a comparative newcomer to the seniority district, one who came only because work was slack in his own seniority district, would bring with him all his seniority from his own seniority district and thus would outrank a great many men in that seniority district.

This result was certainly never contemplated by the award. It was never the intention of the award to effect a change in the relative standing on the seniority list of the firemen as among themselves.

There are certain further ramifications of the problem which I do not feel it necessary to delve into at this time. I felt then and still do feel that my proposed solution was fair both to the men and to the carriers. The neutral members of the Arbritration Board, however, were not inclined to accept that solution. They were not willing to adopt a result that would, in effect, count seniority for one purpose with respect to the carrier and made a separate seniority determination with respect to the men as among themselves. We devoted a great deal of time to a discussion of these problems.

When it became clear that the Board would not adopt what I thought was a clear and sensible solution to the problem, I felt forced to seek other alternatives.

In fact, the proposal the neutrals were about to impose on us in the answer they had framed was repugnant to all principles of seniority. To me, it was also at variance with the intent of the award. It seemed to me the answer I wrote was the lesser of two evils, and would at least preserve on home seniority districts that seniority which had been earned.

As I have said many times, I feel that the Board's answer to question 13 and the related questions was harsh, wrong, and unfair.

The poll of locomotive engineers taken by the B.L.F. & E. shows that engineers disagree overwhelmingly with the position of the BLE taken before this committee and the National Joint Board.

The committee will recall that at the last session Grand Chief Engineer Heath of the BLE testified solemnly to the committee that a survey among his officers and members justified his representation to the committee that operations without firemen were not more hazardous than those with firemen, and that efficiency of operations had not been impaired because of absence of employment of firemen on many locomotives following rendition of the Arbitration Board's award. Assistant Grand Chief Engineer Coughlin testified that this conclusion was based upon somewhat less than 100 replies to inquiries made by the BLE. In the proceedings of the National Joint Board it emerged that the number of replies was actually about 40.

The statement, coming from the heads of the BLE, that operations without firemen were as safe and efficient as those with firemen, was bound to be startling-particularly so because the representation constituted a complete about-face from the position BLÊ had taken publicly and espoused for many years.

My organization decided that one of the best tests of the truth of the statement that operations without firemen were as safe and efficient as those with firemen would be to present the statement of the BLE's position to as many of the country's locomotive engineers as possible and obtain an expression of their agreement or disagree

ment.

Accordingly, starting in January 1966, the B.L.F. & E. initiated a poll of locomotive engineers by distributing throughout the United

States a form on which locomotive engineers could express their agreement or disagreement with the BLE position and representations. I have distributed to the members of the committee copies of the forms we used. You will observe that under the caption "Poll of Locomotive Engineers" there appears the following language in which is stated the position taken by the representatives of the BLE and management before the National Joint Board as revealed in their report of January 5, 1966, the position thus stated being the identical position taken by Messrs. Heath and Coughlin before this committee: The representative of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and management members of the National Joint Board in their January 5, 1966, report stated the following:

"The studies made by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers disclose that it was the consensus of its officers, representatives, and members that the elimination of firemen's jobs had not adversely affected the safety of railway operations or unduly increased the hazards of the work of the engineers.

"Reports made by BLE members, disclosed that in excess of 76 percent of all malfunctions that have developed on road freight locomotives, operated without firemen have been corrected by the engineer without delay, and that such malfunctions as were not corrected, could not have been corrected with the aid of a fireman.

"No single case available for evaluation produced concrete evidence that any accident was a result of the elimination of a fireman or that any accident could or would have been avoided had a fireman been a member of the crew or crews involved.

"In overall operations, sufficient authenticated evidence was available to positively conclude that the operation was perhaps more efficiently handled after the implementation of award 282 than actually was the case prior thereto."

Mr. HEISS. Mr. Gilbert, those four paragraphs you just read were contained in the BLE version of the National Joint Board report of January 1966, were they not?

Mr. GILBERT. That is correct.

Mr. HEISS. They are quoted directly from that document, whatever it can properly be called. Now will you continue?

Mr. GILBERT. I continue with the quote:

I have read the above quoted statements attributed to the representative of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and carrier members of the National Joint Board, and I hereby indicate my agreement with, or disagreement with,

those statements.

You will note that the form provides space for the locomotive engineer's expression of agreement or disagreement, his name and address, and his labor union affiliation as between the BLE and the B.L.F. & E. A total of 5,025 forms was mailed, some directly to recording secretaries of the brotherhoods' lodges in the United States and others to B.L.F. & E. vice presidents, for presentation to individual engineers.

Lodges contacted prior to February 15, 1966, were asked to return the forms by March 1, 1966, and those contacted after February 15 were requested to return the forms within 2 weeks after receipt. As of this date and I am placing my hand on the documents that have been received-919 forms have been returned to me and I feel that many more will be received in the future. I beg of you to listen carefully to the following figures for, in my belief, they reveal the shocking misrepresentations made by the officers of the BLE and management to this committee, and to the public, as to the attitude of locomotive engineers who are among the best judges as to safety and efficiency of operations without firemen.

The forms returned to me contain 14,456 signatures of locomotive engineers, a large majority of whom were members of the BLE. Now please pay attention to this-more than 14,000 locomotive engineers disagree with the BLE's position. Only 16 engineers indicated agreement with the BLE's position testified to before this committee. Of this latter number, all were members of the BLE.

I know no better way to shatter the position of the BLE and management than by bringing to you the opinion of more than 14,000 engineers from all over the country who are in charge of the trains. These figures and facts need no embellishment by me.

Senator BARTLETT. May I ask a question or two at that point? Mr. GILBERT. Surely.

Senator BARTLETT. You said a large majority of the signers are members of the BLE.

Mr. GILBERT. That is correct, sir.

Senator BARTLETT. Could you give a more precise statement on that in terms of percentage?

Mr. GILBERT. We have a compilation of that. I am advised about 65 percent of the signatures on these petitions were from members of the BLE.

Senator BARTLETT. The forms were all sent out, though, to B.L.F. & E. lodges?

Mr. GILBERT. Well, they have been distributed to B.L.F. & E. individuals, the lodges and various officers, yes, sir.

Senator BARTLETT. Now I want to aks you a question or two here, because I know that it inevitably will come up and I think the record ought to be clear on it.

Certainly the language which you quoted heading the lines where agreement or disagreement are to be recorded, names, and addresses and union membership, constitute a model of objectivity. There has been no effort on your part, on the part of your organization, to proselyte anyone who is about to sign. I would like to ask you this:

Was any such effort urged or made insofar as you are aware by BLE people when they distributed these? Did they try to urge BLE members to record disagreement, insofar as you know?

Mr. GILBERT. No, sir, there was no effort to request other than an honest opinion from the men to whom these petitions were circulated, to give us the benefit of their views from the experiences they had in operating these locomotives. Whether or not the pronouncements made by the officers of the BLE and in the joint report corresponded with their experiences. And whether or not they agreed with them. And it was their own view expressed in the answer given.

Senator BARTLETT. One other question might be asked, maybe a series of them, but I think of only one more at the moment. What chance is there that there are some ringers here, people who signed their names and put down a division number or a lodge number and yet who had nothing to do, possibly, with the railroad industry?

Mr. GILBERT. No, that is not possible, Senator, because the men circulating these petitions in the division or at the division points where they were circulated knew the men personally, they knew whether they were working on the road or not.

I might add, however, that there was an effort made on the part of the BLE to dissuade their members from signing these petitions. Senator BARTLETT. Can you tell us something more about that?

Mr. GILBERT. Well, they made an effort. The reason we knew about the effort, there were some of the people contacted by our representatives who said they agreed with the position that it had been misstated, but they were afraid to sign the petition on account of reprisals.

Senator BARTLETT. You may continue.

Mr. GILBERT. Conclusion: It is the position of the B.L.F. & E. that it is urgent to start the process of serious collective bargaining with respect to firemen. We have sought for months to progress negotiations to resolve this dispute. At every turn we have been met with intransigence on the part of the railroads.

The B.L.F. & E. had not assumed an inflexible position. Although we believe firmly that after March 31 the national diesel agreement is once again in full force and effect, we ourselves initiated proceedings under the Railway Labor Act to change this agreement by service of section 6 notices dated November 15, 1965. We are ready and willing to negotiate. But we cannot negotiate and settle in response to the commands of the Railway Labor Act and the resolution of the committee so long as the railroads will not negotiate but choose to litigate. From what we have said throughout these lengthy hearings something else should be patent. We should not simply pick up where we left off in 1963. There have been 2 years' experience in actual operations with and without firemen in that time. Everyone knows that the railroad accident rate has been rising and that this rise has taken place during the period in which the firemen were being removed from service.

This would suggest at once to fairminded individuals not only the likelihood, but the strong probability, of a connection between these events. If the carriers are ready to sit down with us to find a solution to this controversy then it seems to me an answer can be found in terms of safety and efficiency of operations. If there is a will to find a solution to this problem a solution can be found. It is not beyond human capacity to determine on the basis of actual experience during the past 2 years those situations in which a fireman is needed for safety and efficiency of operations and those conditions and I think they are relatively few-under which a fireman may safely be dispensed with. But this solution requires coming to the bargaining table in the spirit of good will.

Partisan arguments masquerading as "studies" and reports of a Joint Board dominated by the carriers themselves and a labor organization working with them are not the answer to the problem. Such biased "data" and such biased "reports" fool no one.

The complete absence of collective bargaining entitles me, I think, to ask the aid of this committee in putting teeth in its command that the parties attempt to settle the controversy by negotiation. Compulsory arbitration has failed as a means of settling the fireman's disputes. Only collective bargaining can succeed and that obviously needs the impetus of congressional action.

The recalcitrance of the railroads evidenced not only in refusal to bargain but in refusal to correct the multitudes of cases of individual hardships developed in our testimony at the last session gives justification for my asking the Congress to afford us additional relief by legislative means, which I mentioned during my testimony at the last session. I told you then of the many injustices done employees having a long period of service in the railroad industry.

I ask you now, as I asked you then, for legislative relief particularly for those firemen whose attachment to the industry goes back many years.

I ask for legislation which will require the railroads to reimburse firemen for monetary losses sustained as a result of deprivation of their seniority rights.

I ask for legislation which will restore to firemen their seniority rights as they existed prior to the award and as such rights are set forth in their collective bargaining agreements.

I ask for legislation which will compel the railroads to bargain with

us now.

Surely some place, there is a forum or vehicle in which the inhuman and inhumane treatment that has been accorded to the employees involved, and which continues to be accorded them, can be aired and corrective action taken.

(Documents referred to in statement follow:)

DOCUMENTS REeferred to in STATEMENT OF INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT, H. E. GILBERT, B. oF L. F. & E., MARCH 22,1966

CONTENTS

Resolution of Senate Commerce Committee, October 12, 1965.

Text of three section 6 notices served November 15, 1965, by B. L. F. & E. general chairman on most U.S. railroads.

News release of J. E. Wolfe, November 15, 1965.

Circular letter of J. E. Wolfe dated November 15, 1965, to member railroads.

Circular letter of J. E. Wolfe dated November 22, 1965, to member railroads.

Standard answer received by B. L. F. & E. general chairmen from railroad managements.

Application for NMB services on railroads dated January 13, 1966. (Chesapeake & Ohio example).

Letter of H. E. Gilbert addressed to certain (six) railroad presidents dated January 14, 1966. (Norfolk & Western example.)

News conference statement of H. E. Gilbert dated January 18, 1966, at Washington, D.C.

Standard reply of railroad presidents (six) dated on or about January 20, 1966. (Norfolk & Western example.)

Letter of W. Willard Wirtz, Secretary of Labor to H. E. Gilbert, January 20, 1966.
H. E. Gilbert's answer to letter of W. Willard Wirtz, January 28, 1966.

Letter of H. E. Gilbert to certain (six) railroad presidents dated January 31, 1966.
example.)

Section 6 Notice of railroad companies served on B. L. F. & E. general chairmen on

1966.

(Norfolk & Western

or about February 2,

Standard reply of railroad presidents to H. E. Gilbert on or about February 9, 1966. (Norfolk & Western example.)

Telegram of H. E. Gilbert to National Mediation Board, dated February 9, 1966, urging "expeditious handling" of request for NMB services.

Reply of T. A. Tracy, Executive Secretary, NMB, dated February 10, 1966.

Letter of NMB, dated February 16, 1966, assigning case Nos. for B.L.F. & E. notice No. 1 on three railroads. (Chesapeake & Ohio example.)

Letter from National Mediation Board, dated February 17, 1966, concerning B.L.F. & E. notice No. 2, stating that Board plans hearings on questions raised by carriers. (Chesapeake & Ohio example.) Letter from National Mediation Board, dated February 17, 1966, concerning B.L.F. & E. notice No. 3, in which Board seeks additional information. (Chesapeake & Ohio example.)

H. E. Gilbert's letter of February 22, 1966, replying to the National Mediation Board letter of February 17, 1966, concerning B.L.F. & E. notice No. 3.

Telegram of H. E. Gilbert, dated March 3, 1966, again urging prompt attention of NMB in assigning medi

ators.

Reply of T. A. Tracy, Executive Secretary, NMB, dated March 7, 1966.

Letter of Senior Vice President H. C. Wyatt, Norfolk & Western Railway Co. to the National Mediation Board dated March 1, 1966.

Letter of National Mediation Board to Senior Vice President H. C. Wyatt, Norfolk & Western Railway Co., under date of March 10, 1966.

Letter of F. A. Johnson, manager personnel, Norfolk & Western Railway Co., addressed to the National Mediation Board dated March 4, 1966.

Letter of National Mediation Board dated March 10, 1966, to Mr. F. A. Johnson, manager personnel, Norfolk & Western Railway Co.

Letter of E. B. Hunter, director of personnel, Norfolk & Western Railway Co., to the National Mediation Board under date of March 4, 1966.

Letter of National Mediation Board dated March 10, 1966, to Mr. E. B. Hunter, director of personnel, Norfolk & Western Railway Co.

Letter of Mr. C. E. Mervine, Jr., director of personnel, Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Co., dated March 8, 1966, addressed to the National Mediation Board.

Letter of National Mediation Board dated March 11, 1966, to Mr. C. E. Mervine, Jr., director of personnel, Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Co.