CO Senator Byron Pelton wants railroaders to pay for the state safety office. Seriously. 

In 2024, SMART-TD members in Colorado fought for and won the creation of the Colorado Office of Rail Safety, a monumental step forward after a string of horrifying derailments.  

This life-saving watchdog represents our Colorado brothers and sisters’ victory in getting state-level eyes on safety hazards that federal regulators often miss or ignore. When operational, it will empower Colorado to gather real data, hold railroads accountable, and finally start shifting the balance toward safe, reasonable working conditions. 

Earlier today, a follow-up bill to secure permanent funding for the Office passed the House on a voice vote and awaits the Governor’s signature. 2025 is a tight-budget year with fierce corporate railroad opposition. With only seven days left in Colorado’s legislative session, completing this legislative clean-up is still a battle. 

To complicate matters for this bill, Senator Byron Pelton (R-Sterling) and Representative Ken DeGraaf (R-Colorado Springs) stepped in with the most ridiculous amendment SMART-TD’s Legislative Office has ever witnessed. 

Amendment: “Let Workers Pay for Their Own Safety” 

During a Senate floor debate on SB25-162, (the bill funding the Office of Rail Safety), Pelton introduced Amendment L022, suggesting that the Office be funded 50% by the railroads and 50% by the employees via their union dues. 

Yes. He really said that. 

“…if you’re gonna have skin in the game, you should have skin in the game on both sides, not just the business,” Pelton argued, in what appeared to be an attempt to sound reasonable. 

Our members already have plenty of skin in the game. It gets shredded, bruised, burned, and buried. We’re talking about working men and women who live every day on the razor’s edge of life-altering safety hazards. We’re forced to operate trains with skeleton crews, unsafe equipment, and impossible schedules. All because billion-dollar corporations decided profits matter more than people. 

And now, Pelton wants us to pay cash to buy the safety that’s being denied to us? 

Today, a similar situation played out in the House.  
 
During the discussion on the amendment in the lower chamber, Representative Anthony Hartsook (R-Parker) took to the well to argue that requiring workers to help foot the bill wouldn’t be a heavy lift, especially when unions have such supposedly deep pockets.   
 
“Unions are just like any other big business out there,” Hartsook claimed. “If we are going to look at worker safety, and we want to work with both the Railroad industry and the unions that are representing the workers,…then both of them should be at the table and paying,” 
 
We know the truth, and Representative Hartsook’s statement could not be further from it.

Fellow Lawmakers Were Stunned 

In the upper chamber, Senator Lisa Cutter (D-Jefferson County) didn’t hold back: 

“Did the good Senator from Sterling just suggest that employees pay for their own safety? I’m shocked by that.” 

Then came Senator Chris Kolker (D-Centennial), who sounded equally baffled: 

“This is the cost of doing business for multi-billion dollar corporations — they’re doing just fine.” 

To recap: Pelton stood on the Senate floor and suggested that we, the workers, should split the bill for regulating the corporations that made those jobs so dangerous in the first place. 

That’s like asking firefighters to pitch in for the water bill before entering a burning building. 
 
After almost entering into a shoving match with Representative Hartsook in the House, bill sponsor Representative Javier Mabrey (D-Denver) pushed back on his colleague’s absurd claims. 
 
“The purpose of unions is to give workers an opportunity to come together and fight back against an economy that is rigged against workers. An attack on workers is an attack on unions.” 

Not the first time we have been insulted

This isn’t the first time rail workers have been insulted by suits who’ve never set foot on ballast. During the 2022 Presidential Emergency Board hearings, the National Carriers’ Conference Committee (NCCC) submitted a written statement declaring: 

“Labor does not contribute to profits.” 

It was directed at us. Railroad workers. The same workers who generate every dollar railroads earn, who move the goods, who fix the tracks, who show up when no one else will. Now, Senator Pelton is singing the same tune: Railroads get the profits. Workers get the invoice. 

We call B.S. 

The Facts: Who’s Really Responsible for Safety?

Here’s the truth Pelton, DeGraaf, and Hartsook are ignoring: providing a safe workplace isn’t the worker’s responsibility. It’s a corporate obligation. The unsafe conditions we’re trying to fix were created by railroad executives chasing profits, not by union members working themselves to the bone. 

And as Senator Kolker reminded everyone, multiple other states already have similar safety offices, and all are paid for by the railroads. Because that’s what “cost of doing business” actually means. 

Rail Workers Are Watching — And We’re Not Footing the Bill 

Let’s be very clear: SMART-TD’s Colorado members fought for this Office. We earned it. We know it’s our best shot at forcing accountability. We did the work to get it passed, and we’ll do the work to see that it is funded properly. 

What we won’t do is let politicians like Senator Pelton get away with sticking us with the railroads’ bar tabs. 

Railroad workers already pay more than our fair share with our health, our family time, and far too often, our lives, and limbs. Asking us also to pay the bill for regulating the companies that made railroading unsafe in the first place is as stupid as it is insulting. 

The amendment failed in both chambers, but the fight continues. The workers, who are the real stakeholders in rail safety, will not forget who stood with us or who stood in our way.