December 18, 2009: Just two months after the head of the BLET was arrested for taking a $20,000 bribe, some rail officials are trying to take away the Right to Vote for BLET officials.

Now BLET members are teaming up to protect their Right to Vote. They’ve launched a committee called BLET Members for Democracy.

They’re educating members about how the Right to Vote lets them hold top officials accountable.

Click here to download a flyer from BLET Members for Democracy.

Click here to download “Questions and Answers About the Right to Vote.”

Click here to download a petition members can sign to protect the Right to Vote.

Want to find out more? Email the new committee at info [at] bletmembersfordemocracy.org

What do you think? Click here to send your comments and suggestions to Teamsters for a Democratic Union.

December 4, 2009. Just two months after the national president of the BLET was arrested for taking a $20,000 bribe, some officials have proposed taking away members’ right to vote for their top officers.

On Dec. 1, Div. 98 President Roy Helm wrote to all local divisions, asking them to approve an initiative that would take away the right to vote for the top officers of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) in the IBT. Click here to read Helm’s letter.

BLET members won the Right to Vote in a referendum vote in 2006.

The first direct election of BLET officers is scheduled for Fall 2010.

On Oct. 12, BLET President Ed Rodzwicz was arrested at his home for taking a $20,000 bribe in October.

Rodzwicz allegedly solicited the bribe from an attorney in exchange for letting the attorney remain on the union’s list of designated legal counsel for injury cases.

Rodzwicz resigned on Nov. 20. Paul Sorrow is the new president of the union.

Rodzwicz is the second BLET president in a row to leave in disgrace. In 2007, President Don Hahs was caught embezzling tens of thousands of dollars from the union, and was removed from office.

Earlier this year, the Independent Review Board (IRB) charged BLET Vice President Rick Radek with embezzlement, too. Radek resigned and agreed to pay the money back.

Rodzwicz, Hahs, and Radek were all elected to high office in 2006 by a vote of the convention delegates—not a direct election.

That’s the system Helm and other officials want to bring back.

In his letter to other officers, Helm says: “Since the vast majority of people in most societies don’t have the time or the inclination to become and remain informed and involved, those societies have developed representative democracy, like our federal, state, and local governments, and like the BLET and the labor movement, as a whole.”

Newsflash to Helms: in the United States, we get to vote for our representatives and the president.

Members will have a chance to stop this proposal. First, it must be approved by division meetings representing 25 percent of the BLET membership.

If it makes it past that hurdle, every member of the BLET will be mailed a ballot to vote on the proposal.

Rodzwicz and Hahs always opposed the Right to Vote. No wonder.

We believe the Right to Vote is the best protection against corruption in our union.

The vast majority of BLET officers are honest and hard-working. But some corrupt officers at the national level have disgraced our union by stealing the members’ money.

“Do some officials think we’re too stupid to vote?” asked Hugh Sawyer from Division 316 in Atlanta. “One-person, one-vote works for every other election in the United States. Why not for the BLET?”

Now it’s up to members to mobilize to protect this hard-earned right—and to rid their union of corruption.

Click here to download the letter from Helm.

What do you think? Click here to contact TDU’s network in rail and sign-up for email updates.

December 3, 2009: About 1,700 locomotive engineers ended their strike against the Canadian National Railway on Wednesday after reaching a settlement. The walkout, which began Saturday, had disrupted shipping throughout Canada. The government introduced back-to-work legislation on Monday. On Tuesday, Canadian National withdrew its demand to raise the minimum number of miles engineers must cover each month.

November 30, 2009: On Saturday, Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC)-represented locomotive engineers walked off the job at CN. Members of the union, which represents 1,700 CN engineers, have worked without an agreement since Dec. 31, 2008, and the parties have tried to negotiate a contract the past 14 months.

On Friday, CN announced that contract talks had broken off and the Class I anticipated a strike. TCRC had issued a 72-hour strike notice earlier in the week.

Read the full article from ProgressiveRailroading.com

Novemeber 30, 2009: Canada’s labor minister plans to offer legislation to force an end to the two-day-old strike against Canadian National Railway by locomotive engineers.

Labor Minister Rona Ambrose was expected to put that measure before the House of Commons Nov. 30, reportedly describing the strike as a threat to Canada’s efforts to recover from the past year’s deep recession.

Click here to read more at The Journal of Commerce.

November 20, 2009: Ed Rodzwicz, the President of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen of the IBT, stepped down today after he was arrested last month for taking a $20,000 bribe.

Rodzwicz allegedly solicited a $20,000 bribe for an attorney in exchange for letting the attorney remain on the union’s list of designated legal counsel for injury cases. He was arrested on Oct. 12.

Rodzwicz became president of the BLET after Don Hahs embezzled tens of thousands of dollars from the union. Hahs was caught in 2007.

Paul Sorrow is the new president of the BLET—at least until next year. That’s when members will have a chance to elect new national leadership for the BLET in the rail union’s first-ever direct election for top officers.

What do you think? Click here to send your comments to TDU.

November 3. 2009: Berkshire Hathaway Inc., controlled by billionaire Warren Buffett, said Tuesday it will buy freight railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. for $100 a share, in a transaction worth about $44 billion.

Berkshire Hathaway, which has trucking and other transportation interests, already owned about a 22% stake in BNSF and said it will split its stock 50-to-1 as part of the deal.

Click here to read more at Transport Topics.

The chairwoman of the National Mediation Board has sharply criticized the federal agency's proposal to change a decades-old election rule that would make it easier for airline and railway employees to unionize, exposing a sharp rift at the agency's three-person board.

In a letter sent to more than a dozen Republican senators Monday, NMB Chairwoman Elizabeth Dougherty said the process by which the proposal was drafted by her two colleagues is "flawed," and she questioned whether the agency had the authority to make such a rule change.

Click here to read more at The Wall Street Journal.

October 16, 2009: The president of a national locomotive engineers union based in Cleveland has been placed on leave after being arrested on federal charges that he accepted $20,000 in bribes from a lawyer who wanted to keep representing injured members.

Edward Rodzwicz, president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, which has about 55,000 members, has been on leave since Thursday, according to the union's Web site.

Union spokesman John Bentley declined to say whether Rodzwicz would be paid during his leave. Leigh Strope, a spokeswoman for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in Washington, D.C., the national umbrella group to which the BLET belongs, also declined to comment.

Read the full story from the Cleveland Plain-Dealer.

UPDATE October 16, 2009: Ed Rodzwicz has taken a leave of absence from his union post after being arrested for accepting a $20,000 bribe.

BLET First Vice President Paul T. Sorrow will be the acting BLET President.

Rodzwicz made $204,757 in salaries from the BLET and the IBT in 2008.

October 14, 2009: Edward Rodzwicz, President of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen division of the IBT, was arrested on October 12 on charges of bribery.

Rodzwicz allegedly solicited a $20,000 bribe for an attorney in exchange for letting the attorney remain on the union’s list of designated legal counsel for injury cases.

The BLET represents railway engineers and conductors.

Rodzwicz became president of the BLET after Don Hahs embezzled tens of thousands of dollars from the union. Hahs was caught in 2007.

Earlier this year, the Independent Review Board charged BLET VP Rick Radek with embezzling members’ money, too.

If convicted, Rodzwicz could go to jail for 15 years and pay fines up to half a million dollars.

A Cure for Corruption

Luckily, BLET members have a cure for the corruption at the top of their union: the Right to Vote.

In 2006, BLET members voted for direct election of their top union officers.

Ever since then, many top BLET officials have been pushing to take away that right. No wonder. Too many officers have been treating the union like a personal piggy-bank.

BLET members will get their first chance to vote for the head of their union next year.

Read more. Click here to read the story from the Associated Press.

What do you think? Click here to send your comments to Teamsters for a Democratic Union.