-backed guarantee that no reprisals would be taken against union members by the railroads. Then a U.S. district court in Washington postponed a decision on a rail industry call for a no-strike injunction against the union; the court questioned whether the Railway Act empowers the White House to halt a strike already in progress.

The atmosphere for an amicable settlement was further soured when N & W raised the possibility of sabotage in the derailment of 55 of its coal cars in Bluefield, W. Va.

Finally, acting on a request from the Justice Department, the court at week's end issued an order restraining the union from striking for ten days and barring the roads from taking retaliatory action against any participants in the walkout. At the end of ten days both sides will again appear before the court to discuss a preliminary injunction that would forbid the union from striking for the remainder of the 60-day cooling-off time. Citing "a victory against tremendous odds," Kroll jubilantly called off the B.R.A.C. pickets; trains across the country began to move again; and the strike was over almost as quickly as it began--at least for the next two months.

Following the provisions of the Railway Act, which was designed to prevent sudden, paralyzing rail shutdowns, the President appointed a fact-finding panel of three arbitrators to recommend terms of a settlement within 30 days. After that the Government will seek to prod both sides into an accord. If at the end of 60 days no agreement is reached, the union would be free to resume its strike. Under such circumstances, past Presidents have sought emergency legislation to avert another walkout. In 1971, for example, Congress imposed a settlement after a strike by railroad signalmen.

The dispute between B.R.A.C. and N & W that touched off last week's walkouts has been going on since 1976, when the union first asked for two changes in its contract. One demand called for the line to permit the unionization of about 1,000 clerical workers listed as supervisory help. B.R.A.C.'s Kroll (who started out as an IBM machine operator with the old Pennsylvania Railroad, and is at 42 the youngest of the 35 members of the AFLCIO's ruling executive council) calls these jobs "the crown jewels" because, he claims, most of them are filled by family and friends of management. B.R.A.C. also wants the job protection clause in its contract strengthened to prevent layoffs of members whose tasks are eliminated or downgraded because of automation.

The issues first were taken before the National Mediation Board. After more than a year and a half of negotiations, the union failed to make much headway against N&W's crusty management. With all the mediation steps exhausted, B.R.A.C. struck N&W on July 10.

Even after the strike began, N&W, which is a major coal hauler and operates from North Carolina to upstate New York and as far west as Missouri, was managing to move some freight with supervisory personnel and gave no hint that it was ready to bend to union demands. One reason for the line's tough attitude, the union decided, was that its freight shipments were helped by "interchanging" equipment, employees and services (including freight contracts) with other railroads. Moreover, N&W was receiving $800,000 a day from a mutual aid fund to which 73 other railroads contribute in support of a struck line.

In late July an increasingly frustrated B.R.A.C. began sporadically to picket other lines to protest the interchanges and the financial assistance plan. The railroads went to court jointly and had the union enjoined from picketing against the mutual aid pact, pending a review of the case by Chief Justice Warren Burger. The strike went national last week when B.R.A.C. pickets appeared in switching yards across the country protesting the interchanges. More than a dozen railroads rushed to get injunctions barring shutdowns on the interchange issue. Then, just as the picketing began to slacken, Justice Burger ruled in effect that the union had a right to strike over the mutual aid pact. With that, the walkout was on in earnest.

The disruptions that followed emphasized once again the crucial role of railroads, which carry about 47% of the nation's freight. For example, 60% of all coal shipments were slowed to some degree. The automakers, who use trains to bring in parts and ship assembled vehicles to market, also felt the effects quickly. General Motors laid off 6,700 workers; Ford furloughed 550 employees and warned that if the strike was not settled by the weekend, it would have to lay off 100,000 workers.

Rail officials reckoned that the brief strike cut shipments of perishable meat and vegetables in half. Midwest farmers working to ship newly harvested crops of soybeans, corn and other grains from elevator terminals were also beginning to hurt as the flow of freight cars slowed. Commuters from Washington to points west were forced to scramble for alternative means of transportation. Some of the worst disruptions occurred in Chicago, where 100,000 commuters were stranded.

Thus did a single 4,600-member local bring two-thirds of the nation's rail operations to a halt. And the disturbing fact remains that, unless the Administration can smooth over the bitter differences between B.R.A.C. and N&W, a replay of last week's turmoil on the rails remains a possibility.

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