WATCHING WASHINGTON, RAILWAY AGE MAY 2025 ISSUE: The Ethical Culture Fieldston School and University Heights High School, both in the Bronx, N.Y., are but minutes apart by public transit, yet otherwise at opposite extremes.
Annual tuition at the private Fieldston School, in the affluent Riverdale section of the Bronx, tops $65,000, while at public University Heights High School, in the largely impoverished South Bronx, 85% of students are considered economically disadvantaged. Could bridges of understanding be built between these disparate groups—one of privilege and the other not? An exercise in “radical empathy” proved they can, as was explained in a May 4, 2014, New York Times Magazine article.
Bridges of understanding might similarly be built between discordant rail labor and rail management if only they would cease lecturing each other and engage, as did the Fieldston and University Heights students who found they had much in common. As railroads function much as military units with mutual dependence on each other’s skills, it is astonishing railroads prosper, given so many senior officers are aloof from workplace conditions, mid-level managers aggressively gumshoe workers for rules violations, and union websites aggressively disparage railroads and rail officials.
Building bridges of understanding between labor and management is equally relevant to shippers seeking world-class service, and to courts, regulatory agencies and Congress—the latter often sucked into labor-management strife as third-party arbitrators when workplace frustrations boil over into job actions.
In the Bronx experiment, the two schools’ students paired off to share stories of themselves, their environment and aspirations. They later gathered as a group, each responsible for telling the other’s story. Imagine that exercise at rail facilities. Union members would pair-off with managers to explain to the other how their job relates to the railroad’s mission; challenges faced; and what each expects of the other. Excluded would be talk of wages, benefits and work rules subject to collective bargaining. At an immediately subsequent video-recorded group session, each participant would retell their opposite’s story with the video made available on carrier and union websites.
A duplicate exercise involving CEOs and union presidents could be conducted at union regional meetings and similarly video-recorded for on-line viewing.
Such an exercise differs significantly from once-in-vogue “quality circles” led by management and focused on improving product and productivity; and from a failed 1980s railroad experiment where a college professor lectured employees on corporate income statements, making comparisons with family finances and considered by many employees a “talking-down” to them.
Building bridges of understanding begins with respectful dialogue so that each participant is comfortable retelling the other’s story. Topics of discussion might include:
- Opposing points of view on the implementation of Precision Scheduled Railroading.
- Setting first-and-last-mile service standards.
- Challenges to balancing leisure
and work. - The meaning of job satisfaction; quality of training and opportunities for skills improvement.
- On-the-job personal safety and security.
- Locomotive cab sanitary conditions.
- Terminal-to-lodging taxi service.
- How technology is changing the nature of work.
- How top-down directives differ from collaborative leadership in encouraging motivation and teamwork.
Required of participants is a commitment to listen objectively (empathy), retell the other’s story accurately and a willingness to move beyond entrenched positions. Traditional fuzzy corporate-speak of “workplace engagement” and “safety is our highest priority” when things go wrong are as antithetical to building bridges of understanding as are union criticisms of profits and providers of capital.
It will take courage for labor and management to accept that neither is the enemy of the other and join in building bridges of understanding, recognizing the real enemy are forces adversely affecting railroad market share. To borrow from “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, “I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
Railway Age Capitol Hill Contributing Editor Frank N. Wilner held managerial posts at two Class I railroads, was assistant vice president for policy at the Association of American Railroads, director of public relations for the United Transportation Union and its SMART-TD successor, and a White House appointed chief of staff at the Surface Transportation Board. He is author of “Railroads & Economic Regulation, An Insider’s Account,” available from Simmons-Boardman Books, 800-228-9670.
