Strike on the Pennsy

At 12:05 one morning last week, blustery, bogtrotting Mike Quill, boss of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. Transport Workers Union, walked up to union pickets outside Philadelphia's 30th Street Station. Got to get some exercise, boys," he said in his carefully nurtured County Kerry brogue, and took a picket sign and began to march. Thus last week did Mike Quill's T.W.U., along with the System Federation union, shut down the Pennsylvania Railroad for the first time in its history. To newsmen Quill growled: "It took 114 years to close down this line, and it may take another 114 years to open it up again."

Although Quill's union and System Federation have only 20,000 Pennsylvania maintenance employees, the strike threw out of work another 52,000 Pennsylvania train men, engineers, conductors and office employees. Canceled out by the strike on the nation's biggest freight and passenger carrier were 722 daily passenger trains, and 870 freight trains, which run through 13 states.

First Casualty: the Commuter. Hit first by the strike were the 35,000 commuters who ride the Pennsylvania into New York City and Philadelphia. Thousands piled into private cars and buses to make their way to work through bumper-to-bumper traffic. Bus lines hustled to add extra runs. The rush produced some record traffic jams, especially in Manhattan. The strike also closed down Manhattan's Pennsylvania Station. This forced the Long Island Rail Road, which uses the station, to start runs from stations in Queens.

The basic dispute is the unions' demand to have exclusive rights to maintain and repair most of Pennsylvania's equipment, drastically limiting Pennsy's practice of farming out equipment for repair, and to take over the pipe work now done by the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way members. Pennsylvania's President Allen J. Greenough refused to allow this, contends that this is a union jurisdictional dispute that does not concern the management. The unions also want a clause that would rigidly define each job and assure union members that they would not be called upon to work outside the scope of the job description.

The dispute has dragged on for 38 months. Twice the issues were submitted to impartial arbitrators, including a fact-finding committee appointed by President Eisenhower. Each time the railroad accepted the recommendations, but blackthorn-toting Mike Quill spurned them.

Last week, before the union broke off negotiations 20 minutes before the strike deadline, the railroad had made concessions which it estimated would amount to about $1,000,000 a year. Cried the Pennsy's Chairman James M. Symes: "There is absolutely no reason for this strike. Good progress had been made by the negotiating teams. Obviously Quill has been playing fast and loose with the public welfare for his own purposes."

Fiery-tempered Mike Quill has never seemed much concerned about the public welfare. Boss of the small (130,000 members), belligerent T.W.U. since 1936, Quill seems to get a special delight out of threatening strikes. Even the labor-loving

New York Post scored Quill's "the public be damned" attitude. Said the New York Herald Tribune: "It is now evident that Quill, regarded by New Yorkers as purely a local nuisance, is a national nuisance."

Strike Insurance. So far, the effects of the strike on industry have been slight. For the Pennsylvania, the strike was costly. The road has already lost $1,814,640 this year, estimates it will lose $2,500,000 a day in passenger and freight revenue because of the shutdown. But one factor softens the blow. It will receive payments estimated by Quill at $600,000 a day from a strike fund set up last year by most of the nation's biggest railroads.

At week's end the National Mediation Board's Chairman Francis O'Neill was still trying to bring the railroad and union together to resume talks. Cries Quill: "We are sitting on our original proposals. This is going to be a long strike."

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