Railway Organizing: How Labor Law Reform Helps Us

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) presents a challenge to private sector workers who try to organize and collectively bargain. Yet we are subject to an entirely different set of rules and regulations for organizing. The Railway Labor Act (RLA) makes it even harder for workers trying to form a union even more difficult than for workers covered by the NLRA.

The RLA requires that in order to form a union, there must be support from a majority among all eligible company employees—not just those who turnout to vote. This requirement is a higher threshold than the NLRA—and even general U.S. election law—both of which require majority support from only those who actually vote in an election. Imagine if in order to win the presidency, Barack Obama or John McCain needed the votes of a majority of all eligible American citizens rather than just voters or those voting that day.

The Railway Labor Act requires that a majority of a company's employees at ALL company locations must vote for the union—not just those at any one location. This requires workers to reach out across the country if they are covered by a nationwide company.

The only way to expand our reach in trhe rail industry, especiually among short line rails, is by reforming labor law. We do not have the support yet, however, by passing the Employee Free Choice Act and by instituting legislation like universal health care, the stepping stone will be there to finally bring some true labor law reform to our industry.

Another Unit Raided By the BLET

This came in from the comments section:

It has been officially announced by the National Mediation Board in Washington DC that UTU has once again lost another representation election.

The campaign on a railroad property called ICE involved 300 railroad workers who decided enough with the Futhey regime. The vote ended with 186 in favor of the BLET 80 for the UTU.
According to the BLET, the theme of the campaign was that the UTU is broke and divided.

This extensive campaign by the UTU was led by several of Futhey's friends and supporters. Good news is that one of Futhey's appointees maintained his best score for video golf at the Bettendorf Holiday Inn.

We Are ALL Under Attack

It does not matter where you stand in the battle for the future of our union, because while our union may have its internal differences, we are all under attack from our mutual enemies.

Yesterday, the Employee Free Choice Act was introduced. While the bill will level the playing field for workers by removing the barriers to organizing for millions of Americans, corporate America, the beltway pundits, and lobbyists are doing everything to stop the legislation in its tracks.

We at the Real UTU urge everyone, no matter who you are, to write your Senators and Congressmen about this bill. Let them know who it is that made the Democratic Party what it is and who stood by them through the good and the bad. Now, more than ever America needs a strong labor movement, especially during these economic rough times.

While we fight for the future of our union, we cannot let the attacks of those whose intend to destroy us go unchallenged.

An Injury To One Is Not Their Problem

The people at "Sink Our Union" have been so obsessed with carrying water for their King, Mike Futhey, that they seem to have forgotten the big picture.

Visiting their site is like a visit into the twilight zone, where current events and economic realities we as union members face take a back seat. Instead, we're treated to an "Alice In Wonderland" World where overturning the voting intent of thousands of UTU members seems to be an obsession that overcomes all else.

Try to find talk about the recession and its effect on rail workers. Maybe you can try to dig up even just the slightest bit of discussion about the Employee Free Choice Act. Try it and you'll come up with nothing. Two months ago, when the labor movement, in particular the UAW, was under attack by conservative right wing Republicans, not a word in defense of our brothers and sisters in the auto industry was mentioned.

No, instead the discussion on that site is completely dominated by the whims of the four BLET plaintiffs and the dictates of their king, Mike Futhey.

Of course, being BLET members who were in leadership positions within their union, it comes as no surprise these same people remain the sole backers of people like Dan Boren (D-OK) from within the labor movement. In case you're wondering, Dan Boren, a Democrat from Oklahoma, has been a vocal opponent of organized labor and even took to the stage today at a Chamber of Commerce meeting to blast the labor movement.

Who among his top backers is the only union to support him? You guessed it. The BLET.

The same union the UTU plaintiffs come from and want to merge us into.

Talk about being a group of out of touch, "useful idiots."

Maybe, we are being too hard on them. Maybe, when it comes to the brand of unionism practiced by the BLET plaintiffs, the long cherish labor value of "an "injury to one, is an inury to all" doesn't really seem to matter.

Major Victory: Sixth Circuit to Review Merger Injunction

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to hear arguments on April 21 in an appeal of the preliminary injunction halting implementation of the merger between the UTU and the SMWIA.
The preliminary injunction was issued last June by Judge John R. Adams, a Bush appointee, who ruled that the merger could not be implemented pending conclusion of the case, including any appeals that might be accepted by any higher courts.

At issue is whether Judge Adams erred in siding with the UTU/BLET plaintiffs who joined forces with then UTU Vice President Futhey to block the merger.

While no charges have been filed against the UTU/BLET members or their co-conspirators for suing the UTU, 7 UTU Vice Presidents who intervened in support of the merger were charged with dual unionism and face a trial before the UTU Executive Board. Mike Futhey, now UTU President, testified against his own Vice Presidents on February 5th.

While attempts have been made to secure transcripts of the trial, the Futhey-controlled Executive Board has refused to make them available, even after promising Judge Adams they would do so in order to conduct a “fair” trial of the UTU Vice Presidents.

Stay tuned for more information on these breaking developments.

Irony

One minute, Ed Michael is claiming to be a rank and file member of the UTU. The next moment, he's continuing his failed campaign to be a member of the Teamsters International Executive Board.

All this while he and his allies continue their attempts to persecute the 7 UTU Vice Presidents who took a stand for the UTU membership.

And what brush is Ed Michael and his co-conspirators painting them with?

One that claims they are working for another union.

Now that is irony.

Will the Real Mike Futhey Please Stand Up?

While Mike Futhey was stating his support for the UTU-SMWIA merger, little did anyone know that he not only was secretly meeting with members of the BLET-Teamsters to file a lawsuit to stop the merger, but he was also the one who initiated the contact with them.

“I received a phone call from M.B. Futhey that resulted in a meeting Ed Michael and I had with him in Memphis . . ."
- Michael et. al plaintiff and member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (#4, page 8)

And now he is proclaiming that the union is spending millions in court costs, while he fails to let on that the UTU-SMWIA merger agreement already had a grievance procedure in place to protect both the UTU and SMWIA from spending member funds on unnecessary attorneys’ fees.




Mike Futhey has a gift. Besides being a railroader, his bio mentions his legal career. This explains two things. First, he must be a great attorney, given that he has no trouble taking opposite sides of the same issue. And second, his legal background explains why he would have no trouble spending millions of his union’s dollars to fight a court battle on behalf of a group of Teamster plaintiffs who he prodded into filing a lawsuit against the UTU in the first place.

Mike Futhey is trying to pull off one of the most devious tricks ever attempted in the history of our Union. Once he became UTU president, Futhey decided to jump in on both sides of the lawsuit against himself through his Teamster proxies - while planning to settle after taking over control of the defendent in the case. The UTU Vice Presidents, a majority of the UTU Board of Directors, stepped in to prevent that from happening, frustrating Futhey’s efforts to be king. Now we are where we are today, a sham trial brought about by a vindictive witch hunt and a load of members dues money that could have been saved if Futhey had gone in good faith and fought this merger through the arbitration process set up to save our hard earned dues money.

Chilling Dissent

The right of free expression is a central tenet of a free society. It is this right that the existence of the labor movement itself stems from – through workers expressing themselves through collective action in order to advance a better future for themselves.

During the course of the SMWIA-UTU merger, a group of plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the UTU seeking to impose a court-ordered injunction against the merger. During the course of these proceedings, no official from the UTU or SMWIA attempted to suppress these individuals’ rights to express themselves. To some there may have been a short term gain in doing so, but the affront to the fundamental right of every UTU and SMWIA member to free expression would be too great an affront to the rights of every UTU member and a detriment to the ability of each and every potential member of SMART to express themselves.

We learned later on, through court testimony, that these individuals were prodded to file their injunction UTU President Mike Futhey, then a UTU Vice President sitting on the union’s Executive Board. Futhey had many opportunities to voice opposition to the merger, from when he voted for it in June of 2007, to the UTU Convention where he campaigned a month later. During the six months leading up to the merger he never voiced any concerns he may have had about it but instead clandestinely worked with the individual plaintiffs (members of an outside union) seeking to put an end to a merger approved by an overwhelming majority of his members in August 2007.

Futhey’s aim, we later learned, was to prod the plaintiff’s into a lawsuit which he was planning to settle once he took office as UTU President on January 1, 2008. His plan would have worked flawlessly, if not for the fact that an overwhelmingly number of the members of the UTU Executive Board, 8 out of 10 members (not including Futhey) saw through this manipulation and challenged his grab at absolute power.

Rather than respect their rights as not only UTU members but also as elected representatives of his union’s membership, Futhey chose to have trumped up charges filed against each of these men. These charges were filed in an internal court comprised of appointees that were hand-picked by Futhey. Each of these men now facing trial shares an uncertain future with their personal and professional lives standing on the edge of ruin. All of this for speaking out against an attempt by a union President to overturn a the will of an overwhelming majority of his own membership. Rather than being portrayed as the heroes they are, Futhey has designed to sketch them as conniving villains, disloyal to his aims and a threat to his future ambitions.

Futhey’s actions are regrettable and have cast a pall over his union. He has sent a message that not only has the right to free expression within the UTU been erased, but he has chilled dissent unless it meets with his own aims.

Futhey’a attempt to defend his actions have resorted to scapegoating the SMWIA and the members of the UTU Executive Board. He now is trying to deflect attention from himself by assigning blame for the court costs his actions have cost his union to the people he has chosen as his adversaries. Futhey chose this route after having ignored an arbitration remedy already available to him through the SMART Merger Agreement – once designed to protect the treasuries of both the UTU and SMWIA by negating the need for costly litigation.

It is our hope that the UTU membership can salvage its great tradition and once again take its leadership role in the American labor movement by putting an end to this dangerous and costly dictatorship.

A Champion of the Rails Takes Center Stage

I don't know if anyone realizes this, but Joe Biden may very well be one of the best supporters of railroaders in government. He's Amtrak's biggest supporter, and can you imagine what a man with a soapbox aa big as his can do for us?

Biden commutes to work each day on Amtrak and has been a strong supporter of the beleaguered rail service. He is an original co-sponsor of the Amtrak Reauthorization Bill (National Defense Rail Act), S.104, introduced on January 7, 2003. Introducing an earlier version of the bill with Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-SC) on March 6, 2002, Biden stated, "For 30 years, I have witnessed Congress dangling a carrot in front of Amtrak's eyes, funding it just enough for it to limp along. And I'll tell you, this has to stop. Now is the time to commit politically and financially to a strong, safe, and efficient passenger rail system."

Biden has been particularly concerned with rail passenger security, and has, in the words of communications director Norm Kurz "worked furiously" to secure funding for Amtrak to upgrade its tunnels, hire more cops and bomb-sniffing dogs, build more fences, and add lighting to terminals.

From this site.

Breaking Labor News

Labor Movement Comes Together to File Complaint Against Wal-Mart
On August 14, the labor movement, joined by other worker rights and progressive groups, filed a formal complaint with the FEC demanding they look into Wal-Mart’s intimidation of workers. The complaint stems from a Wall Street Journal article that detailed the specific steps Wal-Mart took to encourage employees to vote against Sen. Obama because of his support of the Employee Free Choice Act.

“Wal-Mart has bullied its workers and managers for years. Now it wants to bully the political process, and the FEC should take Wal-Mart’s threats very seriously,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. “Wal-Mart has shown exactly why our nation needs the Employee Free Choice Act - - we must outlaw the kind of behavior for which Wal-Mart is famous and give workers a free and fair choice on whether to form a union.”

For more informatrion on what's going on with this campaign, visit our friends at Wake Up Wal-Mart.