Once again UTU General Chairman Randy Knutson is taking shots at our organization. When will it ever end? This time, he is spreading more untruths and misrepresentations of our organizations history and our current contract which is out for ratification. You really have to feel sorry for a man who is so desperate to shift blame onto others in order to make his own shortcomings seem less apparent.
Randy is angry because we were able to negotiate an agreement and he cant get a deal done. Its ironic however, because truth be known, he was offered a deal just before the recession hit. That deal would have actually guaranteed jobs to all trainmen for the rest of their lives! But Randy wouldnt take the deal and unfortunately nearly 2,700 trainmen are now unemployed because of him.
Now he has the gall to criticize our agreement while its out for ratification. What a union man. If his efforts were able to kill our deal, you have to wonder if he would cross our picket line if it got to that point. Has anyone ever seen another union leader of a labor organization turn on another fellow labor organization while their contract was out for ratification like Randy Knutson has on us? It has to be unprecedented. And what have we done to deserve this? Randy points to 2007 when we updated our scope rule securing our future. However, we had every right to do this and we needed to do that. We should not be blamed for this.
Randy wants people to believe that we sold the trainmens job with that agreement. Nothing could be further from the truth. Randy knows that better than most people. How many times did he say during the recent ebb and flow debacle that he started that the UTU owns complete jurisdiction over all matters pertaining to trainmen, including entrance into their craft. There is no dispute here. It is understood. It is also understood that he has the complete and total responsibility to secure and protect the future of the employees that he represents. Its not us who hold jurisdiction over them. We do not have a dog in that hunt and we cannot help him in that matter. Thats Randys job alone.
On the other hand, we always have and we always will continue to support a 2-man crew regardless of his belligerence toward us, but those in his committee should really take a hard look at what value he brings to them, and to labor in general in light of his irresponsible and ill advised recent behavior.
To address Knutsons misrepresentations below, first the CSX agreement only had 11% in GWIs after subtracting the 5% which was carried over from their 2007 agreement. In addition, Knutson missed the fact that we have rolled back the contract cycle by 6 months. Our previous contract cycles have run from July to July. If we had remained in that cycle, we would have received a 2% GWI in July of 2010, but we will receive a 1% GWI on January 1, 2010 because we are receiving the GWIs ½ a year early. He is correct that we did not reintroduce the Harris COLA into our contract. Why would we want to after we fought so hard in the last round to eliminate it? We had to use ½ our Harris COLAs to pay for the yearly increases in our health and welfare premium. Second, we have not said that the company is providing a 401K match, it is an employer contribution of ¼ of 1% of an engineers regular earnings plus profit sharing during the yearly measurement period. Obviously, we cannot include earnings when engineers may be cut back and working as trainmen because, as we have said, we do not have jurisdiction to enter into an agreement covering trainmens pay and Knutson would certainly raise hell if we tried. To Knutsons final point, we did only add a 6th week, but younger engineers should benefit from this more in the long run than older engineers. Many older engineers have already missed the value of the 6th week as they near retirement, but all of the younger engineers will enjoy the 6th week, each and every year after they have reached 25 years of service.
To sum things up, it is evident that Knutson has sour grapes, but he has crossed the line when he came out to publicly criticize our product. Its obviously more than he has brought to his members. If he is so sure that we have done a disservice than why doesnt he go get something better? Until then, I suggest that he keeps his nose out of our business and stop spreading lies for his political agenda.
I do not plan on spending anymore time addressing Randy Knutsons droll. So lets focus on what is important after this and see if we can get our agreement ratified as it should.
