Fall 2002
Volume 109 - No. 3
Fall 2002
Volume 109 - No. 3
President's Message
My First Year
A look back on my first year as International President
This issue marks my first year as the International President of the
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. It has been an interesting, hectic
and rewarding time for me. It has also been a time of challenges for this
organization.
One year ago, I promised to dedicate this organization to the service of its members. This is the most important goal of my administration and we are well on our way to achieving it. All of our actions in the past year have been taken with member service in mind.
First and foremost on our "to-do" list is the on-going national negotiations. We are still working to get the membership the best deal that we possibly can. We have met with the National Carriers Conference Committee several times, but the deals reached by other labor organizations have made our path more difficult. Our goal remains to get you, the membership, the best deal possible. I can assure you that I will keep working until this goal is achieved.
A year ago, we could only begin to imagine the problems that were going to arise from the agreement reached between the carriers and the UTU over the issue of remote control. This agreement and the resulting consequences have been devastating for the safety and livelihood of our members. But we are fighting back. In our opinion, the practices instituted by the Federal Railroad Administration for the use of remote control are patently unsafe. We believe there is too little training and too little attention being given to safety for this practice to continue. Locomotive engineers are the most qualified people to run this equipment and we are fighting to make sure this happens.
While work is continuing at an uphill pace on those two issues, two more issues have been going well for the BLE. First is our possible merger or affiliation with the Teamsters. We are hard at work and it should come to you for a vote in the next several months. In the meantime, the Teamsters have been a great help to us in organizing and in legislative efforts. The membership will have a great amount of input into the process and the final decision will be in your hands.
The Teamsters can help to provide us with more influence, which in turn can help us to provide our members with more services. However, the membership will make the ultimate decision and we will continue to work to provide representation in the same manner that we have for the past 139 years.
The second issue that has gone well for the BLE in recent months is our fight to preserve the craft of locomotive engineer before the National Mediation Board. We achieved a big victory this summer before the NMB on the Kansas City Southern. This was not only a victory for the BLE, it was a victory for all of rail labor in preserving the historic operating crafts. In a perfect world, this victory would stop the UTU's campaign to destroy the BLE in its tracks, however, this is not a perfect world.
Another one of our goals this year - one which is a goal of most labor organizations - was to provide a voice for as many workers as possible. We continued our efforts to organize the unorganized workers in the U.S. and Canada. This year, the BLE has kept on track with these efforts with several organizing victories, including the Indiana Southern Railroad and the Meridian Southern Railroad. We plan to continue our aggressive organizing efforts in order to make sure that all workers can speak with a collective voice at their workplace.
The past year has been a busy one for me. I have learned a lot about the strength of this organization - its members. We are a strong organization, even 139 years after our founding, but the decisions that we make today and in the coming years will have a profound effect on the next 139 years. I can promise you that every decision I have made, and will make in the future, has been in the best interests of the people who make this organization what it is - the members.
© 2002 Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers