The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Wednesday, freight and commuter rail service was disrupted by a nationwide rail strike. The White House and Congress moved to end the strike. And U.S. troops entered Northern Iraq to help the Kurdish refugees. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: After the News Summary we examine the issues in the national rail strike with union and management leaders and Sec. of Transportation Samuel Skinner. Then a debate, should the names of women charging they've been raped be published? New York City Comptroller Liz Holtzman and Syndicated Columnist Ellen Goodman say no. Isabelle Katz Pinzler of the ACLU and Des Moines reporter James Schorer say yes.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: The nation's freight railroads were shut down today by a strike. Pickets representing the more than 230,000 rail workers took positions at 7 this morning. Negotiators failed to reach agreement on wages, work rules, and health care after three years of labor-management negotiations. White House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater estimated the strike would cost the economy $50 million a day and over $600 million a day if it lasts two weeks. Passenger rail traffic was also disrupted. Thousands of commuters in California and Maryland were forced to find other ways to get to work. Sec. of Transportation Samuel Skinner told a House subcommittee the government needed to impose a settlement. He said he hoped Congress could send legislation to Pres. Bush before tomorrow's rush hour. Sec. Skinner, a management, and a union official will be with us right after this News Summary. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: U.S. troops entered Northern Iraq today to prepare for protective refugee camps for the Kurds, but Pentagon officials said it could take 10 days or more before the camps are ready to accept refugees. Meanwhile, international aid continued to flow to refugees camped along the Turkish border, but conditions there remained desperate. We have a report narrated by Tom Brown of Worldwide Television News.

MR. BROWN: Treacherous weather conditions have hampered the efforts of relief workers to help the refugees. But finally Operation Provide Comfort arrived in the remote mountain village of Ozula. A British air force helicopter shuttled goods to the most inaccessible refugee camps. The Turkish authorities have been refusing to distribute food to the refugees because of the risk that supply trucks would be attacked as soon as they entered the camps. And those fears were soon realized. Hundreds of refugees broke through the barbed wire, grabbing the food in a frenzied panic. There's still clearly a lack of organization here. United Nations workers are nowhere to be seen. Administration is mainly in the hands of the Turkish Red Crescent and the military. They don't appear able to cope. Other military operations are in place. An American field hospital at Esekveren is taking in hundreds of civilian casualties. But until the joint allied operation gets underway, it looks like many refugees will go without desperately needed supplies.

MR. MacNeil: Most U.S. forces occupying Southern Iraq have now withdrawn, but a field commander said 18,000 will remain to protect the anti-government refugees in the Southern region. With the U.S. withdrawal well underway, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf and his central command staff announced that they too will leave the region on Saturday. Iraq denounced the U.S.-Kurdish refugee plan today. Its foreign minister called the plan unnecessary and said it was a continuation of the policy of interference in Iraq's internal affairs. Iraqi officials also asked that United Nations sanctions be lifted so they could sell a billion dollars' worth of oil to buy food and other supplies for the Iraqi people. At the White House this afternoon, reporters asked Pres. Bush about that.

PRES. BUSH: The priority is to get relief to these people that are suffering. Then we'll talk about that. But this relief effort will go and must go smoothly and then we can consider extraneous matters, matters that may be important to Iraq, but our priorities, the world's priorities are set. And they say let these refugees be settled in the flat places temporarily and let them be fed, let medicine get in there, and then when that is done and everything's done peacefully and harmoniously, then I might be willing to consider something else.

MR. MacNeil: The Kurds were also on Sec. of State Baker's agenda today. Mr. Baker met in Luxembourg with European community ministers. He goes to Israel tomorrow on an open-ended MidEast trip aimed at getting Arabs and Israelis to open peace talks. Arab guerrillas infiltrated Israel from Jordan today and ambushed workers at a collective farm 60 miles North of Jerusalem. They killed one man and wounded three others, including an American volunteer. The Israeli army said its troops killed one of the gunmen and were searching for at least one more.

MR. LEHRER: Pres. Bush welcomed Nicaraguan Pres. Violetta Chamorro to the White House today. He praised her leadership, saying she has closed a painful chapter in her nation's history. Ms. Chamorro became Nicaragua's first democratically elected leader one year ago. Mr. Bush made his remarks at a White House ceremony.

PRES. BUSH: We know that the tasks facing the Nicaraguan people are difficult. Your economic stabilization plan requires hard choices. Economic reform after years of mismanagement is never easy and presents challenges to leadership. But sacrifice in the short run is vital to achieve long-term growth and development. And we hope that all elements of Nicaraguan society will work with you for the good of your country.

MR. LEHRER: After the meeting, Asst. Sec. of State Bernard Aronson said Mr. Bush promised Pres. Chamorro the United States would lead an international effort to help Nicaragua with its debt repayments.

MR. MacNeil: In Japan, Soviet Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev made his strongest appeal yet for foreign aid. In a speech to Japan's parliament, Gorbachev said, the Soviet Union needed help to prevent being thrown into the chaos that gives birth to dictatorship. But the Soviet leader's historic four day visit to Japan has so far failed to produce any commitments of aid. Nor has it resolved the dispute over possession of the Kurial Islands. In the Soviet Union, a strike that posed a strong challenge to Gorbachev's authority ended today. Workers at the nation's largest coal mine went back to work after the Russian federation agreed to take control of the mine from the national government. The strike began seven weeks ago and spread to all major coal fields. In addition to wage demands, the workers called for Gorbachev's resignation.

MR. LEHRER: The stock market reached its highest level ever today. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above the 3000 mark, ending a day long rally that included heavy volume of more than 240 million shares. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the rail strike and naming rape victims. FOCUS - GOING NOWHERE

MR. LEHRER: The rail strike is our lead story tonight. This morning nearly a quarter of a million rail workers walked off the job after negotiations broke off just before midnight. In a moment we will talk with the head of a railroad and a union involved and to the Secretary of Transportation. But first how the strike was felt in one U.S. city. Elizabeth Bracket reports from Chicago.

MS. BRACKETT: Freight cars which usually carry one third of all goods shipped in this country stood ideal this morning. Picket lines went up after the final round of contract talks failed in Washington. For Union Members the issue was clear.

HOWARD HARRIS: We have had not had a wage increase in three years, we have not had a contract for three years. We've been faithful workers for the three years without a contract and now they want us to go back to work and continue in the impasse.

MS. BRACKETT: The impact was immediate. At this Ford Assembly Plant in Chicago the lines shut down at 10 a.m. four hours earlier than normal.

HOWARD WILLIAMS: The night shift will work four hours tonight. Tomorrow the day shift will work four hours and they will be off Friday.

MS. BRACKETT: The plant will have to shut down totally by Friday because 30 percent of the parts here are brought in by rail. Fifty percent of the finished cars are shipped out by rail. Inventories are kept low on purpose. Ford Spokesman Stephen Madeline.

STEPHEN MADELINE, Ford Spokesman: We use a very efficient method of just in time inventory which is a cost saving and efficient method for our quality program.

MS. BRACKETT: Ford sales are already down 17 percent from last years level. Madaline says dealers need more cars in the show room to meet a demand that was starting to grow.

MR. MADELINE: This comes at a time when their seems to be an easing in the recession and this makes it more difficult for our business to take advantage of that easing.

MS. BRACKETT: The recession has not hurt this corn processing company but the rail strike will. 90 percent of the corn processed by American Made Products Company is shipped in by rail. Because the food industry has also gone to the just in time inventory system any disruption in service causes big problems. At this food processing plant they have only enough corn to keep the plant operating for six more days. Seventy to eighty thousand bushels of corn are run through this plant every day. Most of it is turned in to starches and sweeteners. If the rail strike continues not only will this plant be forced to shut down at least 2000 American made customers will not get their products. Company Vice President for the Hammon Plant, Fred Ash, says impact is so great Congress ought to end the strike.

FRED ASH, American Maize Products: Absolutely. I think that at this point and time to have the rail strike hurt what is clearly the beginning of an economic rebound from a recession I think would not be in the best interest of the country for Congress not to act.

MS. BRACKETT: But the Unions do not want Congress involved. To keep the pressure off Congress for an early settlement in Chicago the Union told engineers and conductors to follow a court order and come to Work.

JIM TYLER: I don't think that Congress should be involved. I think the railroads and the unions can get together and find a peaceful solution. One that is better for all parties involved without any outside help.

MS. BRACKETT: This kept seventy five thousand commuters on the trains in Chicago and lessened the impact of the strike considerably. With the city depending on freight trains a continuing strike means shut downs and layoffs in the next several days.

MR. LEHRER: Now to Mac Fleming President of the one striking unions. The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees. His 55,000 members who construct and maintain railroad tracks, buildings and bridges. Mr. Fleming from your perspective what caused this strike.

MR. FLEMING: Well initially as was stated earlier we have been negotiating for more than 3 years trying to a settlement with regard to this dispute. Most of the organizations have negotiated hard and long and they are very frustrated. At this particular time we are at a point where we feel that we must draw a line and we must demand that we have a right to take our case to the Congress and ask them not to necessary intervene but to let us continue on our course and settle this matter between the industry and the unions.

MR. LEHRER: Continue on course meaning let the strike continue and let negotiations continue as well?

MR. FLEMING: That is correct. To many times we have had the imposition of Congress in to these disputes and in this particular instance like all of the others that proceeded it that rail management knows that they can depend on the Congress to eventually impose a settlement. They have totally depended on it this time around and they have not negotiated in good faith and they have waited for the Congress to come to their rescue and that is what they are hoping for at this particular point.

MR. LEHRER: From the union's perspective what are the crucial issues that caused this strike to happen. What is it that the management won't give you that you want that caused your people to walk off the job?

MR. FLEMING: Basically there are three separate categories. Basic wage increase, adequate wage increase, benefits and work rules.

MR. LEHRER: I know they are all important. The work rule thing, you know, management says that the railroads of this country are still operating under labor practices that go back to the 1920s and it is times to come in to the 1990s and they want to eliminate some jobs and all of that. Is that the way that the unions see it too?

MR. FLEMING: Well while management tries to make that case they do not tell you that our productivity has increased seven times faster than any other worker in any other industry in the last several years. At the same time this same rail worker has received approximately 47 percent wage increases while the average American worker has received 65 percent increases.

MR. LEHRER: So you feel that it is just a simply case of equity at work here. Is that right?

MR. FLEMING: No question about it. Our ranks have been diminishing and we have been responsible and as I said earlier we are frustrated and we should be able to see this process through.

MR. LEHRER: Alright. Next a railroad official Mike Walsh who is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Union Pacific Railroad which operates in 19 Western States. He is also Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Association of American Railroads which represents the largest freight railroads in the country. Mr. Walsh does Mr. Fleming have it right that you all did not negotiate in good faith because you knew that Congress would come to the rescuer eventually?

MR. WALSH: Well with all due respect the answer to your question is no he doesn't. What didn't come out in his remarks is the fact that we have settled with three of the major unions that do represent 40 percent of the workers in our railroads. So to suggest that some how we had a plan that was designed to produce a strike is just not true and the proof of the pudding is that the clerks have settled, the signal men have settled, the dispatchers have settled.

MR. LEHRER: What about his basic point that what is at issue here is that productivity of the railroad workers of the country has gone up and yet their wages have not kept up with the rest of the work force. How does management answer that basic complaint?

MR. WALSH: Well the fact of the matter is that rail workers are today in the top one percent. They are paid in the top one percent of all industrial workers in the United States. And that is a result of very rapid increases in their pay and benefits in the 70s and 80s. And it was inevitable that rate of increase would slow down. So the numbers that Mac talks about. That is the fact that productivity has increased in recent years slightly faster than wages is true but that involves a necessary rebalancing if the rail roads are going to be competitive with trucks and that is the bottom line.

MR. LEHRER: What is the bottom line as far as work rules are concerned. The non railroad people of this country keep hearing that the railroads are still operating under archaic rules. Is that true?

MR. WALSH: Well I would fundamentally suggest that dispute is more about archaic work rules than any thing else and that fundamentally comes down to the issue of how many people does it take to safely man a train. And since we don't pay by the hour we pay in terms of what is called the basic day how many miles that train crew is expected to go in return for being paid eight hour.

MR. LEHRER: Flush that out from your point of view. What is it now and what do you want to change it too?

MR. WALSH: The testimony in front of the Congress this morning basically indicated that today unfortunately there are between 20 to 25 thousand individuals industry wide who are employed in the cab of a locomotive for whom there is no work and that cost is a cost of billion and a half dollars a year out of a total wage bill of seven and a half billion. Now we simply have to find a way to deal with that excess cost that makes us uncompetitive and the issue that is involved here in this dispute is whether or not the means proposed by the Presidential emergency board is whether binding arbitration at the local level is the right way to address that. Similarly how far a crew would work in the course of a day. Today the answer to that question is one hundred and eight miles. That is the same length that we had in 1917 and the Presidential Emergency Board proposed that should go to a 130 miles. The carriers had suggested a 160 miles given the fact that our main competition trucks goes six hundred miles. So in simple terms those are the basic issues that I think that are holding this dispute up. How many people are required to operate a train and how far should they do in return for eight hours a day.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Walsh thank you. We will be back to you and Mr. Fleming in a moment but now we want to go to Samuel Skinner the Secretary of Transportation. Mr, Secretarywhere do things stand tonight as we speak as far as what you have done, as far as what you have asked the Congress to do. Where do we stand now?

SEC. SKINNER: Well we have asked the Congress to move very quickly as they have done in the past and that is to legislate a settlement along the lines of the recommendations of the Presidential Emergency Board with possibly some modifications. The Congress is working as we speak for a mark up of a bill that they hope to send to the floor of the House tonight and hopefully we can even get in to the Senate tonight and over to the President for a signature. That may be a little optimistic but that is our schedule. The Congress would basically mandate a settlement and that is what they have done in the last ten disputes like this and we are optimistic they will do it tonight or tomorrow.

MR. LEHRER: No more cooling off period? No more negotiations between Mr. Fleming and his folks and Mr. Walsh and his folks?

SEC. SKINNER: Well the process has been going on since 1988. For eight months the Presidential Emergency Board which is an independent board that was appointed with both the acquiescence of both management and labor and looked at these issues and made their recommendations. There then was a cooling off period which was extended at the request of the parties. As Mr. Walsh says a number of parties were able to agree. A number of other parties were not able to agree but we don't think that we should go on much longer or can go on much longer in this negotiating process because the parties who can resolve the matter have resolved the matter and we've now got to get the economy back on track.

MR. LEHRER: What do you say to Mr. Fleming's point that management has been unwilling to reach a settlement on this because they know that Congress will eventually impose a settlement and they also knew what the settlement would be because this Emergency Board had already come up with a recommend settlement and now Congress will now rubber stamp that and management knew that so there was no incentive for them to reach a deal?

SEC. SKINNER: I don't really want to get in to arguing either side of this dispute. My directions from the President of the United States are to get this matter behind us and get this economy rolling. We do not need this kind of set back on our national economy at this point and we believe the collective bargaining process has worked to the degree that it can work. A number of parties, over 70,000, I think it is have settled. In addition you have seen the layoffs on your show. We can not afford these layoffs. So we have to get this behind us. And the Congress and the Administration will together and hopefully will come up with a resolution that will not be acceptable to either side totally but at least understand why the Congress and the Administration have to move forward.

MR. LEHRER: As I understand if Congress does, in fact, pass something and the President signs it that's it, I mean, that ends the strike, there's no appeal, no nothing after that?

SEC. SKINNER: That is correct.

MR. LEHRER: That is mandated by law?

SEC. SKINNER: That would be mandated by the legislation that is passed. That is the process that has been used by Congress in previous Administrations. It was used in 88, it was used in 82 in strikes similar to this. And this is a more complex series of issues and negotiations. There is a lot of issues on the table for this Presidential Emergency Board that weren't on earlier panels or earlier panels but the panel spent eight months looking at the evidence and they made recommendations. This is really an independent panel of experts in railway issues who are not involved with either party and were appointed from the recommendation of both parties. So this is about as good an objective analysis that we get and I think that Congress will rely on that objective analysis for a good portion of that legislation.

MR. LEHRER: The whole concept of the Presidential Emergency Board and this legislation is, the underpinnings of the concept, is simply that the country cannot stand a nationwide rail strike, is that right?

SEC. SKINNER: That's right. It's very unique. I was the one that supported the administration's position and articulated the administration's position in the Eastern Airlines situation where we said it's an individual strike, it affects 2 percent of the airline industry, let the management and labor try to come together, don't involve the Congress of the United States, or the federal government. That was a unique situation, but it was not so unique. That's the normal situation. In this case a strike on one carrier has a ripple effect that affects the entire economy. In this case 1/3 of the product moved to market every day in inter- city travel goes on rail. And we cannot afford the impact of a national rail strike. This is one of the few areas where the implications and ramifications are so great.

MR. LEHRER: The figures that -- I quoted them at the beginning - - in the News Summary -- Marlin Fitzwater at the White House said $50 million a day, $600 million a day if the strike goes a week. Where does that -- whose money is that? Who's losing that money? What does that mean?

SEC. SKINNER: Well, as the strike goes on, more and more people are laid off, I mean, that is basic, lost wages, lost product sales, lost revenue. It does not consider the implications for the federal government in its revenue strength, but all of that is put together by economists and those numbers were provided to the White House by our economists after talking to economists in the private sector, and that's based on estimates by professional economists across-the-board. Lost wages alone, we have 220,000 rail employees that are losing wages today. In addition, you saw that automobile workers in Chicago and all over the country are not going to get paid. Chrysler, Ford, and GM will shut down within three days if the strike isn't resolved, and that involves another several hundred thousand workers. And a ripple effect just goes on and on.

MR. LEHRER: You said you did not want to take sides in this, but what is your analysis of what caused the strike? Why could -- after three years of negotiations -- why could they not resolve this?

SEC. SKINNER: Well, the issues that were presented to the Presidential Emergency Board were numerous. They were very complicated and the requests that management made were very, very significant. In some cases, the unions were able to agree with it. And the Presidential Emergency Board was able to fashion something that could be used as the nucleus for a settlement. In other cases, I think the recommendations of the Board are so dramatic that the gap was just too big to resolve by the normal collective bargaining process and that's, the result is a strike of national importance.

MR. LEHRER: What do you mean by dramatic? Give me a recommendation that was so dramatic that could not be breached.

SEC. SKINNER: Well, the crew sizing. There's some recommendations on crew sizing as well as some of the distance issues that were really quite different than the current status quo and that unions found objectionable, and the management was unable to negotiate or was unwilling to negotiate the levels necessary.

MR. LEHRER: Now you said at the beginning that things looked pretty good as far as getting legislation passed. Are you talking about tonight or tomorrow or what, what's the best case scenario?

SEC. SKINNER: The best case scenario would be for the subcommittee in the House to mark up legislation, send it to the full House sometime tonight for a vote and hopefully if the Senate still is in session, send it over to the Senate, and get it over to the President. If not, that'll have to happen -- it would -- it could very likely happen in the morning, but I'm convinced that the Senate and the House on a bipartisan basis has agreed to the President's recommendation that we get this behind us and get this economy rolling again and they're all working with that end in mind.

MR. LEHRER: Some members of Congress did want a cooling off period though for negotiations to continue, but you have persuaded them otherwise?

SEC. SKINNER: Well, I think everybody understands that now that the strike has occurred a lot of the economic damage has already occurred and it began last week when people stopped putting product on the rail system of this country because they knew a strike would occur. We don't need to go through this again and again and again. This economy is at a very fragile time. It's on its way back. Let's let it grow back. Let's get these people back to work. Let's get the economy growing. Let's get these revenue streams moving forward. Let's get this product to market. Let's get our manufacturing facilities back. Let's get America growing again. And we've got to do that and we can't do that with a rail strike.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much.

SEC. SKINNER: Thank you very much.

MR. LEHRER: Let's go back now to Mr. Walsh and Mr. Fleming, our union and management representatives. First to you, Mr. Walsh, I take it that the management of the American railroads is more than willing to go along with the Presidential Emergency Board recommendations and if they are, in fact, passed into law, as the Secretary hopes gets done tonight or tomorrow, it's fine with you, is that right?

MR. WALSH: Well, the answer to that is yes, but I don't want to leave an implication that, therefore, the report is one-sided. The fact of the matter is that we didn't like a lot of things in the report. Nobody got what they wanted. But as Sec. Skinner indicated, this dispute has been going on in the case of the health and welfare issue since 1984, and in the case of the other issues since 1988, and our belief is that we've got to get this matter behind us and get on with our business. So the answer to your question in that framework is yes.

MR. LEHRER: But the basic issue that you raised, which you said a few moments ago was the central cause of this, which was the down sizing, to use the Secretary's term, the down sizing of the crews in the cabs of the train. You've won that one, right, in this Presidential Emergency Board recommendation?

MR. WALSH: The recommendations of the Emergency Board, if enacted, would not produce that result overnight. They would give us the opportunity to negotiate those changes in crew size at the local level. They do not provide for that to happen tomorrow. They do not provide for a result. Instead, they provide simply for a mechanism, that is, to negotiate these matters at the local level with binding arbitration in the event we're not able to agree. So it's very important to recognize all they provide is a mechanism for negotiation. They do not provide an outcome.

MR. LEHRER: They do not mandate the elimination of these twenty, twenty-five thousands jobs you were talking about?

MR. WALSH: The answer to your question is absolutely, they do not so mandate. All they do is to give us the opportunity to negotiate that at the local level, and in the event we are unable to reach agreement to provide for binding arbitration at that local level to resolve that particular dispute, no more, no less.

MR. LEHRER: I take it you would agree with the Secretary that it's pointless for you and the unions to sit down anymore on your own and try to work this out?

MR. WALSH: Unfortunately, I believe that that's true, that the issues are sufficiently fundamental, the differences are sufficiently found, that further discussion at this point I do not believe would produce an agreement.

MR. LEHRER: What do you think of the system that brought us here tonight and the idea that it has to go to the Congress of the United States and the President of the United States in order to resolve a labor-management issue between your companies and Mr. Fleming's unions?

MR. WALSH: Well, my answer to that is that what goes around comes around, that is, that the Labor Act, the Railway Labor Act, was passed by the Congress, and that Act provides that when a contract is over with, it doesn't expire, it merely lapses, and it prohibits self help on the part of either the unions or the carriers, and it provides for the very mechanism that's being employed here. So as long as we have that law on the books and as long as we do not have either on the union side or the management side normal collective bargaining actions to be able to take, this result will -- is invited and will occur, so it's the law and it, like many things in the rail industry, has been the law for a very long time.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree with the Secretary that you all are important enough to have this kind of mechanism in place?

MR. WALSH: Well, I would tell you from being up there in the Congress this morning and testifying there is an absolute appreciation of just what kind of a national emergency that an across-the-board rail shutdown represents, so in that sense, I think, unfortunately, yes. I think there has to be a mechanism for dealing with it.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Walsh, thank you.

MR. WALSH: Thank you.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Fleming, do you agree that your union members and the other union members who went on strike this morning have caused a national emergency?

MR. FLEMING: Well, certainly, we had to be concerned about the economy. We are concerned about the economy. The last thing we want to do is go on strike. We didn't want the strike. We felt like that our hand was forced. We had to go on strike in order to get consideration on these issues. If the Congress imposes something on us, we'll certainly have to look at it. We're prepared to deal with that when it happens. We think though that the solution is not within the Congress of the United States like the rail carriers or the railroads are trying to tell the public, and the solution is in this dispute or these disputes are within letting management and labor go through the process and conclude it wherever it may fall.

MR. LEHRER: But what do you say to those who say well, that's fine, Mr. Fleming, you all tried for three years and couldn't work it out, why would it suddenly happen now?

MR. FLEMING: Well, for the very reason that we discussed earlier. The Railway Labor Act, the process itself, is the reason that we had to wait for three years. If we were given the right to go ahead and deal with these issues without having the status quo extended, without having the Congress intervene, we could do so.

MR. LEHRER: What about Mr. Walsh's point that what really is at issue here is that there are 20,000, you heard what he said, twenty to twenty-five thousand people operating trains that are not needed and that's costing a billion, billion and a half dollars, and something has to be done about that?

MR. FLEMING: I represent employees in the maintenance sector of the railroad industry. I am not in a position to adequately judge that point of view by Mr. Walsh. I do know that we have been accused on occasion of featherbedding and it's a remark that we often hear by management, and I deeply resent that remark, and I've often heard of unusually large numbers of average pay in this industry, and my members don't make those kind of wages. I don't know where those numbers come from.

MR. LEHRER: What is the average pay of a member of your union working for a railroad in this country?

MR. FLEMING: $27,000 in our view is the average pay for employees working in our industry in the maintenance department.

MR. LEHRER: What's the top pay say for somebody with fifteen to twenty years seniority at the top of the scale?

MR. FLEMING: The top pay usually would involve one of our so- called supervisors of our crews and so forth and they would come in anywhere from fourteen, fifteen dollars an hour, in that area, and most are the class one carriers in the United States.

MR. LEHRER: What about, what do you say to Mr. Walsh's point that these things have to be done, both in wages and in down sizing crews and all that, that the railroad industry is going to compete with its major competitor, which is the trucking industry?

MR. FLEMING: Well, we have heard, you know, ever since deregulation in 1980, we have made sacrifice after sacrifice for that very reason. This is not a new dialogue that management has come forth with. We have often been confronted with that over the last two or three rounds. We don't need those concessions by evidence of the numbers that I spoke about earlier and Mr. Walsh is well aware of those numbers. We feel that this industry and it's a proven fact that this industry has made more money in the last five years than any other five year period in its history and we can't buy this line that the carriers or the railroads are in dire strait and need these concessions from us.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Well, we'll have to leave it there. Mr. Fleming, I thank you very much. I also want to thank Mr. Walsh and Sec. Skinner. FOCUS - NAMING NAMES

MR. MacNeil: We spend the rest of our program tonight looking at a dilemma that faces journalists and the public. Should the press release the names of rape victims? The issue's at the center of attention today because of the extensive coverage given an alleged rape that took place at the family estate of Sen. Edward Kennedy in Palm Beach, Florida over Easter weekend. The press has reported that the Senator's nephew, William Kennedy Smith, has been identified by the woman as her assailant. No formal charges have been filed. Yesterday NBC News broke with a longstanding practice when it revealed the name of the woman involved in the incident. Today the New York Times followed with a profile of the woman. Most other national news organizations have chosen not to reveal her identity, but a number of newspapers did. NBC News Pres. Michael Cockner defended the decision saying, "We believe the more we tell our viewers, the better informed they will be in making up their own minds about the issues involved." We have four views on the question of naming rape victims. Ellen Goodman is a syndicated columnist. Elizabeth Holtzman is the Comptroller of New York City. Before that, she was the DA in Brooklyn. Before that, she was a Congresswoman and authored a bill restricting questioning of rape victims in federal court. Isabelle Katz Pinzler is an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union and the director of their women's rights project. Jane Schorer is a writer for the Des Moines Register. She recently won a Pulitzer Prize for her series of articles about a rape victim's struggle to deal with the stigma of rape. Ms. Pinzler, you believe that in general the news of women, the names of women who have been raped or who allege rape should be published, is that right?

MS. PINZLER: Well, first of all, there is a first amendment right for the press to publish their names. And that's an easy question. The much more difficult question is the should, is it -- does it advance women's rights generally and rape victims in particular to publish their names? As a matter of judgment and discretion, it would certainly appear not to. But I think that there's an argument that this law -- it was designed with the best of intentions or the practice was designed with the best of intentions, to protect women and may have the opposite effect, may have the effect of treating rape differently and having the rape victim regarded somehow as damaged goods and somehow guilty, somehow in need of protection more than victims of other crimes. Victims of other crimes are not shielded in that way from press -- I should also point out that in most of these cases, there's never been any reluctance to publish a great deal of factual information about the victims. It's only the name that gets withheld.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. Holtzman, you believe they should not be published.

MS. HOLTZMAN: That's right.

MR. MacNeil: Why?

MS. HOLTZMAN: Well, I think that unfortunately society does treat rape victims as different. They generally view rape victims as less trustworthy, as responsible for the crime. There's a double standard clearly for rape victims. And I think that the publication of the name makes it much more traumatic for the woman. It also creates the opportunity for the kind of profile that you mention that was published in the New York Times today in which a woman's past sexual life was discussed, things that could never appear in a trial, things that we fought so hard to prevent from coming into a trial now become paraded before the public in an effort to destroy the woman's character. And that's what concerns me very much. It will I believe make rape victims much more reluctant to come forward and prosecute, much more reluctant to cooperate, and that it will create a larger danger for women in general in society.

MR. MacNeil: How about you? How do you feel about that, Ms. Schorer? Your paper's just won a Pulitzer for naming and giving a great deal of detail about the case of a woman who agreed to have her name used, and I gather your paper -- I just discovered your paper did carry the name of this, the woman in this particular case today after NBC divulged it. What is your position on this now?

MS. SCHORER: Well, first of all, our series, which was published a little over a year ago, was a different case than what's going on in Florida today, because it was the story of a woman and the trauma she experienced as a result of her rape. But we worked with her months after her attack and with her permission and for the purpose of educating our readers on the experience of a rape victim. So it's different than the dilemma of whether or not to print a rape victim's name the day after the rape, as it's reported at the police station. And when I say that I would like to see the day when names are printed, rape victims' names are printed in the newspaper, I think that's a long time in the future. I do believe that by treating them like we do other news sources or other crime victims, that will help diminish the stigma of rape. But I think we're a long way off from that. I think for right now we need to stick to the policy in most cases of protecting the rape victim.

MR. MacNeil: And only if she is willing to have her name used use it, is that -- is that what you believe?

MS. SCHORER: Well, for right now. I too dream of the day when the stigma does not exist, so that we don't have to worry about this, so the journalists automatically treat rape victims as they do other crime victims who don't have a choice of whether their name is published or not. I don't think we're there yet.

MR. MacNeil: Ellen Goodman in Boston, how do you feel about it?

MS. GOODMAN: I think we're talking about a moment in social change. I mean, are in a post shame society? Are we in an era when rape is treated like a mugging? No, we're not. And how do we get there? Well, one of the ways that we get there is by allowing women to speak out, but not forcing them to. Because if, in fact, we start forcing women to, we're going to push rape back underground. The woman that Jane did her profile on has said that had she known, had she believed her name would be published, she would not even have reported her rape. She -- it took her seven months of healing before she felt comfortable to come forward and talk about it. The process of women choosing to be open has very much changed public attitudes, but forcing them to I think will delay that change.

MR. MacNeil: How do you feel about that, Ms. Pinzler?

MS. PINZLER: Well, I don't disagree with that. I think it's as if I were in -- if I were the publishers of these papers or running these networks, I would say the same thing. The question is whether they have a right to publish it.

MR. MacNeil: You don't question their right?

MS. PINZLER: No. I somehow doubt that most of the other panelists --

MR. MacNeil: You don't question that, which would make the Florida law -- Florida has a law.

MS. PINZLER: Unconstitutional.

MR. MacNeil: And you think that would be unconstitutional?

MS. PINZLER: Right. I also think that it isn't only in rape cases that I would like to see people protected from this kind of abuse. An example that comes to mind is the Jennifer Levin case and the Marlo Hansen case. Neither of those were rapes, but the same sort of thing happened where the woman's character was put on trial when she was a victim and that was very painful to their families.

MR. MacNeil: That was the young woman who was murdered in Central Park in a sexual incident.

MS. PINZLER: So as a matter of editorial judgment, I would much prefer that none of these people's privacy be invaded. You know, there's rarely anything as disgusting as when you see a news reporter sticking a microphone and a camera in the face of somebody whose child has just been killed. But that's different than saying that they can't. So I think that's a very important distinction.

MR. MacNeil: Now Liz Holtzman, pick up on what Ellen Goodman said. How do we get there to the point where the crime is de- stigmatized if you continue as an exception to almost all the traditions of anglo saxon juris prudence to keep -- to let the accused be named, but not his accuser? I mean, it is in our traditions of law, isn't it, that accusers should be identified?

MS. HOLTZMAN: Well, they are and it's done in the trial in the appropriate place, in the appropriate time. And the jury has the opportunity to view the demeanor of the victim and assess the evidence on the part of the prosecution. But I think, Robin, the fact of the matter is that rape has been treated uniquely in anglo saxon law because in rape the woman was viewed as bringing, bringing the rape upon herself, as being the one who was responsible. She's not the victim. She's the provoker. And the reluctance of society to hold those responsible for rape is very clear. As a former prosecutor, I can tell you how painfully difficult it was to prosecute and win convictions in many cases. I give you an example of the attitudes of society about rape and the right of -- still the view that men are entitled to use force and that the woman is to blame. We had a case in Brooklyn in which a couple were living together and broke up and the woman came back one afternoon to pick up her clothes. The man tied her up with a telephone wire, beat her, physically assaulted her, injured her, and raped her. The jury acquitted him of rape and convicted him of the assault. In other words, he was entitled to use force against her, whether it was because of their relationship or whatever, but he was not entitled to -- he was not entitled to beat her. And I think this is a good example of how deep seated the attitudes are about the entitlement to use force against women in society and how much more is going to have to be done to educate all of us, men and women alike about our entitlement to bodily privacy and autonomy.

MR. MacNeil: Let me ask Ms. Schorer. Have the mores of this society and its attitude to the things Ms. Holtzman's talking about, have they advanced or moved or changed enough to de-mystify this crime or to de-stigmatize it yet, or is it, has the society not moved there yet? What do you think?

MS. SCHORER: No, I don't think we're there yet. I think we have a long way to go. I would like to think that in the past year there's been some progress because at least people are talking about it now. What we discovered from our series was well received, much to our surprise, was that that people were ready and willing to talk about it. So I think we're just at square one.

MR. MacNeil: And how do you get to square two? How do you think you get to square two?

MS. SCHORER: Well, much the same as what's already been said, that I think it's the changing societal attitudes in regard to rape and domestic violence all around that we need to teach our children, we need to educate people, we need to change how human beings treat other human beings.

MR. MacNeil: Ellen Goodman, how does the society advance to the stage where rape is treated like other crimes?

MS. GOODMAN: Well, let me say how journalism might deal with it. The argument that was made, well, the New York Times made a phenomenally sort of wimpy argument, NBC did it, we had to do it, that is what I referred to as the other kids are doing it argument, but one of the arguments that was made was that this is such a nationally prominent story that it's an exception and on a case by case basis we should start making these exceptions. And what that leads you to is the notion that your identity will be protected if you get raped by the man down the street as long as he isn't famous. That doesn't work. I think what can work is an interim position. I think that journalists should not longer assume that a woman who has alleged rape wants anonymity. I think a journalist should be allowed to ask that woman and there are a number and perhaps an increasing number who will be willing to have their names used who do, in fact, feel confident and strong enough that they will say that it is like any other assault and will be comfortable with that. So I wouldn't like to see a law that forbids that sort of journalistic access and I also think that there is that potential interim position of asking and having an increasing number of women say yes, you may use my name, and that that will again advance it.

MR. MacNeil: Jane Schorer, has your newspaper had any experience with that in the year since the case that won the Pulitzer Prize? I mean, have you been asking women as a matter of policy and have more of them been willing?

MS. SCHORER: Yes, we surely have had experience. After the success of our story being well received, we did alter our policy in that reporters were instructed to give rape victims an option of having their names named, printed in the newspaper or not. Right now our policy is not to do that.

MR. MacNeil: Have any women said yes?

MS. SCHORER: Yes. Yes. But I wanted to make it clear that we aren't doing that at the time of the police report. We aren't doing it the morning after the rape. We're doing it later on at the time of the trial or some other point of news worthiness. And yes, some women have agreed. Some other women and the general public have misunderstood our intention and formed some sort of panic that we were going to start printing names. So there's a lot of fear out there.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. Holtzman, as a former prosecutor, is the publication of names of women willing to have them published? Is that moving things forward, or is that too discouraging other women from coming forward?

MS. HOLTZMAN: Well, I think if the policy's misunderstood, it certainly can have a very serious deterrent impact on the willingness of women to come forward and help in the prosecution of rape cases and to themselves come forward and tell about the rape. I think that there is a lot of confusion about this. I think the selective idea is a terrible idea, because that is simply the same as printing it in all cases, because no one could ever be sure that her name won't be dragged across the front pages.

MR. MacNeil: Do you think this case today is going to cause women across this country not to come forward?

MS. HOLTZMAN: It may cause many women not to come forward and, therefore, it may cause additional rapes to take place, because the cases will not be prosecuted.

MR. MacNeil: Do you think so?

MS. PINZLER: I think that what keeps women from coming forward in 99 percent of the cases is not fear of publicity, because, unfortunately, they usually are raped by the man down the street, it's the hostility and indifference of the police when they report it, the hostility and indifference of some prosecutors when they report it, and the hostility and abusiveness sometimes of defense counsel in trials. Now it's one thing to say that certain kinds of evidence should not come in the trial. And we fully support that. It's another thing to restrict what the public has a right to know. And I think that that's a distinction that has to be kept in mind.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Ms. Holtzman raised the profile that the Times published. If you print people's names, isn'tit inevitable that the kinds of information about their backgrounds that is published in any crime is also going to be published and does that worry you --

MS. PINZLER: Yes.

MR. MacNeil: -- since the character of a woman has so traditionally been used as part of the defense of the accused?

MS. PINZLER: I think the character of a woman when making an accusation, as I pointed out before, and even in other kinds of crimes, is apt to come into it. It isn't just rape where that's true. And I think that bringing this out in the daylight is a very helpful thing to do. For instance, I can't tell you how many times just today I've had people say to me in an offhand way, well, it looks like she really was asking for it in some way, and you say, what do you mean she was asking for it, because she went to a bar that she, therefore, consented to be raped? Even if she went home with him, she didn't consent to be raped necessarily, without judging this case in any way, it gives an opportunity to air issues in a way that they aren't otherwise going to get aired.

MR. MacNeil: How do you feel about that, Ellen Goodman?

MS. GOODMAN: I think that -- I thought that until she corrected herself that she was a little casual with assuming that this woman had, in fact, been raped. I think there is a problem. The best analysis on the other side, which I do not take, is that look what has happened to William Kennedy Smith who has not yet even been charged with rape and yet he has gone across the nation, he has gone down as the alleged rapist, which is pretty damning and damaging to his character, should he, you know, at this moment too, that's the best case to be made on the other side. I don't myself think that overwhelms my concerns, but that is, it's a very strong consideration.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. Schorer, how does your paper feel in the experience you've had in this last year, which I think is unique, I believe unique among American newspapers, about the fairness issue of the man, the accused being named and all the publicity surrounding that, and not the, not the alleged victim?

MS. SCHORER: We haven't concentrated on that so much this past year, but I think the issue that you've just been talking about is real troubling. It has bothered me a great deal since the publication of our series, because we dealt with it ourself in trying to decide how much information to print about the victim in our story. There was plenty of personal background information about Nancy Zigimeier that I obtained through research that we didn't print in our story because we judged it to not be relevant to the story of the trauma that a rape victim goes through. But in everyday practice, if we get to the point of printing rape victims' names, we're going to have to decide whether we then print where she works or to whom she's related, or anything else that's in the clip file in the library at the newspaper. I think there's a big difference between the issue of printing a rape victim's name and telling who that person is.

MR. MacNeil: Yeah. How do you feel about that side of it? It's the same freedom of the press issue, as it were, but how do you, how do you control one and not the other?

MS. PINZLER: I think you don't control either is the answer to that, and again, it becomes a matter of editorial judgment as to what makes the most sense, and that's true of naming the accused and raking various questions up about the accused as well.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. Holtzman, just on the fairness issue, how do you feel about it? I mean, in terms of equality of the sexes or the attempt of the society to come to view them in, with fairness and equality, how do you feel about the fairness issue in this?

MS. HOLTZMAN: Well, I don't think we've come anywhere near fairness to rape victims in this society unfortunately. Rape is of epidemic proportions. The society still blames the victim and the double standard applies. Date rape or acquaintance rape is extremely difficult to prosecute. On the issue that you raised, well, that Ellen Goodman raised, well, his name is mentioned in the paper that he has been accused, so why shouldn't her name be, I mean, there are safeguards, constitutional safeguards, statutory safeguards before a person can be formally accused in a written document. There's an indictment, there are procedures, and so I think the equality, we haven't reached that yet.

MR. MacNeil: We haven't reached that yet. All right. Well, we've reached the end of our time. Elizabeth Holtzman, Ellen Goodman, Isabelle Pinzler, and Jane Schorer, thanks all for joining us. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again the major stories of this Wednesday, freight and commuter rail service was disrupted by a nationwide rail strike while Congress and the Bush administration considered action to order the strikers back to work. U.S. troops entered Northern Iraq to begin setting up refugee camps. Officials said it will take at least 10 days before the camps are operational. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour tonight and we'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.