Untracked Again

The second nationwide rail strike in six months ran too long last week (40 hours) to be called merely an inconvenience but not long enough to be remembered as a crisis. Among those hurt by the walkout were hundreds of thousands of metropolitan commuters who jammed buses and highways to get to their jobs, some automakers and other manufacturers, who began furloughing employees, and U.S. Congressmen, many of whom had to cut short their all-too-customary long weekends to get the trains moving again. They rushed through the sixth bill in the past four years to head off national rail strikes. Certainly not the least discommoded victims were 18 Ringling Bros, and Barnum & Bailey circus elephants, which were marched 13 miles from South Kearny, N.J., through the Lincoln Tunnel and into Manhattan for a scheduled performance.

Catch-Up. All could blame their immediate troubles on the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, a willful band of 13,000 men in an industry of half a million. The signalmen, who earn an average $3.87 per hour, walked out over a pay demand that would bring them a 55% wage increase in 36 months--better than one-third more than the package most other rail brotherhoods have accepted. Railroad managers argued that a "leapfrog" settlement with the signalmen would only produce new catchup demands from other unions.

The strike was effective because all the rail unions observed the picket lines of the tiny minority. Congress ended it by voting to give the signalmen an immediate pay boost averaging 131%, some of it retroactive to Jan. 1, 1970. But after the legislated "cooling-off" period expires next Oct. 1, the signalmen can strike again.

They were free to produce last week's tie-up only because Congress and the Administration have meekly refused to formulate a clear-cut rail-labor policy. Behind each of the many railroad "crises" of the past few years has been the Federal Government's failure to decide whether a coast-to-coast railroad strike constitutes a national emergency. If it does not, then Congress should allow railroad labor and management, like those in any other industry, to use their ultimate weapons, the strike and the lockout, without federal interruption. If it does, then the Government should devise a plan that guarantees settlements without the threat of a full shutdown.

Whiplash. Both President Nixon and members of Congress have made proposals that would accomplish the latter, but none has worked hard for actual passage. The Administration plan, which is acceptable to railroad management and violently opposed by the unions, would provide for a three-man board to choose between the final offers made by both sides. The Democrats' Williams-Staggers bill would allow unions to strike individual railroads. But rail executives fear that under the plan unions would hit wealthy lines for high settlements that hard-up lines then would be whiplashed into meeting. A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany strongly favors the Democrats' plan, but he has also become receptive to another solution. Says Meany: "Either pass the Williams-Staggers bill or nationalize the railroads."

The outlook for real progress is dim because many political leaders do not want to take a firm stand on a messy labor-management controversy until after the 1972 election. The trains' next stop, like the last several, promises to be midway between the points of inconvenience and crisis, and well short of the national interest.

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