Mr. MACDONALD. Boston & Maine, right.

Mr. CHESSER (continuing). The Safety Board, in their investigation, recommended that; that the door be changed to open out.

Mr. MACDONALD. Well, there is a good deal of difference between making a recommendation, at which the Government is very goodmaking recommendations-but if you don't have any teeth to implement the recommendation, it doesn't seem to me to do much good. Mr. CHESSER. Well, on page 3 of the bill

Mr. MACDONALD. It is a 1-day wonder, and everyone gets pious for a week or so, and then everyone forgets about it, except the families of those people who have been killed.

Mr. CHESSER. On page 3 of the bill, Mr. Macdonald, this is outlined. Minimum standards, governing the use, design, materials, workmanship, installation and construction and performance of rail facilities, and that is identified as section 3 (a) (1).

Mr. MACDONALD. Well, section 3, as I have read it, merely says that he can recommend, as you point out, and to promote safety; but what can he do if the railroads don't follow the recommendation?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Mr. Congressman, under this bill, he could prescribe regulations covering design. He could have inspection techniques covering design.

As a matter of fact, in our amendments, in order to assure that that power would extend to every type of equipment involved in railroading, we proposed some new definitions, which would include things that have been ignored before, like track motorcars, and the like, so between the proposed DOT bill and the amendments being proposed by the Railway Labor Executives Association, we believe that DOT would be empowered to prescribe rules and set up inspection standards for design, materiel, and so forth.

Mr. MACDONALD. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chesser.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. FRIEDEL. Mr. Devine.

Mr. DEVINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chesser, I get the impression that you don't find much favor with the railroad management.

Mr. CHESSER. No; I think you have got the wrong impression. I have got many friends.

Mr. DEVINE. I have listened to you for about an hour, and about all I could see was you were creating a monster that was growing with almost every phrase, and I presume that you are speaking for each of the 23 unions that are listed on the front of your statement.

Mr. CHESSER. Yes, sir, Mr. Devine; there is a monster growing, and the record will indicate it, by the deaths and injuries in this industry. Now if you mean am I talking about a monster personally, among railroad officials; no, sir, I am not.

Mr. DEVINE. NO; I just get the impression listening to you that you think that railroad management is setting out to kill these people.

Mr. CHESSER. Well, now, I didn't say that, Mr. Devine. I didn't say that railroad management is setting out to kill these people. I say that these conditions are there, that they should correct. And if they are corrected, lives would be saved. Yes; it is their responsibility.

Mr. DEVINE. Have you and your brotherhoods, your organizations, reached any method for the purpose of trying to work out a bill that

would be agreeable to you, your organizations, and to the railroad management, and to the Department of Transportation?

Mr. CHESSER. Well, I don't exactly understand your question. You say, did we meet?

Mr. DEVINE. Let me clarify it this way. You, in your statement here, proposed 44 amendments.

Mr. CHESSER. Yes, sir.

Mr. DEVINE. Forty-four amendments to this bill. Now, it is going to take a lot of doing to get all of your amendments, and I presume that railroad management will come in with, I don't know whether as many, and whether or not any of them will be agreeable to the Department of Transportation and Congress; I don't know, but if you come in with a suggestion of 44 amendments, we are going to be a long, long time ever coming out with what may be an agreed bill to pass the Congress.

Mr. CHESSER. Well, Mr. Devine, you will notice that I would say, as a rough estimate, about 38-37 or 38-of those amendments are pure draftmanship that our attorney suggested. So they are not long amendments to change the bill, per se.

Mr. DEVINE. Yes. Well, one other thing that I would point out to you, and comparisons sometimes are unfair, but you point out that 2,684 human beings were killed in railroad accidents in 1966.

I would point out to you that testimony before this same committee in the area of safety and creating Federal standards, that in the year 1966, there were 53,041 people killed in automobile accidents.

As I say, comparisons are sometimes unfair, but I am not sure that the standards that we in the Congress have set are going to do anything about solving those particular problems.

Mr. CHESSER. Well, I think the problems-I think the legislation, the very little legislation which has been passed certainly helped in the railroad industry. Now I am not an authority on the Highway Safety Act, but certainly there are many more miles traveled throughout the United States by highways. To be very honest with you, I can't make the comparison.

Mr. DEVINE. Yes. Well, I think we are all in favor of safety. The only question, I think, that is in controversy is the role that the Federal Government should play in the particular area, and I don't think the impression should be left, if we adopt this bill, or the bill as amended as you propose, that it is going to eliminate accidents.

Mr. CHESSER. You can't-I hope I didn't leave the impression or didn't say that if this bill is passed, there will be no more accidents. That certainly is not true.

Mr. DEVINE. You didn't say that.

Mr. CHESSER. No, sir; I did not.

Mr. DEVINE. But they would be, hopefully, reduced substantially. Mr. CHESSER. Absolutely. Substantially.

Mr. DEVINE. Don't you feel that railroad management feels the same way, that they would like also to have accidents reduced substantially? Mr. CHESSER. I am not here today telling you that there is a general manager here or a president of a railroad that has got an axe in his hand, that is going to cut the head off an employee, but I am telling you this: I have been to too many safety meetings, where these things are pointed out to them, the defects, and nothing has been done about it. Now, this is their responsibility.

Mr. DEVINE. I would agree with you.

Mr. CHESSER. Yes, sir. There is the area that I am talking about.

Mr. DEVINE. What is your background in railroad, Mr. Chesser? How long have you been with this organization?

Mr. CHESSER. I hired out on the Santa Fe Railroad, first as a brakeman, in June of 1941, and I hold my seniority there now, as a brakeman conductor, out of Amarillo, Tex.

Mr. DEVINE. How long have you been the representative, the legislative representative?

Mr. CHESSER. I came to Washington in October 1961.

Mr. DEVINE. In that capacity?

Mr. CHESSER. Yes, sir, national legislative representative.
Mr. DEVINE. Thank you very much.

Mr. FRIEDEL. Mr. Rogers.

Mr. PICKLE. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. FRIEDEL. The gentleman's time has expired.

Mr. Rogers.

Mr. ROGERS. I will yield to the gentleman.

Mr. PICKLE. I just simply want to observe-and I thank the gentleman-I have been unavoidably detained, and I just came into the room, but I just wanted to say to my colleagues that Mr. Chesser and I are hometown citizens, he lived in Austin for about 10 years, and we were fellow Methodists, and he was one of the best leaders for his group in all of Texas, and I am glad to see him here.

Mr. CHESSER. Thank you, sir.

Mr. FRIEDEL. Mr. Rogers.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chesser, I have enjoyed your statement, too. It has been most helpful.

I notice in some of the charts I see here, though, that they have causes of these accidents broken down into four categories, negligence of employees, this is from 1961 through 1966, about, well, almost 2,000; 1,999.

Now, this legislation wouldn't necessarily go to that, would it?

Mr. HOMER. I understand only that the legislation would provide the authority to regulate all of these areas, including at least to the extent of the operating groups could impose some control. Mr. ROGERS. Training?

Mr. KUYKENDALL. Will the gentleman yield to tell us where he is reading?

Mr. ROGERS. Well, in the statement of Mr. Lang, who I think presented testimony yesterday, and it is on the attachment B-1.

Mr. CHESSER. I don't have that statement here, Mr. Rogers. Mr. ROGERS. Well, I just noticed that category, defects in or failures of equipment.

Now, there are 1,800 there. This is from 1961 to 1966. Defects in and improper maintenance of way and structure, 14, and all other causes, including unknown.

Mr. CHESSER. Now, is your question, would the legislation reach to this area?

Yes, sir, it would.

Mr. ROGERS. In what way?

Mr. CHESSER. Giving the Department of Transportation the authority over some, well, over operating rules, and the inspection with the right to enforce defective equipment and tracks.

Mr. ROGERS. No, this is negligence of employees, where the employee doesn't do what he is supposed to. He is negligent.

Mr. CHESSER. Yes, this would be in the area of rulemaking, et cetera. And of course, in training and supervision.

Mr. ROGERS. You are going to have the Federal Government train them?

Mr. CHESSER. No, sir. No, I would say as in other industries, there should be a better training program within the industry itself. Mr. KUYKENDALL. Will the gentleman from Florida yield at that point for a question?

Mr. ROGERS. Yes.

Mr. KUYKENDALL. This is one of the things that disturbed several of us yesterday, Mr. Chesser, and that is the question I want to lay out on the table here and discuss thoroughly. It seems to me we risk a confrontation, or maybe the third party getting involved in the matter of labor-management relationships here. I discussed with one of your own people outside, I said:

Are you fellows going to agree to let the DOT supersede your labor arrangement as far as work rules are concerned? Have you agreed to this?

And then I believe you introduced an amendment that has something to say about it, but it seems to me the answer you just gave Mr. Rogers was a little bit of a contradiction to what my understanding of your amendment was. So we are puzzled by it.

Mr. CHESSER. Yes, well, I hope we can straighten that out. Our amendment is amendment No. 9. It is on page 21 of my statement. Mr. BROTZMAN. If you will hold just for 1 second.

Mr. MACDONALD. Would the gentleman yield while we are finding it? Could I just ask, off the record?

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. FRIEDEL. On the record.
Mr. Rogers had the floor.

Mr. ROGERS. Well, I think you were trying to get an answer, Mr. Kuykendall.

Mr. KUYKENDALL. Yes; in other words, I think there is a needed point of clarification here for the good of all of us.

Mr. CHESSER. Yes, I hope we can give it to you, because we heard yesterday this discussion, and I would like to defer to our counsel, who I hope can straighten this matter out.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. It was the thought of the brotherhoods-well, first let me say that it is my understanding that it is the experience of the brotherhoods in the negotiations that they haven't been able to rely on their negotiations with management to cover safety. They have had to rely upon law. But they do, under the Railway Labor Act, negotiate many items.

Now, we have proposed this amendment No. 9, which in essence says that the Federal agency will not be empowered to deal with anything which is the subject matter of a negotiated agreement under the Railway Labor Act, with the thought that if the administrator has power to cover certain areas, with that power existing, that both management and labor will have greater incentive to negotiate under the Railway Labor Act and cover these matters, and to the extent that they have negotiated, that would be out of the power of the administrator.

Mr. KUYKENDALL. Will the gentleman pick up the bill, please, and turn to page 3, if he would?

Mr. FRIEDEL. Mr. Rogers, your time has expired.

Mr. Broyhill.

Mr. BROYHILL. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. I have the page.

Mr. KUYKENDALL. Yes, sir, I would like for you to reconcile, for our good, your amendment No. 9 as to its possible conflict with 3 (a) (3) on page 3.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. There would be no conflict, for this reason. 3(a) (3), as proposed by DOT, would give the Federal Agency the power to impose and set up standards of employee qualifications, and even perhaps, although it may not be desirable, to the extent testified to yesterday, or perhaps they might try to license particular classes of employees.

Now that power would reside in the Federal administration if this statute became law.

Mr. KUYKENDALL. Resting

Mr. BERNSTEIN. I will come to that in a moment. But this amendment No. 9 is included, even if that power may rest with the Federal Agency, to the extent that management and labor have negotiated an agreement covering particular subject matter, the Agency does not rule or regulate on it.

In other words, if management and labor by themselves adopt a rule, that carves out of the authority of the administrator the power to do the same thing. So it was a thought that with that, to use a blunt expression, with that legislative club there, there might be a greater incentive to negotiate on items that haven't previously been negotiated

upon.

Mr. KUYKENDALL. I have one more quick question.

Then, it is your opinion that even though 3(a) (3) is passed-and let me use a specific, and it may not be possible within your mind, now, but it is theoretically possible-that your man to do a certain job must have a certain number of years of qualification, regardless, and they must have a mandatory retirement at a certain age. Let's say that is ruled under 3 (a) (3), and your particular agreement does not agree with it, as you cover in your amendment No. 9.

Are you of the opinion that the courts would overrule 3(a) (3) in preference to your amendment No. 9?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Let me answer you, if I understand you. If I understand your question

Mr. KUYKENDALL. Let's correct something here. Let's just say that qualification for the airline pilot was set up and licensed by the FAA. Mr. BERNSTEIN. We considered this very problem. Let me answer it this way.

Mr. KUYKENDALL. So let's say they set up similar qualifications for one of your engineers.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Let's assume that the administration tries to put in a rule that a man can't operate as a train engineer beyond age 60. Mr. KUYKENDALL. OK.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. And let's assume that the brotherhoods and management have negotiated an agreement permitting him to operate until age 65. We submit that if amendment No. 9 is included in the