Teamsters object to proposed CP-NS merger

The Teamsters Rail Conference announced this week that it is "strongly" opposed to Canadian Pacific's proposed takeover of Norfolk Southern Corp.

The conference represents more than 70,000 active railroad workers whose constituent unions are the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) and the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division (BMWED). It is the latest labor organization to voice opposition to the proposed Class I merger.

In a Jan. 18 letter from Rail Conference President Dennis Pierce to the Surface Transportation Board, the group registered its opposition to the "forced takeover attempt" of NS by CP.

The merger would trigger a round of additional Class I mergers, which would eventually result in just two transcontinental railroads, Pierce wrote in the letter. That would not be "in the best interests of our members, U.S. shippers or the public," he said.

Such a situation would lead to a "death spiral" of job cuts and deferred plant and equipment maintenance throughout the industry. That, in turn, which would create a similar crisis that crippled rail service in the Northwest and Midwest in the 1960s through late 1970s, the letter stated.

A full PDF of the letter is available.