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From the January-February 2008 issue of Union Democracy Review #171
Judge blocks Rail and Sheet Metal union merger
In late December 2007, a federal judge temporarily halted the planned January merger of the United Transportation Union and the Sheet Metal Workers International Association into a new entity to be called SMART (Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers.)
Suit to block the merger was brought by Roy Arnold, a UTU VP; John Hasenauer and Jim Eubanks, UTU local officers; and Ed Michael, a UTU member. They were represented in court by attorney Arthur Fox, an AUD Director.
In an earlier referendum, UTU members had approved the merger which had been negotiated and strongly pushed by outgoing UTU President Paul Thompson. But the complainants charged that the conduct of the referendum violated Title I of the LMRDA; that it was a "rushed quickie ratification referendum conducted without any meaningful discussion or debate"; that voters first learned about the proposed merger on July 17 when they received a mailing from the union instructing them to vote "yes" by August 7. They say that members were falsely assured that UTU autonomy would be preserved and its constitution transferred "intact" into the new SMART constitution. Only after the voting did it become clear that dozens of UTU constitutional provisions would be modified or eliminated.
A proposed SMART constitution, which would reveal these changes, has not yet been provided to the membership. The judge issued a temporary restraining order delaying the merger until he could consider these issues. The new UTU president and a majority of the UTU directors who had approved putting the merger agreed with the concerns about the validity of the referendum. The 85,000 member UTU represents railway and bus workers; the 150,000-member Sheet Metal union includes some railway, bus and shipyard employees. Ed Michael, one of the UTU complainants, is a leader of Railroad Workers United, a new cross-union caucus which calls on rail workers to "get back to basics- unity, solidarity, democracy, member education, rank-and-file action" both in their unions and across crafts.
[Corrected 2/17/2008 -- the original incorrectly described Railroad Workers United as calling for merger of all railroad unions in to a single union.]
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