BY KAY SEDAM
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - A strike by railroad maintenance
workers that began at 6:00 a.m. August 17 stopped as many
as 400 freight trains dead in their tracks along a CSX
Transportation route through 10 states.
Ten hours later, U.S. district judge William Terrell Hodges in Jacksonville, Florida, granted CSX a temporary restraining order until an August 28 hearing for an injunction to prevent a continued work stoppage.
Workers walked off the job in protest over supervisors performing maintenance work and seniority issues. The strike was effective in shutting down the railroad after members of other rail unions honored the picket lines of the 1,200-member Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Union.
The union struck the portion of CSX that was formerly the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. These lines carry mostly coal and auto parts.
Spirits among train crews ran high as support for the maintenance workers grew and workers refused to cross the picket lines. Even those engineers and switchmen who were stuck in the yard already on duty and forced to finish out their shift went out to join the picket line. Several engineer and conductor trainees who were called in to work also refused to cross the line and instead joined in.
Kay Sedam is a member of United Transportation Union Local 847 at CSX in Birmingham.