...All the Livelong Day

They're back workin'on the railroad after a four-day strike

In Chicago, some 160,000 commuters who normally ride the train to work suddenly were forced to take to the highways in cars and buses, producing traffic jams up to 17 miles long. In St. Louis, General Motors shut down its truck plant and laid off 2,350 workers after running out of parts usually delivered by rail. And in Maine, the Acton Corp., the largest purveyor of brown eggs in the country, narrowly averted a foul-up when it sent five trucks to bring in 100 tons of corn, thereby ensuring that its 4 million DeKalb hens would not miss dinner after all.

In such ways was the country affected last week when 26,000 members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers walked off their jobs. The strike, which began one minute after midnight on Sunday, lasted only four days. By its second day Ronald Reagan had introduced emergency legislation in Congress ordering the engineers to accept a new contract and report back to work; the House and Senate overwhelmingly approved the resolution during the next two days. "It's not pleasant to bring forth legislation that affects the right to strike," said Democratic Congressman John Dingell of Michigan chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "But the economic situation in the country leaves little alternative." Secretary of Transportation Drew Lewis had predicted that the strike would cost the nation's economy $80 million a day, but it appeared that the walkout actually inflicted far less damage.

At the heart of the dispute was the insistence of the engineers on preserving their traditional 15% to 20% pay advantage over other railworkers. Negotiations for a new contract for all 13 railway unions began in August 1981; although eleven of the 13 unions agreed on the terms, the talks broke down last July. Reagan invoked a 60-day cooling-off period and appointed a panel to make recommendations. In August the board suggested that the two holdout unions accept the 28.8% wage hike over 39 months already agreed to by the other unions, along with a no-strike pledge. The twelfth union holdout relented, but the engineers continued to balk at the lack of a guaranteed wage differential. When the cooling-off period ended on Sept. 19, the engineers walked out.

The union must now accept the 28.8% pay hike, which will boost the annual earnings of each engineer to more than $47,000 by January 1984. The Brotherhood is also prohibited from striking until July 1,1984, when the current contract expires.

A generation ago, a national rail strike might have paralyzed the country. Last week's walkout, however, was no crippler: both the sluggish economy and the diminishing role of rail transport blunted its impact. In the Northeast, service was relatively unaffected since the region's major line, Conrail, was not struck by the engineers. The Southern and the Family Lines systems, the two major railroads in the South, drafted supervisors and other skilled personnel to operate the trains, and most major runs were made.

Hardest hit was the Midwest, hub of the nation's railroad wheel. Burlington Northern, whose headquarters is in St. Paul, is the country's largest rail system, with 800 trains, but it was running fewer than 200. Only twelve of the 46 Amtrak trains that chug out of Chicago daily were operating, while Armco steel shut down eight coal mines in West Virginia, idling 1,400 workers.

By week's end the nation's rails were returning to normal, which was a mixed blessing. When the strike began, for example, the Spirit of California was in the middle of its run between Sacramento and Los Angeles. The train stopped abruptly in Oakland and discharged its passengers. Many travelers hopped on buses to complete their journey, but their fury soon abated: they pulled into Los Angeles a full hour before the tram had been scheduled to arrive in the first place.

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