Our stories: Jim Teague on why we need a right to a job amendment

Will our 28th Amendment Campaign really make sense to the average working person? For reassurance, we talked to railworker Jim Teague about jobs, joblessness, corporate power, and our campaign.

"I'm legislative director of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees in Massachusetts, and I drive spikes for a living for Amtrak part-time. I spend 40 days a year doing legislative work, and the rest of the time I'm a track foreman, surfacing the track.

Rail labor in total has lost almost 50 percent of its jobs in the past 15 years. And this is during a time when the carriers are making major profits, when productivity is up every year. In the 1980s productivity was up over 97 percent in the rail industry, and yet jobs were down during that period 40 percent. And as for wages, they hold us in mediation for years and we just lose money to inflation. And then in the end they give us a 10 percent increase, while we've lost 20 percent. And all of this is going on at the same time that they're slashing jobs. Where is the justice?

Corporations ask workers for a commitment, you know? I think the commitment extends beyond eight hours work for eight hours pay. Where is the social responsibility of the corporation? I personally have no problem with profits, but if the corporation is profiting, then doesn't it owe something to those workers who have helped make it profitable?

Our union has had to work through the deregulation of the railroads. And what deregulation meant was the slashing and burning of jobs. They cut off the rails to different communities -- there are communities that can't even get freight service anymore.

Across the country these days, railroads are operating on what they call a deferred maintenance service -- they put the repairs off. I was working with another foreman a few years ago making sure that the track was in compliance with the safety standards. It was the first time I'd been out there patrolling in years, and I was finding all these defects. But the track foreman, who could go to jail for not turning in these defects, he limit the number that I could put on the report because he doesn't have the manpower to fix it. Here I am at Amtrak, which is cutting the workforce for maintenance and putting severe limits on hiring, and I'm having a track foreman telling me, 'Don't write all those up.'

[Photo of BMWE member William T "Bo" Scott by © Jim West, Impact Visuals]

I represent a lot of guys on the freight lines up here. And I know for a fact that they're working for profitable freight carriers who are not keeping these guys around to do the minimum necessary to meet the standards that have been set. Their productivity is increasing, their profits are increasing, their car miles and tonnage miles are increasing, and yet come November, they start sending people home, and God forbid they should bring them back a week too early. You know, they plan layoffs in the rail industry around the holiday.

And so a campaign for a constitutional right to a job I agree with, especially if it extends to private industry. Because I think private industry should be forced, forced into a situation of justifying its cuts. And I think Congress is not going to require private industry to do that shy of a Constitutional amendment, because it would step on too many corporate toes. But if they had to do it, and they had to figure out a way to budget it, they'd find some way of forcing American industry to address the problem.

If my members see this as a campaign to make Washington guarantee a job, I don't know how they would view it. But if they see it as part of a larger campaign to make Washington involve itself in the employment of individuals, then I think you'd be preaching to the converted in the BMWE.

About 20 years ago, during the 1975 recession, they started the CETA program [the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act]. I had had about a year of service on the railroad at that time, and I and a number of other workers were furloughed. The federal government and the cities came to the railroad and said, 'We want to put some people to work on the railroad, cleaning up the rights of way and stuff.' And the railroad said at the time, 'Well, the first thing we have to do is call our unionized workers back to work.' And what the government did was guarantee the first $10,000 of salary to each guy the railroad put back to work. And in addition it turned out that we hired a number of people off the unemployment rolls that year, with the same protections that I had. They had to join the union, they had all the same benefits, they could accumulate seniority. And a large number of those people are still on the job now. They're good, solid employees.

And so I don't see why anybody who wants a job shouldn't have a good job at a good wage. Corporate America can afford to put people back to work. This country can guarantee so much -- so much! -- to business, and yet it can't guarantee its workers a job at living wage. And that's insane."

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