Rail unions are mobilizing to save Amtrak, the national passenger rail service that the Bush administration wants to shove into bankruptcy by eliminating all federal funding.

The goal, in the White House's own words, is "for Amtrak to quickly enter bankruptcy, which would likely lead to the elimination of inefficient operations and the reorganization of the railroad."

The bankruptcy strategy is part of a plan to sell off Amtrak's most valuable assets, weaken rail unions, and erode the rights and benefits of rail workers, claims Kurt Bauer, district chairman for the Transportation Communications Union, who is helping to coordinate "save Amtrak" efforts in the upper Midwest. Wiping out Amtrak would put service in jeopardy for 25 million passengers ? many of them commuters on the East Coast and in California ? and eliminate as many as 20,000 jobs, Bauer said, including 72 in Minnesota.

That could have a cascading effect throughout the rail industry, he said, including threatening the retirement fund that covers freight and passenger workers. "It would decimate railroad retirement," he said, even though the plan is now solvent and growing.

That's only one erosion rail workers face, Bauer said. The Bush administration is also trying to exempt Amtrak workers from the Railway Labor Act, making it uncertain whether they'd be protected under any labor law at all.

"It might be a small effort now," Bauer said, "but I think the Bush administration wants to just wipe out the unions period. They don't want workers' rights anymore. They want to get away from what's right for the people and protect the corporate interests."

Oberstar calls it as he sees it
"Never have I seen it expressed as government policy that a major industry be forced into bankruptcy," said Minnesota Congressman James Oberstar, who is the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and among those fighting the president's budget proposal.

"This is not a proposal to reform Amtrak; this is a proposal to kill it," Oberstar wrote in the Washington newspaper The Hill. "Bankruptcy would not lead to a more efficient Amtrak. It would lead to a complete liquidation of the railroad."

Fortunately, Bauer said, Bush's proposal is running into opposition from both Democrats and Republicans. "Bush's proposals are starting to falter, like a lot of his other policies," he said.

To keep the momentum going, the 13 rail unions are cooperating in grassroots and lobbying activities to save Amtrak funding. "We all know it's survival," Bauer said. Representatives were in Minnesota during the last week of May, handing out informational fliers to passengers at the St. Paul station, urging them to pressure their Congressional representatives to preserve Amtrak funding. One flier charged that Amtrak's board of directors is aiding and abetting Amtrak's demise.

Unions are also lobbying for the Minnesota Legislature to pass a resolution urging Minnesota's Congressional delegation to maintain "proper funding." The resolution (SF1604) passed the Senate on May 20.

Subsidies needed even as ridership increases
It's no secret that Amtrak needs federal support to survive, Bauer said. The rail service received a $1.1 billion subsidy this year, and says it needs $1.8 billion next year for operations and capital improvements. But, Bauer said, every form of transportation receives government subsidies.

Since Amtrak's formation in 1971, it has received a total of $30 billion in federal subsidies. That's only 1/63 of the $1.89 trillion in federal payments that have gone to air travel and highways ? and less than highways receive in a single year.

Bauer also doesn't dispute that Amtrak could be run more efficiently. He says it has too many layers of management, for instance, and isn't maximizing revenue from real estate it owns, including Penn Station in New York, Union Station in Chicago, and other stations in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Oakland and elsewhere. To reduce expenses, Amtrak already as eliminated one-fifth of its jobs and cuts some service.

But ridership is increasing, he said, and would increase more if Amtrak would add or reallocate equipment. Nationally, ridership has risen an average of almost 4 percent a year since 2002.

Amtrak's Empire Builder, which runs daily between Chicago and Seattle, served more than 172,000 passengers in Minnesota last year ? nearly 74 percent of them in the Twin Cities.

"We're turning away people," Bauer said. "I talked to the clerks here ? they said we could have sold out two more cars. That's a hundred and some people. Well, we turned that money down. You can't just keep throwing money out. If someone wants to pay you to take the train, you put the extra car on. It's happening here, it's happening all the way up the line. . . There's other trains like that where we're not capitalizing on the demand."

For more information
Visit the TCU's website, www.tcunion.org and the website devoted to saving Amtrak, www.saveamtrak.org