The Railroad Cliffhanger

THE nation, Secretary of Labor George Shultz said last week, cannot stand for a coast-to-coast rail shutdown. Over the weekend, the U.S. came within an inch of just that disaster, and the threat, though momentarily averted, remains.

Ignoring a Labor Department plea for a seven-day delay, four shopcraft unions culminated more than a year of stop-and-go negotiations by striking the sprawling Union Pacific Railroad. Almost immediately, the railroads retaliated. The Penn Central, which daily serves nearly 140,000 commuters, announced that it would halt all its operations. The rest of the 128 lines involved in the dispute threatened to follow suit, and the U.S. suddenly faced the first nationwide railroad lockout in its history.

Pointing to the legality of their strike against the Union Pacific, labor leaders decried the lockout. "I think that's illegal as hell," said William Winpisinger, chief union negotiator. Whether or not it was, the lockout and the strike were short-lived. After hearing arguments by both sides, U.S. District Judge John Sirica issued a temporary restraining order in Washington barring both the lockout and the walkout that had prompted it.

The Snag. But nothing basic in the dispute has been solved. The four unions --the Machinists, Electricians, Boilermakers and Sheet Metal Workers--have been negotiating fruitlessly with the railroads since December 1968. The talks dragged on through last summer, and an October strike was avoided only when President Nixon, exercising his authority under the 1926 Railway Labor Act, appointed a special mediation panel and ordered a 60-day cooling-off period. For a while, the bargaining seemed productive. Then the unions turned down a settlement offer.

The snag was jurisdictional, not financial. After agreeing that none would accept a settlement unless all did, three of the unions voted last month to accept an industry package that included wage increases of 680 an hour over a two-year period for skilled mechanics. But the 6,000-member Sheet Metal Workers objected to a provision for limited crossing of craft lines to permit incidental work at repair locations by whatever mechanics were available. Generally lower-skilled than members of the other unions, they feared that this rule could further reduce their importance. The union rejected the offer, and the others had to go along.

The four, legally free to strike since Dec. 3, waited until negotiations collapsed last week. Then they announced that they would strike no more than three lines. They chose their first target carefully. Union Pacific is one of the nation's most profitable railroads. Not unexpectedly, the railroads condemned the strike against Union Pacific as an attempt to "whipsaw" them. "The purpose of this union tactic," said Rail Spokesman John Hiltz Jr., "is to force inequitable settlements on one or a few carriers at a time and then extend the process to other victims."

The Precedents. The shutdown would have been ruinous. The participating railroads employ 47,000 union workers earning $10 million a day, haul 850,000 passengers and have a freight capacity of 2,000,000 ton-miles daily. A work stoppage could cost the nation untold millions in lost wages and shipments of vital goods, including defense materials and food, and could force the temporary shutdown of some businesses that depend upon regular deliveries of raw materials.

Judge Sirica's order gives the Government ten days to find a solution to the problem. It may need every bit of this time. The President has exhausted his executive authority, and must turn to Congress if the Government is to intervene. There is no lack of precedent for such an action. In 1963, Capitol Hill averted a national rail strike at the eleventh hour by adopting a resolution calling for a 180-day moratorium and compulsory arbitration. In 1967, when 95% of the U.S. rail mileage was shut down during a two-day strike, Congress gave President Lyndon Johnson legislation that ultimately imposed a wage settlement. This week the Nixon Administration is expected to seek legislative relief that could again prevent paralysis of the railroads.

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