Unions released from Mediation in national negotiations

Brothers and Sisters,

As you all know our National Agreement negotiations have been ongoing now for over two years with the latest round being mediation. We received news yesterday that the National Mediation Board has released all the unions from the mediation step. That is fantastic news as things will start to move rather quickly.

Technically what the NMB did is called a Proffer of Arbitration. In other words, we release you from mediation and offer you Arbitration. All the unions are expected to turn down the arbitration step as it is binding, meaning that whatever the arbitrator decides is what we would get. That happened in 1985 with the BLE and it didn't turn out so well. Instead, this will start a thirty-day cooling-off period after which either side can avail themselves of self-help. That being a strike on the union side or a lockout on the carrier's side. Typically the President will step in just prior to the expiration of that thirty days and appoint a Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) to avoid a shutdown of the railroads.

The PEB will have thirty days to recommend an agreement. This recommendation is non-binding in that either side can refuse the recommendation. If that happens, another thirty-day cooling-off period begins and self-help becomes available at the expiration of that time period. At that point, it would be up to the US Congress to step in, stop the self-help process and then create a binding agreement that would typically reflect what the PEB recommended.

We must prepare for the potential of a strike. Expect an electronic ballot from the BLET in the coming weeks asking for authority to strike should it come to that. It is imperative that your contact information is correct with the union. If you're a BLET member, please go to the new website at www.ble-t.org to register and double-check your personal information.

Probably today you'll see a newsflash on the BLET website that will include the information described above as well as detailed information regarding what each side of the table is asking for. A couple of main points would be the rate of pay, we're asking for a 36% increase while the railroads are stuck at 14%. The carriers want to increase our contribution to healthcare while we've asked for it to remain the same in terms of cost but an increase in coverage for Autism which apparently our policy severely lacks. Check the website for more details.

We'll try to keep everyone updated as this evolves over the next few weeks but regardless, we should expect a resolution to our contract within 90-120 days!