2019 Round of Bargaining

Sisters and Brothers, Some of you have already raised questions about how we are going to proceed with the 2019 round of bargaining. As you know, none of us were pleased with how this round of bargaining turned out, with the “operating unions” basically negotiating this agreement and the unions in our coalition not having much say at all on it. So the next round we hope to proceed in a different direction. We believe in “strength in numbers.” As such, we believe we are better off in a coalition as opposed to negotiating alone. However, that strength only comes if you have the “right” numbers. If you remember the last round of bargaining, it was the UTU, on their own, which reached agreement first with the railroads. The railroads tried to pass that off as a “pattern” agreement, but with only the UTU on board, about 25% of the unionized workforce, the numbers were limited. All of the other rail labor organizations, including the BLET, stuck together as a loose knit coalition and took our case to a PEB, before which we were successful in arguing that a pattern had NOT been set. I have already begun discussions with some of the other rail labor organizations about proceeding in a different manner. If you’d like to learn the details of this, please feel free to give me a call. Don’t forget, we are in a completely different situation today than we were in then - the situation is completely reversed!. The railroads now have 90% of their unionized workforce under agreement, a definite pattern! Fraternally, Bill Bohne, Jr. Director - IBEW Railroad Department 202-728-6016