WASHINGTON -- The Senate Commerce Committee on April 21 will consider the Obama nomination of UTU Illinois State Legislative Director Joe Szabo to be the next federal railroad administrator.
If the committee reports favorably on the nomination, it will move to the Senate floor for a vote.
The entire Senate must vote in favor of the nomination prior to Szabo taking the oath of office.
Organized labor is finding its voice and flexing some muscle in national transportation issues, writes John Boyd in the Journal of Commerce.
From nabbing high-profile regulatory jobs in the Obama administration to weighing in on high-stakes negotiations in Congress over new railroad laws, labor is clearly getting a seat at table and in some cases at the head of the table.
Not everything is going labors way, of course. Union hopes for a law making it easier to organize companies may be foundering, and Transportation Secretary Raymond LaHood is trying to cool a growing trade war with Mexico by reviving a cross-border trucking program opposed by the Teamsters union. Yet unions are seeing clear results from their heavy investment in money and manpower to expand the Democratic majority in Congress and elect Barack Obama as president.
Last month, Obama picked a former president and CEO of the Air Line Pilots Association, J. Randolph Babbitt, to head the Federal Aviation Administration just as Congress and the administration are preparing for new legislation to set aviation priorities.
Obama earlier nominated United Transportation Unions Joseph C. Szabo to head the Federal Railroad Administration, an agency implementing a broad range of safety and rail financing programs. Szabo led the UTUs state legislative office in Illinois since 1996 and, since January, has helped at its Washington office.
The president also named Linda A. Puchala to the National Mediation Board that handles disputes in the rail and airline industries under the Railway Labor Act. Puchala is a current NMB mediator who once was president of the Association of Flight Attendants.
When the White House tapped Szabo to become the first labor official ever to head the agency that regulates rail safety and workplace issues, UTU International President Mike Futhey said it was a validation that this Obama administration is a friend of organized labor. Even before that, Vice President Joseph Biden and LaHood met with Futhey and other labor officials at an early March AFL-CIO conference in Miami. The UTU later said Futhey received encouragement the administration would deal with issues important to rail and bus workers.
As the president moves to fill key agency jobs, unions hope for more appointments, perhaps at the Maritime Administration or for the empty seat at the three-person Surface Transportation Board that oversees rail economic issues.
Meanwhile, labor unions are weighing in on laws and administration policy. To try to bridge the gap on the Mexican trucks issue, LaHood last week met jointly with top labor, trucking and safety watchdog officials.
After the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a new rail antitrust bill that could toughen the laws affecting rail mergers and service, Ed Rodzwicz, national president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, sent letters blasting the legislation to key members of Congress. BLET also opposed the bill last year, after getting a request from the railroads, but this year is different for several reasons, a union source said.
There is a greater chance the bill will pass this time, the source said. The union wants to avoid laws that might put more union jobs at risk during a recession, and BLET hopes for amicable bargaining when new multiyear contract talks start late this year.
Separately, UTUs Futhey publicly urged shippers and railroads to end their long simmering feud over service and price issues, and work with lawmakers to shape a rail competition bill that sets new rules for the industry and the STB. This quarrel is fracturing congressional support for railroads, and its continuation will only further erode the industrys ability to shift freight from the highways, he said.
Asked if UTU also sees bargaining table benefits from that stance, UTU spokesman Frank Wilner said labor might hope it could lead to informal talks this year even before contract demands can be offered in November, and perhaps an early accord next year without the acrimony that accompanied the last negotiations.
(The preceding article was published April 17, 2009, by the Journal of Commerce.)
