Burlington Iowa Suing Railroad

Here is the article I saw this morning on Yahoo:

Iowa Town Suing Railroad Over Job Cuts
Tue Apr 20, 3:16 PM ET Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!


By PATRICK CONDON, Associated Press Writer

BURLINGTON, Iowa - Battered by layoffs over the past few years, this Mississippi River town of crumbling brick buildings and faded Victorian homes is striking back at the one that hurt it the most — by suing the railroad that shares its name.


Burlington is taking the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway to court, claiming the railroad violated a 146-year-old contract with the city when it cut more than 350 jobs from the local work force.


"All I hear about are job losses in this county, and now I can do something about it," said Mike Edwards, mayor of this town of 27,000.


Burlington's history is intertwined with that of the railroad that took the town's name. The Burlington & Missouri River Railroad was incorporated in 1852 as tracks were reaching west across the frontier.


When Congress established the city of Burlington in 1836, in what was then the Wisconsin Territory, it required that about 20 riverfront acres be used for public purposes. Two decades later, the city boosted the growing railroad by letting it use the land at no cost to build a train yard at the spot where a railroad bridge connects Illinois and Iowa.


There was a catch: The 1858 agreement said that in exchange for free use of the land, the railroad must maintain its principal repair shops in Burlington.


In the following years, the railroad established the West Burlington shops for that purpose. In their heyday around the end of the 19th century, the shops employed up to 2,000 workers — blacksmiths, mechanics, machinists, carpenters, upholsterers and other tradesmen engaged in building and repairing steam locomotives and freight and passenger cars.


Access to railroad lines helped turn Burlington into an industry town, with numerous factories turning out furniture, buttons, spark plugs, antennas and tractors.


In 1995, the railroad joined with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to create the Burlington Northern Santa Fe, now based in Fort Worth, Texas. Last year, the company started to shift its repair work from the West Burlington shops to longtime Santa Fe shops in Topeka, Kan.


In January 2003, BNSF laid off 260 workers in Burlington. In December, 93 more jobs were moved to Topeka and another shop in Galesburg, Ill. Today, there are only 44 workers are left at the West Burlington shops.


"We still feel that we have a contractual agreement," City Manager Bruce Slagle said. "And this is a breach of contract."


The city sued last month in an Iowa court. The railroad's only response so far has been a motion to move the case to federal court.


BNSF spokesman Steve Forsberg said only: "We continue to believe the city's claims are unfounded."


City officials said they hope the railroad finds it less costly to move jobs back to Burlington than to pay the city 146 years of back rent. City officials have not put a dollar figure on that.


Lester Steinman, director of the Municipal Law Resource Center at Pace University in White Plains, N.Y., said it is common for cities to sue over broken economic development deals — but he has never seen a lawsuit aimed at saving jobs over a deal that reaches back nearly 150 years.


He said the city would have an uphill battle.


"I think most communities would say they got the benefit of their money if the benefits were spread over 150 years," Steinman said.




About three dozen BNSF trains still rumble through Burlington every day. Train whistles rattle the windows in downtown buildings, many of them now empty.

Des Moines County, in which Burlington is located, has lost about 1,800 jobs since 1996 — well-paid jobs at longtime employers such as the railroad, Case IH, General Electric and Exide Technologies. In that time, two grocery stores and a department store in Burlington closed.

Workers who were laid off or transferred were bewildered by BNSF's decision to take the jobs away.

"These guys just don't understand," said Deb Olson, whose husband, Terry, an electrician, now commutes 100 miles every day to work at the Galesburg shop. "They had the best shop, the best record in the country. This town was pretty much built on the railroad. It's pretty sad."

The mayor said the city begged the railroad to stay, offering tax breaks and other incentives to no avail.

"Doing nothing just wasn't an option," Edwards said. "We tried our little carrot approach, and that didn't work. So now we're going to try the stick."


Sorry for the long read, anybody from the Burlington Iowa Area have any news on this Great... Does anybody know where one could get a copy of that contract, I'd love to see a copy of that. Thanks