WASHINGTON -- The House Republican leadership unexpectedly withdrew the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Amendments of 1995 from Floor consideration this afternoon in the wake of controversy surrounding an unrelated amendment to the otherwise bipartisan and non-controversial H.R. 2594, according to Rep. James L. Oberstar, Ranking Democratic Member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Prior to the amendment controversy, H.R. 2594 had been wholly bipartisan in nature. The bill would revise railroad unemployment and sickness benefits, bringing these into line with benefits provided by state unemployment systems. Rail labor and rail management had strongly supported the bill.

Proposed by the Republican leadership of the Committee, the amendment would have created a special opportunity for companies like Federal Express to resist efforts by local labor unions to organize employees.

"It is a very sad day when straightforward and strongly bipartisan legislation like H.R. 2594 is held hostage to Republican eagerness to serve special interests without any concern for the lives affected by a selfish victory," Oberstar said.

"It was a mistake for Republican leaders to look to this bill to attach such a poison pill' amendment, which both Democrats and Republicans would have voted against. There was no regard for the future of this bill had it been voted down because of the amendment, and we now have no sense whatever of H.R. 2594's future because of this abrupt reversal," Oberstar continued.

"The only good that seems to have come out of this episode is that the dynamic has been exposed for all the world to see. Even three of my Republican colleagues in the House recognized this in an open letter, in which they said, This legislation is far too important to allow an extraneous measure to delay its enactment.' Perhaps sanity and fairness will now prevail," Oberstar concluded.

H.R. 2594 is part of a two-part solution to problems between railroad labor and railroad management. A June 1993 agreement by the Railroad Retirement Board provided for the repayment of $1 billion borrowed from the railroad retirement account by the railroad unemployment insurance account after more than 150,000 workers lost their jobs in the 1970s and 1980s. The agreement called for management support to improve unemployment benefits once the money was paid back to the retirement account, which has now happened.

The Federal Express amendment, totally unrelated to this issue, would have enabled the company to switch workers, who would otherwise be protected by the National Labor Relations Act, to the Railway Labor Act, making it more difficult to organize.