RAILROAD SPINOFFS, LABOR STANDOFFS, AND THE P&LE

The focus of this paper is the relationship of rail labor protection and short line railroad development. The paper is organized in five sections. Section I provides an introduction. In section II, the historical development of regulatory and legislative labor protection is presented. In section III, the results of an economic analysis which identifies the cost savings attributable to short line operation are provided. The recent Supreme Court decision in Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad Company v. Railway Labor Executives' Association and related case law are considered in section IV. The final section provides a summary and conclusions.