Western Railroad Discussion > Railroad Strike of 1971

Was there a railroad strike against the SP in late July,1971?
Old Heads.. could you check your time books to see if you were on strike? I was looking through some old train order books for the Coast (SP) and notice that everything was annulled a few orders written over extended crew districts... like "run extra San Jose to San Luis Obispo"

If it was a strike, what was it about.

I know there was one in early December,1970 on the SP.

WAF wrote:

> Was there a railroad strike against the SP in late
> July,1971?

Yup. The results of what was known as "Hate Week". I remember it as being in August or September, but maybe it was July.

In any event, SP wanted to force a strike by UTU represented crafts. The UTU wanted to contiune negotiations, but SP didn't. So, it unilaterally promulgated all UTU work rules, and after a week the UTU responded by calling a strike.

How long did it last? A week?

Beleive it lasted about a month or so in varying degrees. The big demand that time was to begin interdivisional runs and begin eliminating the long held 100 or so mile runs that many crews had.

When the the Carriers and UTU failed to come to any agreeement, the railroads began the new longer runs. I seem to remember Santa Fe furloughing many, many trainmen in Kansas City as they began the longer runs.

The gummint refused to intervene and the UTU began striking on selected roads. Keeping mind there were far more Class 1 lines and bridge road type short lines; the union would strike a road or two in each part of the country. This played hell with the interchange system. And about every week, UTU pulled out more roads. Slowly the railroad system strangled as it was unable to interchange cars to avoid a struck road or roads.

In the end the gummint did get involved and the UTU acquiesced to the longer runs. I beleive that UP and Milwaukee Road in Kansas City were the first roads to take advantage of this. Other roads such as MoPac and Santa Fe waited much longer before taking the plunge.WAF wrote:

> How long did it last? A week?
>
> [%sig%]

There was a week overlap of when the UTU contract ran out and when they could go on strike. I worked as Fireman on a helper out of SLO and made around 6 bucks. Was on a work train for 3 days and got back to SLO before we went out at midnight.The hogheads were not effected because the BLE was under a seperate contract. We were out about a week or less when everyone was forced back by the Railway Labor Act. SP had to pay everyone the regular wage until they could settle the contract. I never did get my regular Firemans wages. It showed me how much the carrier really cared for their employees.

Nudge

The strike lasted 10 days.

Ken

I could barely pronounce it back then much less spell it, but that is what it was called. During the prolumigated period in July, 1971, we were required to work for minimum wage for just the actual hours worked. The issue was over the negotiations of the UTU National Agreement with the carriers. The Santa Fe operated about two weeks under the prolumigated work rules before the Santa Fe shut down. Each week several more RR companies would shut down if there were no negotiations. The SP may have been shut down after the first week. It was a new twist of the RR companies refusing to negotiate a national agreement. The RR management gave the UTU only one version of how the agreement would be made and there was no discussion. We were essentially locked out.
The actual agreement didn't come out until 1972.
I don't recall how much $$ I lost. The lost earnings didn't matter as much as how much of an impression it made on me as a young RR employee that how disrespectful RR management was towards their own employees. I have never forgotten it. It was more than the money, it was the safety issues as well. Any one who made any stand for safety was fired on the spot. The RR tried to break our spirit and dignity, but failed. We still liked to run the trains but we didn't need them.
Inspector Gadget

I remember it well and it almost caused me to quit the railroad. I got taken off a cushy fireman's job and assigned to a midnight hostling job at cold, windy Bayshore Roundhouse. Things finally got back to normal and now, almost 32 years later, I'm glad I stuck it out.