SMART UnionThe deadline for applying for a Union Plus scholarship is Thurs., Jan. 31.
Scholarship amounts range from $500 to $4,000. These one-time cash awards are for study beginning in fall of 2013. Students may re-apply each year.
For complete details click here.
By John Previsich,
UTU Assistant President/ GS&T –
Discipline in the railroad industry is a curious business. I recall that when I first hired out, I was proud of my new employment. The railroad had selected me over other well-qualified applicants, and I was sent to school and provided extensive on-the-job training before being allowed to mark up.
I thought the railroad that hired and trained me actually valued a good, responsible employee who was loyal to the company and who wanted to give a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay.
And then I marked up. On my first trip for pay, we saw a burning fusee very close to the rail on the outside of the curve. Thanks to the engineer, we stopped short of the burning fusee, with plenty of room to spare. Nonetheless, two company officers climbed on board and told us we got lucky this time, but maybe next time the fusee would be a little harder to see or some other more difficult test might be coming our way. There was not a word of praise for the heads-up performance of the engineer or a welcome aboard to the new guy.
After the officers left, I asked the engineer what that was all about. He said those were the local managers and they were forced by their supervisors to perform a number of efficiency tests each month and that some portion of those tests were required to be failures — that some superintendents actually required a number of dismissals to ensure all of the other employees “got the message”.
He said if a manager refused to comply with the requirements, that manager would be looking for another job real soon – that managers sometimes were under pressure to produce test failures and dismissals without regard for the positive performance of the employees.
When asked how he knew about such matters, the engineer said he had been one of those managers, and as a result of his refusal to comply with such directives, he had been released back to the ranks. I shared my thoughts about having a good relationship with the company and that throughout the entire employment and training process all involved stressed repeatedly how much the company valued me and wanted to keep me around. The engineer said, “Kid, those were the guys who hired you and you won’t see them ever again. These are the guys that want to fire you, and they will be in your face every day until they are successful.”
That exchange occurred more than 30 years ago, and I never was fired. But I did become a union officer, and learned a great deal about how things work in a command and control environment.
To learn more about the UTU Discipline Income Protection Plan, click on the following link:
B
y Bonnie Morr
Vice President, Bus Department –
Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington State, is the new chairperson of the Senate Budget Committee, which makes decisions on how much of the annual federal budget is available for transit.
As chairperson, Sen. Murray will set the agenda and tone of Senate Budget Committee hearings and have substantial influence on committee’s Democratic majority.
We know Sen. Murray as a strong proponent of transportation investments, and a friend of organized labor. One Capitol Hill insider commented that being committee chairperson “will put her in a very powerful position to craft the entire federal budget.” A veteran Seattle transportation journalist said Sen. Murray has a 20-year history in the Senate of supporting federal transportation appropriations for local transportation projects.
Sen. Murray has consistently won endorsements from the UTU, and National Legislative Director James Stem and Alternate National Legislative Director John Risch have a close working relationship with her and her senior staff.
In this era of tight federal budgets and assaults on transit funding by conservative lawmakers, we will depend on labor friendly and transit friendly lawmakers such as Sen. Murray to defend and advance funding for local, state, regional and national transit funding.
November elections increased the number of labor-friendly members of the Senate and the House, and much of the credit goes to UTU members who contributed to the UTU PAC and who participated in get-out-the-vote drives nationwide.
The U.S. Senate has confirmed Christopher R. Beall and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke as new members of the Amtrak Board of Directors for five-year terms.
Beall, of Oklahoma, is a partner at Highstar Capital, an infrastructure investment firm specializing in the transportation, environmental services and energy sectors. Previously, Beall was chief financial officer for Aslan Group, and an associate with a natural resources division of Lehman Brothers. He earned an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from Oklahoma State University and a master’s in business administration from Harvard.
Burke, of California, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives and the California Assembly, currently is a member of the California Transportation Commission. She previously served on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors while a partner at the law firm of Jones Day. Burke earned an undergraduate degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a law degree from the University of Southern California School of Law.
Other members of the Amtrak board include Chairman Thomas C. Carper, Vice Chairperson Nancy A. Naples, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman, Anthony R. Coscia, Bert Di Clemente, and former BNSF Vice President Jeffrey Moreland.
The so-called fiscal cliff bill approved by the House and Senate Jan. 1 allows extended railroad unemployment benefits to continue through Dec. 31, 2013, with Congress appropriating $250,000 to the Railroad Retirement Board to administer those extended benefits under the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act.
The extension affects those railroaders out of work at least six months.
Random alcohol and drug testing rates for railroad workers in safety sensitive positions will remain at the same rate during 2013 as 2012.
The Federal Railroad Administration said that because the random alcohol testing violation rate has remained below 0.5 percent for the past two years, the minimum random alcohol testing rate will remain at 10 percent for calendar year 2013.
The FRA also said that because the random drug testing violation rate has remained below 1 percent for the past two years, the minimum required annual random drug testing rate will remain at 25 percent for calendar year 2013.
Individual railroads, however, may require a higher rate of testing.
The UTU Board of Directors made additional appointments:
* UTU Alternate Vice President Troy Johnson becomes an International vice president, succeeding International Vice President Paul Tibbit, who retired Dec. 1.
* UTU Alternate Vice President John England becomes an International vice president, filling a position vacated by Strunk.
* Vice General Chairperson Jeremy Ferguson (CSX, GO 049) and General Chairperson Brent Leonard (Union Pacific, GO 953) become alternate vice presidents, filling the positions of alternate vice president vacated by Johnson and England.
Additionally, the United Transportation Union Insurance Association (UTUIA) Board of Directors elected Bruce Feltmeyer as general secretary and treasurer of UTUIA, succeeding Kim Thompson in that position. Feltmeyer also holds the position of director of staff at the UTU Headquarters in North Olmsted, Ohio.
Biographies of the new officers are available – or will become available in the case of Ferguson and Leonard – at http://www.utu.org/ by clicking on “About the UTU,” then clicking on “officers” and scrolling down to the names.
Feltmeyer’s biography is available at http://www.utu.org/ by clicking on “About the UTU,” then clicking on “UTU/UTUIA Staff” and scrolling down to his name.
UTU International Vice President Delbert Strunk, who recently was selected by the UTU Board of Directors to succeed Kim Thompson as International general secretary & treasurer Jan. 1, chose, instead, to retire Dec. 31.
Thompson previously announced his Dec. 31 retirement.
The UTU Board of Directors will meet to determine another successor to Thompson.
It is no secret that railroads have tried with all their king’s horsemen and all their king’s men (and women) to send to the dust bin of history the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA), considered the best friend of rail workers in forcing carriers to improve workplace safety.
That 1908 law allows railroaders to recover civil compensatory and punitive damages when railroads fail to maintain a safe workplace, resulting in injury, dismemberment or death.
The latest assault on FELA was a backdoor escape attempt by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), which sought to declare itself an instrumentality of the State of Pennsylvania, and thus immune, under the U.S. Constitution’s 11th Amendment’s sovereign immunity clause, from such lawsuits.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court termed the argument bogus, slamming that back door on SEPTA before it could wiggle out. Citing a history of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, Pennsylvania’s highest court ruled that SEPTA, as every other railroad operating in interstate commerce, is and remains subject to FELA.
SEPTA had sought to force its injured workers to file for workers’ compensation under the state’s federal/state workers’ compensation law, rather than bring a lawsuit under provisions of FELA.
Ruled the Pennsylvania Supreme Court:
‘We discern no threat to the dignity of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania whenever a private individual commences a FELA suit in the courts of this Commonwealth, nor do we find the treasury of the Commonwealth to be threatened by a FELA suit in our courts. Accordingly, we conclude SEPTA is not an arm of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and thus not entitled to claim immunity under the Eleventh Amendment.”
In June 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court declined a railroad attempt to weaken FELA by tightening the standards of proof injured rail workers must demonstrate to win an award under FELA. Attempts by railroads to have Congress scuttle FELA have not progressed beyond a committee hearing stage.
The UTU, Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association and other rail labor organizations joined in bringing the SEPTA case to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for final determination.
SEPTA commuter rail service was transferred from Conrail to SEPTA, which also provides commuter bus and transit services, in 1983.
To read the court’s decision, click here.
One of the strongest studies validating the need for two-person crews and intensive training for conductors has come from the Federal Railroad Administration.
The conclusion is that the conductor and engineer function as a team, with managing multiple priorities essential to safe train operation – especially with regard to use of positive train control technology that will be installed on some 40 percent of mainline track.
The FRA observes that such mixed territory operation will require a higher level of vigilance by the train crew, including detailed knowledge of territory that can come only from intensive conductor training.
“This study supports what the UTU has been advocating – that conductor training standards, system safety plans, fatigue management and risk reduction must be given the highest priority by railroads to ensure safe operation,” said UTU National Legislative Director James Stem.
The FRA study emphasizes that the conductor’s main task is to supervise overall operation and administration of the train, which involves communicating closely with the engineer regarding upcoming signals and slow orders, alerting the engineer to hills, curves and grade crossings, monitoring the engineer’s performance, providing back-up as needed, and handling all radio communications and paperwork “so that the locomotive engineer can concentrate on operating the train.
“Knowledge of the territory provides the foundation for being able to operate safely and efficiently,” says the FRA. “Train crews need to develop a detailed mental model of the physical territory in which they operate. This includes knowledge of territory grade, location of signals, milepost signs, grade crossing landmarks, sidings, switches and detectors, as well as knowledge of track layout of yards and location of industries.”
Conductors also must “monitor the composition of their train consist relative to key elements in the environment,” says the report. “For example, they need to maintain awareness of the location of the front and back of the train relative to grade crossings or speed restriction zones [and] whether their train will fit without blocking a crossing” as well as knowledge of high and wide cars and clearances and parallel track meets.
A conductor must be “a problem solver,” says the FRA, because “conductors routinely confront novel situations where they perform mental simulations to identify a correct solution. This skill develops with experience.”
For a conductor to perform at their highest level of skill, “it can take up to five years’ experience to gain sufficient experience to become a confident, expert conductor,” says the FRA. “Too much is at stake in terms of safety of the operation to permit short-cutting of experience and training,” said Stem.
The FRA endorses a combination of classroom training with on-the-job training, assuring that students spend time in the classroom learning, go out in the field to apply what they learned, and then return to the classroom to be tested. Proficiency based training with incremental blocks of training and testing before advancing is based on the science of knowledge transfer.
Regulations for conductor certification adopt many of these conclusions. This report confirms that territorial qualifications are an integral part of the functions of conductors and engineers and must be addressed as such. If the conductor has not obtained the necessary qualifications on a territory, a certified conductor with those qualifications must be added to the crew as a pilot.
Other conclusions in the study are that the operating crew must function as a team to properly manage the multiple safety requirements on a moving train, and the judgment of the operating crew is the most important safety appliance.
The UTU is monitoring closely railroad conductor certification plans, opposing one railroad’s plan to provide a pilot for territorial qualifications only for conductors who have not traveled over a territory for 36 months, rather than the 12 months required in current agreements. Some territories are so complex that operating crews are required to update their territorial qualifications every six months.
“The UTU will not permit a tortured interpretation” of congressional and FRA intent, and will work to ensure every railroad follows the letter and intent of the law and regulations prior to the deadline for certifying conductors,” said UTU International President Mike Futhey.
“The railroads tried to supersede 50 years of collective bargaining success with their filing on conductor certification. The UTU did not allow a new safety regulation to change the many common sense solutions that have been implemented during the past five decades,” Futhey said. “This report fully bolsters our position.”
To read the FRA report, click here.