RAILROADS: The Strike Everybody Lost

Along its 10,000 miles of mainline track raced Pennsylvania locomotives pulling empty cars to flake the rust off the rails. Safety crews hustled to inspect thousands of switches. After a twelve-day shutdown, the Pennsylvania Railroad—the nation’s biggest freight and passenger line—last week started to roll again.

As expected, Mike Quill, boss of the A.F.L.­C.I.O. Transport Workers Union, claimed a notable victory, saying: “The Pennsylvania Railroad has been dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century.” But the Pennsylvania’s Chairman James M. Symes was closer to the truth: “Quill finally made an agreement he could have had without a strike.” All the points in the settlement were offered by the road before the walkout; the argument was mainly over the wording.

On major points of dispute, the T.W.U. and the System Federation union, which also struck, demanded that the Pennsy 1) stop farming out its equipment for repair, 2) define all jobs in specific terms, and 3) take the pipe work away from the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way members and give it to members of the System Federation. The Pennsy agreed to define jobs, let its own shops repair the equipment if the cost is not appreciably higher. The jurisdictional dispute over the pipe work will be settled by an A.F.L.­C.I.O. arbitration committee.

In all, employees lost $14 million in wages by the unnecessary strike. The Pennsy lost about $40 million in revenues.