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Organized labor wants no commuter train coming down our track unless there is a union worker at the throttle, a union worker maintaining the track and, if coffee and doughnuts are to be served, a union worker doing that too.

And given that Democratic legislators are beholden to the unions, this is the last remaining threat to approval of our choo-choo next week.

The Florida AFL-CIO supposedly is driving this hardball negotiation, but I think the big rail unions up North are the ones calling the shots here. The state union is merely a front for them.

The rail unions fear the Central Florida deal could set a precedent, jeopardizing union jobs in other states.

Here is why: Under federal law, interstate railroad companies have to pay union wages and give union benefits. This includes Amtrak.

The commuter-rail deal calls for the state to buy 61.5 miles of track from CSX, effectively severing that link from interstate commerce. The state therefore says it is not obligated to abide by federal union requirements.

The union cries foul because the state would lease the track back to CSX to use during noncommuting hours. CSX still would be using the track for interstate commerce, but no longer would have to maintain it with union labor. Instead, the state could hire contractors that use cheaper, nonunion workers.

The unions fear that as commuter-rail projects proliferate, this will become the model not only in Florida but also in other states.

The state, meanwhile, considers commuter rail just another transportation project. It doesn't require its other contractors to use union labor, and it doesn't want to start with commuter rail.

My concerns go beyond that.

Consider an airline that is losing money. It is forced to slash expenses, which means cutting wages. This is a painful process, involving intense negotiations with the unions. But ultimately, the unions relent because the alternative to smaller paychecks is no paychecks.

We have seen the same scenario recently play out with autoworkers and steelworkers.

Amtrak workers would be in the same situation if they worked for a private company. But because they are a government operation, taxpayers subsidize their salaries.

In 2008, as airline pilots were seeing their salaries slashed, Amtrak agreed to give its workers, who were threatening a massive strike, about $200 million in back pay to go along with cost-of-living adjustments they had been getting. They also won other concessions. This was despite Amtrak's siphoning off about $1 billion from taxpayers.

In 2005, Amtrak eliminated a union-operated food and snack service on a New York route because it was losing so much money. Amtrak then brought in Subway to provide food and drinks.

Union workers protested and the service was stopped after only six days, even though passengers seemed to like it.

A Heritage Foundation report on Amtrak found that in 2006 the average snack-car worker earned about $54,000 a year, plus tips. Companywide, the food service lost $100 million.

Another report by a subsidiary of the Pew Charitable Trusts found 41 of Amtrak's 44 routes lost money, and taxpayers spent $32 subsidizing a typical Amtrak passenger.

Obviously all these losses aren't the unions' fault, but they certainly contribute.

I am not anti-union. If not for unions, we'd have Oliver Twist working the Sentinel presses at midnight. But I don't think a certain set of workers should get a much better shake than other workers simply because they have a pipeline to taxpayer wallets.

This takes me back to commuter rail.

It is going to lose enough money as it is. We don't need to be adding to those losses by forcing contractors to pay union wages and benefits. If so, guess who pays?

If a unionized company puts in the best bid, by all means give it the contract to run the train and maintain the track.

Or if nonunionized rail workers decide to form a union, that's their right.

But an upfront demand is unreasonable. The Legislature should not cave in on this.

It is the South Florida Democrats who are most beholden to the unions. If they kill commuter rail here, they effectively kill it in Tampa and Jacksonville. They also take us out of the running for high-speed rail.

The payback will be that Central Florida Republicans not only will kill a planned expansion of Tri-Rail in South Florida, but also will start eliminating its existing state subsidies. Ironically, Tri-Rail uses union workers, which will mean a lot of lost union jobs.

It will be a high price for Democrats to pay simply to ingratiate themselves to union bosses.

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