This is the last "President's Perspective" column of the 20^th Century and of the second

Millennium since the Birth of Jesus Christ. (Sounds pretty profound, eh?) It seems this is the right time to reflect about the accomplishments of the U.S. Labor Movement during the 20^th Century and try to use a crystal ball to look into the 21^st Century and the third millennium.

The 20^th Century brought us from horse and buggy to landing on the moon. This century has produced radio, television, the growth of the automobile industry, the development of aviation and telecommunications, geometric improvements in medicine and, of course, the computer. The profound technological changes of this century appear to dwarf all technological changes from the Birth of Jesus to the beginning of this century. We look at a society where nearly all have homes, creature comforts, air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter and, if we believe the pundits, more improvements to come in the future.

But "the more things change, the more they stay the same" as a famous French quote puts it. More than two-thirds of the world's population live in the same kind of abject poverty and desolation that has characterized life for normal working people for the first and second millennia. They live without serious improvements in their lives from the automobile, the airplane, the telephone, the computer - nearly devoid of technology. They live just as the vast bulk of the human race has lived for time immemorial.

And in this country, while there is no doubt that the vast majority of Americans have benefited, there is a reason why it happened here. And that reason is, and will continue to be into the third Millennium, the Labor Movement and the Civil Rights Movement. Those two movements, more than any others of the 20^th Century, guaranteed and continue to guarantee that those who produce the wealth of our society will also share some of that wealth.

From the strikes and turbulence of the late 19^th and 20^th Century, through the battles of labor in the 30s, the turbulence of the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s and 70s to Labor's fights with Ronald Reagan, George Bush and, unfortunately Bill Clinton and Al Gore, the indomitable spirit and willingness to sacrifice for our families and our offspring, the Labor Movement has brought the living and working conditions of Americans and of workers throughout the world ever higher.

Yet, "the more things change, the more things stay the same." Although the material condition of workers now is higher than they were at the end of the 19^th Century, organized management still does all it can to take the lion's share of the wealth we produce.

In the last part of the 19^th Century railroad workers struck for better wages, working conditions and the eight-hour day. Some were killed in those battles, but eventually workers won and obtained those benefits. Workers fought monopolies and monopolistic practices by the railroads and other major industries. And today, as we end the second Millennium, we have seen over the last decade, under a labor-friendly Administration, the greatest consolidation of wealth and power in the railroad industry since the days of the robber barons.

In five short years, the railroad industry has been turned on its head, with only four major railroads left in the United States--BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific. This kind of consolidation was never even imagined by the robber barons. Similar consolidation is occurring in other industries on a national and global scale. Today Teamsters are on strike at Overnite, a subsidiary of Union Pacific and railroad workers fight for the right to retire at age 55 with 30 years of service. Even while this fight goes on, we are entering a round of bargaining where the newly created merged railroads are preparing to argue that their economic conditions have deteriorated as a result of the mergers they forced over our objections.

Technology has also created opportunity for today's corporations--in many instances simply robber barons by committee--to fleece workers throughout the planet--making treaties for free trade with countries still using slave labor, child labor and which repress their labor movements in order to keep wages as low as possible. The goal is simple--to force downward pressure on wages in the U.S. and the industrialized world and make super profits in the underdeveloped nations. Those robber barons by committee have made the world their oyster and once again, there are only two forces which fight for the downtrodden--the Labor Movement and the Civil Rights movement. "The more things change, the more things stay the same."

In many ways, our industry is a microcosm of this past century. At the beginning of the century, the railroad was the technology that was binding the nation. In the 1920s and through the early 1950s, railroads moved between 65 and 80 percent of all intercity freight. The growth of the auto and aviation industries--new technology-- ate into that percentage so that by the end of the second Millennium, the railroads were moving only about 38 percent of the intercity freight.

The railroads' response to technology was to end regulation and cut their labor expenses. Acting as if regulation was their main problem, the railroads cut jobs wholesale under the mantra of deregulation, even as they demanded even more regulation of their relationship with workers. Using the power of government, the railroads and their servants in the judiciary and agencies created and expanded the law to force railroad workers back to work when we struck, abrogate our agreements and consolidate. This was true at the end of the 19^th Century and it is true at the end of the 20^th Century. Again, "the more things change, the more things stay the same."

As we get ready to enjoy the last Christmas of the 20^th Century--the last Christmas of the second Millennium, we can be proud that we are the ones who stand against the unbridled power of the corporations. We can be proud that we have fought to guarantee workers in the U.S. and the world "a piece of the action." And although we are up against resources and power far greater than ours, so long as we remain committed unionists--so long as we continue the battles our ancestors have fought--so long as we remember the spirit and principles of Jesus and try to live up to them--the forces of greed will not prevail. They may beat us at times and things may look dark, but ultimately they must concede some of the wealth we create to us. As Jesus fought for the poor and was the son of a carpenter, so we will fight for the workers and the poor, because they are us and that is the spirit of the Labor Movement. "The more things change, the more things stay the same."

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.