Business: The Week the Trains Stopped

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The dispute between B.R.A.C. and N & W that touched off last week's walkouts has been going on since 1976, when the union first asked for two changes in its contract. One demand called for the line to permit the unionization of about 1,000 clerical workers listed as supervisory help. B.R.A.C.'s Kroll (who started out as an IBM machine operator with the old Pennsylvania Railroad, and is at 42 the youngest of the 35 members of the AFLCIO's ruling executive council) calls these jobs "the crown jewels" because, he claims, most of them are filled by family and friends of management. B.R.A.C. also wants the job protection clause in its contract strengthened to prevent layoffs of members whose tasks are eliminated or downgraded because of automation.

The issues first were taken before the National Mediation Board. After more than a year and a half of negotiations, the union failed to make much headway against N&W's crusty management. With all the mediation steps exhausted, B.R.A.C. struck N&W on July 10.

Even after the strike began, N&W, which is a major coal hauler and operates from North Carolina to upstate New York and as far west as Missouri, was managing to move some freight with supervisory personnel and gave no hint that it was ready to bend to union demands. One reason for the line's tough attitude, the union decided, was that its freight shipments were helped by "interchanging" equipment, employees and services (including freight contracts) with other railroads. Moreover, N&W was receiving $800,000 a day from a mutual aid fund to which 73 other railroads contribute in support of a struck line.

In late July an increasingly frustrated B.R.A.C. began sporadically to picket other lines to protest the interchanges and the financial assistance plan. The railroads went to court jointly and had the union enjoined from picketing against the mutual aid pact, pending a review of the case by Chief Justice Warren Burger. The strike went national last week when B.R.A.C. pickets appeared in switching yards across the country protesting the interchanges. More than a dozen railroads rushed to get injunctions barring shutdowns on the interchange issue. Then, just as the picketing began to slacken, Justice Burger ruled in effect that the union had a right to strike over the mutual aid pact. With that, the walkout was on in earnest.

The disruptions that followed emphasized once again the crucial role of railroads, which carry about 47% of the nation's freight. For example, 60% of all coal shipments were slowed to some degree. The automakers, who use trains to bring in parts and ship assembled vehicles to market, also felt the effects quickly. General Motors laid off 6,700 workers; Ford furloughed 550 employees and warned that if the strike was not settled by the weekend, it would have to lay off 100,000 workers.

Rail officials reckoned that the brief strike cut shipments of perishable meat and vegetables in half. Midwest farmers working to ship newly harvested crops of soybeans, corn and other grains from elevator terminals were also beginning to hurt as the flow of freight cars slowed. Commuters from Washington to points west were forced to scramble for alternative means of transportation. Some of the worst disruptions occurred in Chicago, where 100,000 commuters were stranded.