SMART-TD Wins Landmark BNSF Arbitration Protecting Members’ Right to Rest

SMART-TD scored a major arbitration victory this week, successfully defending voluntary rest provisions for BNSF operating crews and stopping a carrier challenge with potential implications for railroaders across the U.S.

At issue in the arbitration was BNSF’s attempt to eliminate voluntary rest options negotiated through collective bargaining. On its face, the dispute involved specific rest provisions. The precedent behind it, however, was potentially much larger.

A decision allowing BNSF to unilaterally eliminate negotiated rest provisions could have provided carriers with a roadmap for attacking other agreements governing railroaders’ ability to take time away from work. This includes negotiated off days, compensated personal days, and, potentially, other collectively bargained time-off provisions or even our vacation time. 

Railroaders understand exactly what that means

Members already know the frustration of attempting to use a personal or vacation day only to hear that “manpower” prevents them from doing so. SMART-TD was not willing to allow the carriers to gain another avenue for eroding what little control railroaders have over our schedules and lives away from work.

“General Committee 001 is always willing to participate in good faith negotiations, but we will not tolerate unilateral attempts to strip our members of rights we have already gained through good faith bargaining,” General Chairperson Brent Lind said. “We appreciate the International’s hard work being prepared to progress this case through the courts and arbitration, and their dedication in defending our members’ rights.”

The stakes for our brothers and sisters on GCA-001 were high. They have a negotiated right to choose between 12, 24, or 36 hours of rest when they mark off at their home terminal. This is a fantastic feature to their on-property agreement, but it wasn’t given to them. It was negotiated for and won a generation ago, and it came at a cost. Lind, and GCA 001 Associate Chairperson Pete Trotta were not going to just roll over and give away what our union fought for no matter how long ago it was agreed on. Local Chairpersons Dan Corbin (Local 406, Missoula, Mont.) and Kole Olsen (Local 003, Laurel, Mont.) work-share crew rooms and locomotive cabs with the brothers and sisters who were having this control over their home time taken away from them. They knew exactly what that was about to do to the quality of life for their locals, and they weren’t looking to let it go without a fight. They both played a critical role working with Brothers Trotta and Lind to put together the best arguments possible from the ballast level.

BNSF understood the importance of the case as well. It is obvious they were willing to go all in on this arbitration, because the Berkshire Hathaway-owned railroad brought in outside counsel from Jones Day, one of the world’s largest and most prominent law firms.

SMART-TD countered a little bit differently.

General Counsel Erika Diehl-Gibbons and Jason Wright from SMART-TD’s Legal Department worked alongside TD Vice President Brent Leonard, GCO-001 General Chairperson Lind and Associate General Chairperson Trotta to build the union’s case.

Their greatest advantage wasn’t the size of the legal team or how much we spent on putting it together.

It was knowing our agreements, knowing our history and knowing where to find the people who made that history.

When History Became Evidence 

Railroad arbitration often turns on more than the words printed on a page. Bargaining history, past practice and the intent of the parties when agreements were negotiated often become critical.

That meant that institutional memory and wisdom from our labor movement was our best weapon. Luckily, SMART-TD is never short of Old Head railroaders willing to step up when they are called on. In that spirit, two of our former UTU Presidents became uniquely valuable witnesses in defense of our present-day fight.

Former UTU Presidents Mike Futhey (2008-2013) and Byron Boyd (2001-2004) helped lead this union during the era when agreements central to the dispute were negotiated. They didn’t have to speculate about what union negotiators intended decades ago.

They were there.

SMART-TD called both men out of retirement to testify.

“When somebody tries to twist an agreement we helped write into something it was never intended to be, don’t expect us to sit quietly in retirement and watch it happen,” said former President Boyd. “I still love this union and the men and women it represents. If they need me back in the fight to defend what we built, I’m coming.”

Former President Futhey agreed.

“We knew what these agreements were intended to accomplish because we were there negotiating them. You don’t get to rewrite that history decades later because it benefits the railroad today,” he said. This union and these members still mean the world to me. When they called, there wasn’t any question that I’d help.”

But memories alone weren’t enough. SMART-TD went looking for the receipts.

Wright worked with SMART-TD Archives Director Mike Vega, spending hours digging through boxes, historical files and union records to locate documents that could substantiate the bargaining history described by Presidents Futhey and Boyd.

Piece by piece, they produced exhibits backing up the former presidents’ testimony with the union’s own historical record.

Even though our union was the clear underdog in this fight against Jones Day and Warren Buffett, this is what SMART-TD brought to the table.

We had a powerful combination of current officers who understood what the disputed provisions mean to today’s railroaders; attorneys prepared to defend those rights; former presidents who could testify firsthand about how and why the agreements were negotiated; and an archive capable of producing the documents to prove it.

The arbitrator ultimately sided with SMART-TD, preserving the voluntary rest options BNSF sought to eliminate.

The immediate victory belongs to the BNSF members whose rest provisions were protected before the railroad ever got a chance to implement the scheme they announced in their bulletin from June.

But this victory belongs to every SMART-TD member.

Agreements won at the bargaining table don’t defend themselves. They survive because generations of union officers and members preserve their history, enforce their language and refuse to allow rights gained through collective bargaining to be taken away unilaterally.

Sometimes winning today’s fights even means opening boxes from 30 years ago and calling in the people who packed them.

This time, SMART-TD did both and showed BNSF and every railroad that was watching what we are capable of as a union family.