Supreme Court Hands Major Victory to Rail Workers—and Labor Lawyer Geoghegan
December 10
12:34 pm
By Lindsay Beyerstein
Tom Geoghegan (Photo by Lindsay Beyerstein)
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that railway workers can challenge rulings by the National Railroad Adjustment Board in court. The court's ruling is a decisive victory for Tom Geoheghan, a Chicago labor lawyer and author who ran an unsuccessful insurgent campaign for Congress earlier this year.
The Railway Labor Act of 1926 placed unusual restrictions on the organizing rights of railroad workers. The goal was to prevent strikes, officially because railways were so vital to the national economy; realistically, because the people who made them run would otherwise be too powerful. One such restriction is that railroad workers have to take their greivances to a national arbitration board.
The main question before the court was whether the workers had a right to challenge the final ruling of the NRAB if its decision violated their constitutional right to due process. In this case, Union Pacific Railway said no. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, represented Geoghegan, said yes. The Supreme Court sided with the Locomotive Engineers, 9-0.
Earlier this year, Tom Geoghegan (pronounced: gay-gun) ran an unusually progressive congressional campaign in a special election to replace Rahm Emanuel in Illinois's Fifth District. Geoghegan campaigned on Medicare for all, job creation, banking and mortgage reform, and the revival of the American labor movement.
How many congressional candidates put in a good word for class politics on their campaign websites? Geoghegan did, quoting Which Side are You On, his classic memoir about life as a union lawyer during the twilight of the American labor movement:
Indeed, all sides, even the Bob Dole Right, could stand a little more class-based politics, a little more Dunlop-type rationality. 'The great thing about class-based politics,’ a professor once told me in college long ago, ‘is that it’s rational.’
For that matter, how many congressional candidates put in a good word for rationality?
Geoghegan's progressive platform captured the imagination of progressive bloggers and activists across the country. Liberal journalist Katha Pollitt called him "the next Paul Wellstone." I took the accompanying photo as a volunteer photographer for Geoghegan campaign event in Washington, D.C. It wasn't enough. He placed fourth and returned to his law practice.
Geoghegan's legal victory is a testament to persistence in the face of adversity.
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Comments
Well, Geoghegan’s lawsuit victory is nice - but, at the end of the day, class struggle is won or lost on the job, not in Corporate America’s legal system.
The only way railroad workers (or any other workforce) are going to win justice is by battles on the job led by workers - not lawsuits filed by attorneys, no matter how “progressive” they might claim to be.
The railroad workers decided to take their dispute to court, not Geoghegan. He was a means to their ends.
That in no way negates my point - Corporate America’s court system serves the bosses and the capitalist system and the road to workers justice is through struggle on the job, not lawsuits.
Who hired Gegohegan is absolutely irrelevant to that broader political point, Sister Beyerstein!
I’m not trying to negate your point. Of course the class struggle is won or lost on the job. That said, railway workers in the U.S. face unique obstacles to workplace democracy—like not being allowed to strike. So, if they’re going to democratize their workplaces, they need to carve out a legal space to do so. Or, at least their leadership thinks they do, hence the lawsuit. It makes tactical sense. It’s harder to have a democratic workplace when the boss can drag you into an unaccountable kangaroo court.
I’m very aware of the limitations that the RLA puts on railroad workers right to strike.
I’m just saying that the proper forum to challenge an unjust law is in the streets.
That is, a national railroad strike, with nobody going back to work til RLA is repealed or drastically reformed.
This may sound quite radical - but, if you’ll recall, that’s how other unjust laws have been defeated historically (Jim Crow, Apartheid ect).
Also, considering how central the railroads are to the American economy, the railroad workers have the social power to make their will felt, by withdrawing their labor power.
Actually, the operating crafts (locomotive engineers and conductors) alone could have that impact.
What social power does Geoghegan have in the courthouse? Basically none.
Contrast that with the vast social power of tens of thousands of railroad workers withdrawing their labor power en masse - and the economic chaos that they can cause.
Here’s one example, the electricity you are using to write your email in Chicago comes from coal that was railhauled from Wyoming - without that coal, your lights would be off and you wouldn’t be able to write me your message.
You can’t drive a train with an injunction.
Bottom line, the working class’ power is in the streets and on the job, not in the bossman’s courthouse!