Paul Lawrence:

On the rails
in the USSR.

; Paul Lawrence has seenalot of as they can. And the whole system
\ failroad in his 19 years as a is automated.”
brakeman for the Canadian Na- The contrast with this country
tional Railway. In fact, he has seen —_ where rail lines are continuing to be &
every mile of CNR track in B.C., rationalized and where every step =
up close. towards automation is fought by og”
And as a union activist for most workers fearful of losing their jobs £
of that period, latterly with the was striking. One of the first things 3}
United Transportation Union hehad to grasp was that everything 6F
(UTU), he thought he knew works on a different basis in aé Z
railroads and railroad workers very _ socialist country. a
well The second point which became 2
But in August Lawrence was evident to Lawrence’s group was

ey AG ene ae Soe

PAUL LAWRENCE ... . with the edition of “the Whistle”, the 600,000 circulation daily newspaper of

ig lsat 62 int sigh BAD Ta ae cs i bi ds rare ts

ee ae a

Part of a unique experiment which
opened his eyes to a completely dif-
ferent world of rail transportation,
much vaster than anything in this
country.

He was one of 12 railroad

workers who toured the Soviet

Union as guests of the USSR
Railway Transport Workers
Union. :

None of the 12 were officially
representing their own rail unions,
although Lawrence had unofficial
support from the leadership of the
UTU. Rather the group was made
up of rank and file workers and
organized through the New. York
based Labor Research Associa-
tion.

The connection for Lawrence
was a subscription to a newsletter
published by the Labor Research
Association, Railway Notes. He
had corresponded several times
with the editors about railroad
issues, and when the invitation
from the Soviets to send a group
was received by the Research
Association, they sought him out.

“Jt was an experiment, but it
worked,”’ he said of the delegation,

the “clockwork” of the Soviet
system. ‘Things work like they say
they will...that’s remarkable for a
huge railroad system.” Lawrence
recalled the group huddled over
their watches as they departed from
the Leningrad station enroute to
Moscow. ‘‘23:59 — right on the
button.” And when they arrived in
Moscow, it was within one minute
of advertised time.

A lot of the automation in the
Soviet system has been tried out
here and discarded, partially
because of workers’ distrust in
automation in general, and partly
because the new gadgetry just
didn’t work all that well. But things
like automatic signals, automatic
brakes and speed control are stan-
dard on Soviet railroads.

“But the most impressive thing
about that system is the workers,”
he said, thumbing through the
thick pamphlet issued by the Soviet
rail union. ‘‘Perhaps it is because of
the priority role the railways havein
the country that the workers are so

advanced. It used to be that way

here.”’
The Soviet Railway Transport

the Soviet Railway Transport Workers Union, which carried a lengthy interview with him and other
members of the Labor Research Association delegation to the USSR in August.

averages 92 percent. ‘‘That floored
us. But the Soviets didn’t seem all
that happy with the 92 percent. We
found out that the union requires a
two thirds of the membership at a
meeting for a quorum.”

Safety and working conditions
are where the real differences in the
Soviet system stand out. Lawrence
took copious notes on the subject,
for the day before he left he was
elected legislative chairman of his
UTU local.

The average work week for a
Soviet railroad worker is 40.5
hours. In this country, the work
week for running trades is
measured in miles. Soviet dispat-
chers, who electronically control
train movements, are considered
high tension jobs, and they only
work six hours per day. Engineers
and assistants, who run the trains,
are limited to 170 hours per month.

Overtime rates startimmediately
after eight hours in a day, not after
so many miles in a week, and the
overtime hours are included in the
maximum of 170.

One point .which Lawrence
pressed was determining who was
responsible for seeing that an
employee was fit to work. On the
CNR, he says, there’ is constant
pressure on workers to “‘turn in’”’
fellow employees with health or
drinking problems. He got the
answers from the Soviets that he
wanted. ‘‘Management has
responsibility.”’ In fact, before
every trip, engineers and assistants
must have a medical check, in-
cluding heart and blood pressure
checks and a breathalizer test.

Safety conditions for women are
particularly stressed, he found. It
was a feature of women’s libera-
tion in the Soviet Union which
some of the American women on
the delegation found hard to
understand. About 47 percent of
rail employees in the Soviet Union
are women, and 37 percent of the
running trades are women. Several
years ago there were 84 jobs listed
on the railway which women could
not perform — the list has grown
now to over 400.

stimulate a lot of thinking in this
country, he said. The Soviets pull
more than half the total of world
fail freight. But their trains aren’t
bigger or stronger; in fact, they are
much smaller. The average Soviet
train is 8,000 tons, and they are
now experimenting with 10,000
tons so they can carry more freight
on the over-worked lines. Here
most trains are in the 12,000 ton
class and it isn’t uncommon to see
16,000 tons making its way down
our tracks.

How can the Soviets move more
with smaller trains? With a more
extensive system and a more effi-
cient system. Almost half of the
system is totally electrified, and
that means cleaner, faster and
stronger trains.

It’s a system with its own major
technical training institute in Kiev,
visited by Lawrence and the group.
And it draws to it some of the best
young people the country pro-
duces, many of whom were hooked
on the railroad by one of the 36
model railroads (about half scale)

; i iev, Moscow, ion i in- a - :
“haa pete ei a rant pio aay aaded an ih: Sisesover sit an eneineer Ore: Our women at first thought it run around the country exclusively
dred kilometres of track. trades, dining car workers, con... eight or 10 hours, he must receive was restrictive. But they are just by kids. 3

, way ahead of us in their thinking. The last time a Canadian delega-

Although to a worker there was
much in the Soviet system which
was familiar, in scale there was
hardly any comparison with the
Canadian system. “‘The railroads
play a priority role in their
transportation system. They have
over 140,000 kilometres of track
and they are at saturation levels.
They are building new track as fast

struction workers, office personnel
and dispatchers — they’re all in it.
“They have responsibilities and
conditions we have only dreamed
of,”’ he said.

The union has a decisive say over
almost all aspects of working con-
ditions: hours, safety, training. A
review of any management deci-
sion could be the subject of a local
union meeting, where attendance

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double that time off in rest. And if
overtime is worked two shifts in a
row, the rest period must be doubl-
ed again. As Lawrence explained,
that means that if an engineer
worked 12 hours from 8 p.m. to 8
a.m., the worker would get 24
hours off and report back 8 a.m.
the following day. If another 12
hour shift were then put in, the
engineer would then get 48 hours
off.

“On the CNR people work

Their research has just found that
many jobs are particularly
dangerous for women. High fre-
quency vibration particularly has
been found to affect reproductive
organs. That’s why women don’t
work as engineers.”

The Soviet rail system could

tion of railroad workers were in the
Soviet Union was years ago (he isn’t
sure how long) when a group from
the Brotherhood of Airline Clerks
(BRAC) was hosted. Lawrence is
the first since then, but he hopes his
visit will spark some official union
exchanges. His first report on what
he saw will be offered to an upcom-
ing event sponsored by his local of
the UTU. :

without any rest at all. No one | @& Soviet
checks to see if they are fitto work. i electrified
Especially with older people — | ( train

they’re just wearing them out,’’ he
said,

( |

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPT. 19, 1980—Page 11