The Rebuilding American Values action group in collaboration with the SMART Transportation Division Pennsylvania State Legislative Board has put its resources forth to support rail safety legislation being considered in the Pa. Senate.
The result is a radio ad being broadcast on Harrisburg-area radio stations 104.1 WNNK-FM 104.1, WQXA-FM 105.7 and WHP-AM 580 through the week of June 26 while the Senate is in session.
Fines carriers $10,000 for blocking rail crossings for more than five minutes.
Limits train lengths to 8,500 feet.
Permits rail labor representatives to have an active, participatory role while the state investigates rail safety matters.
Requires a two-person crew aboard freight trains and fines carriers who violate the provision.
Authorizes the state to inspect to ensure the functionality of wayside detectors in the state.
Authorizes a state study of hazmat/waste transport.
Creates a reporting system when carriers operating trains carrying hazmat/waste report these to the state.
SMART Transportation Division Pennsylvania State Legislative Director Paul Pokrowka has been a driving advocate for the safety bill with railroad operations and safety becoming a major focus for the public and in the media since the East Palestine, Ohio, derailment in February.
“We’re working to get the message out because the carriers have a number of allies in the Senate,” he said. “They would like nothing more than to see this bill die on the vine and to persist with the status quo. Thanks to Rebuilding American Values for taking up the cause and helping to get the facts out to the public and to the senators.”
SMART Transportation Division-represented members from Local 1626 (Anchorage, Alaska) on the White Pass and Yukon Route will begin electronic voting tonight on whether to authorize a strike against the carrier.
Negotiations with the tourist railroad have been open since the expiration of the last labor contract in late 2017.
In an interview with the Whitehorse Daily Star, SMART-TD General Chairperson Jason Guiler (GCA-WPY) said that the carrier is seeking to increase the burden of health care costs onto workers as well as reducing the number of operating crew members.
He told the newspaper that ticket prices have increased by $27 per ticket since 2017 to an average of $152 per ticket and the carrier is expected to transport some 600,000 passengers this year.
As set forth by the Railway Labor Act, if a strike is authorized by members after the three-day voting period, a National Mediation Board mediator will then determine whether to release workers from mediation. If mediation is concluded and a strike authorized, a proffer of arbitration would then happen.
If arbitration is rejected by either the union or carrier, it would begin a 30-day cooling-off period before a strike could occur.
White Pass and Yukon operates as a Class III narrow line from Skagway, Alaska, to Carcross in the Yukon Territory and is the largest employer in Skagway.
During the first day of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) hearing on Norfolk Southern’s East Palestine, Ohio, derailment that happened Feb. 3, the importance of sharing information and communications in the wake of a rail disaster was brought into clear focus.
For an industry that says that data, hard evidence and the collection of information are major guiding principles for its decision-making process when people’s careers and the bottom line are at stake, the indications are carriers can do a much better job of putting first responders and everybody else in the loop when communities and lives are at stake in such a situation.
After all, it’s the train crews, fire crews, the EMS and the police in the places where accidents happen that are at risk in a disaster of the scope of East Palestine. Their resources are the ones that are expended and stressed to the limit by a billion-dollar corporation that’s passing through.
But talks of communication gaps abounded during testimony on June 22.
The crew had information responders could have used
One key commonality to many of the communication breakdowns is that the N32’s conductor was kept at arm’s length. As it was stated in the hearing, the conductor and his trainee had the train consist on the engine. Railroaders know that this document should have provided much-needed clarity to first responders as they put together their plan of attack.
In the hearing it was discussed that the railroad took hours to respond to the incident command center’s request for the consist information. They wanted this document so that they could determine if an evacuation was necessary, if so how large of an area would need to be evacuated, what chemicals were involved with the derailment, and what the proper tactics were to triage the fallout from these chemicals being on fire. All of these items and knowledge are held by the conductor, their paperwork and the Emergency Response Guide (ERG).
Members of the labor panel and the National Transportation Safety Board participate in the hearing on location in East Palestine, Ohio, that discussed the Feb. 3 Norfolk Southern derailment.
Ironically, the problem the command center cited as to why they didn’t have communications with the crew/conductor, is that they had separated the locomotive and moved it a mile away. They did this because they had quickly and professionally used the resources at their disposal to calculate what chemicals they were hauling and that the ERG prescribed one mile of separation from the scene. This was the correct diagnosis, and the crew figured it out quickly. As the command center scrambled and struggled to figure out what to do, the crew already had figured it out, and acted upon it.
As the employee in charge of the train consist, N32’s conductor had all the information necessary to determine the correct course of action, as well as all the contact information needed to get a hold of the shippers and manufacturers of the chemicals. This information should have directly connected the first responders to the subject matter experts. A fire chief, police officer or even the governor of Ohio had no reason to know what a conductor’s role should be in that scenario.
Norfolk Southern, however, has every reason to know that the crew was the missing link that could have closed the communication gaps that plagued the response to the disaster. With as many people and vehicles that responded to the derailment and chemical release, it’s not unreasonable to think someone could have driven the one mile to the locomotive to check the crew’s status and to obtain the consist. If nothing else, someone could have contacted them over the radio to at least ask them what they based their decision on to get the locomotive exactly one mile away from the scene. What they would have learned is that the crew’s conductor and trainee didn’t choose that distance at random and they used the exact criteria that the command center should have been consulting to determine the “one-mile” radius needed for a proper evacuation.
More communication gaps
Oxy Vinyls, the subject-matter experts of the vinyl chloride contained within the tank cars ultimately subjected to the “vent and burn,” had representatives present and available to discuss what they thought was occurring in East Palestine. Though they had an expert on-site to discuss the chemical’s components and likely behavior, much like the train’s conductor their expert was not incorporated into the central command emergency response group. They had just one brief interaction with East Palestine Fire Chief Keith Drabick, head of the central command, as the response effort was unfolding and were directed to NS representatives.
From then on, NS and its contractor acted as a buffer between the expert from Oxy Vinyls and Chief Drabik in his role as head of the incident command center.
It wasn’t just the fire chief of the imperiled town of 4,500 who didn’t have all the information the carriers and its contractors did. The offices of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Pa. Gov. Josh Shapiro weren’t told key bits of information that may have changed their response to resolving the situation, testimony revealed.
Slides projected in the background show the Norfolk Southern “vent and burn” operation as panelists look on during the National Transportation Safety Board hearing on location in East Palestine, Ohio, on June 22, 2023.
The day after the wreck, on Saturday, the conclusion had been reached that a “vent and burn” was the best option to proceed. The polymerization of the vinyl chloride inside a tanker was cited along with tanker damage as a motivator. Oxy Vinyls representatives in their testimony indicated that the temperature readings did not indicate that polymerization was occurring. They also gave testimony that heat alone cannot cause the polymerization feared by incident command, saying oxygen had to be present in the tank car to make that process possible. This was seemingly not the case because even though their five tank cars had been dented in the derailment, none of them had been penetrated, and the self-sealing pressure release valves were performing as intended.
The “vent and burn” that unleashed a black cloud over the small community on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border seemed over reliant on gut instincts and the field experience of the contractors paid to perform it rather than data, science and on-site resources. It also saved time — the alternative “hot tap” would have taken more time while the vent-and-burn procedure takes hours. By the contractor’s estimate, the “hot tap” solution to the problem would have taken at least five days to complete which would have been inconvenient to the goal of moving freight through southeastern Ohio.
As it happened, the positive for NS was that the “last resort” got the trains going faster while leaving a black cloud over East Palestine. From what the NS spokesman on the panel testified, the decision to conduct the “vent and burn” process was brought on by the fact that the temperature readings on one of the cars had elevated 3 degrees Fahrenheit from 135° F to 138°F.
What was pointed out in the hearing and was seemingly previously unknown to Chief Drabick was that in the time it took to prepare the five cars for the vent-and-burn procedure, the car in question was steadily dropping in temperature. By the time the vent and burn was executed, the temperature had dropped 12 degrees Fahrenheit to 126°F. This drop in temperature was 4 times the increase in temperature that triggered the decision to take that step; however, this drop in temperature was seemingly not brought to the attention of Drabick or the two involved governors.
SMART-TD Alternate National Legislative Director Jared Cassity, who represented our union at the hearing, asked the contractors if once they had decided to go ahead with the vent and burn if it would have been possible to backtrack in light of the information about the falling temperatures of the cars. They said that it was indeed a possibility to have changed course right up until the process was initiated.
Members of the East Palestine community who were in attendance, along with Chief Drabick himself, seemed to be confused and shocked at the answer to Cassity’s question.
Another example of gaps in the communication within the incident command was that the Ohio National Guard who was charged with the duty to determine and initiate the mandatory evacuation of the community gave testimony that it was their understanding that they were preparing the community of East Palestine for an emergency evacuation consistent with the venting and burning of a single car of chemicals. On the day of the vent and burn they found out at the 11th hour that the intent was to vent and burn five cars. All the decisions made by the Ohio National Guard on the size of the evacuation zone and the staffing to support it were already baked into the cake by the time they were made aware the plan had expanded.
Maj. Gen. John Harris, Jr. was the representative of the Guard on Thursday’s panel and gave the details of how he and the Guard were caught off guard by this pivotal piece of information.
The picture that came into focus during the testimony of how the derailment was handled and the decision made to vent and burn the material in the five tank cars of vinyl chloride was not flattering for NS and its contractors with preventable communication gaps among members of incident command resulting in a black cloud over the response tactic chosen, as well as over a community that will take years to recover.
Panel discussions 3 and 4 were held Friday, June 23, and featured discussions focused on wheel bearings, wayside defect detectors, car inspection practices, and the construction and classification of tank cars. A recap of what occurred on the second day will be published soon.
By a 3-2 majority June 23, the Surface Transportation Board (STB) ruled in favor of Navajo Transitional Energy Co. (NTEC), ordering BNSF to fulfill its common-carrier obligation to serve the Powder River Basin energy producer and transport 4.2 million tons of coal.
NTEC filed a complaint April 14 seeking an emergency service order to move coal from a facility in Big Horn, Wyo., to a Canadian terminal.
As a result, BNSF must move 23 trains per month of NTEC’s coal beginning immediately, and an additional six trains per month when additional train sets and crew become available. Both parties will be providing weekly service updates, the STB said in a news release announcing the decision.
STB Chairman Martin Oberman
“The common carrier obligation is a core tenet of the Board’s regulation of the freight railroad industry and is a pillar of the railroads’ responsibility to our country’s economy,” STB Chairman Martin Oberman, who will be a guest at the SMART Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C., said in the release. “Today’s decision reflects the majority’s finding that the common carrier obligation requires a railroad to provide service on a customer’s request that is within the railroad’s capacity to provide.” Further, Oberman noted, as the STB has previously held: “The common carrier duty reflects the well-established principle that railroads ‘are held to a higher standard of responsibility than most private enterprises.’”
Board members Patrick Fuchs and Michelle Schultz dissented with the ruling.
If you find yourself in a crisis situation, the SMART Members Assistance Program (MAP) is available to help. Please call 877-884-6227 for free and confidential assistance. Your employer also may have an in-house employee assistance program (EAP) available.
Tuesday, June 27, 2023, is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Awareness Day in the United States. Until personally impacted, I had always believed that PTSD was reserved for the men and women who had served in the military and that it was a symptom that only those who had seen combat were capable of getting. I was wrong.
Working in the transportation industry can be and often is a stress-filled lifestyle. This is especially true for those of us who are unfortunate enough to have had a critical incident (CI). I’ve been involved in not one but two in my career as a railroad conductor and engineer. Both CIs in my career have been suicides.
Yet such incidents are not limited to people working freight rail. Our bus and transit members deal with road and rail accidents themselves whether it be with another vehicle or a pedestrian. There’s no shortage of headlines in our union’s daily news emails talking about people doing their jobs who are then subjected to unexpected violence by a passenger or even a stranger. While the medical treatment may be completed, the psychological effects of these incidents can linger long after.
In the two Cis I’ve experienced, the train I was conducting was traveling too fast for anyone to have reacted to prevent the incident. Both times, it was a matter of how the crew would cope in the aftermath, rather than if it was going to occur. And in both circumstances, I told myself that logically it wasn’t my fault and that I was fine.
On that last point, I was very wrong.
The carrier I work for has a good Federal Railroad Administration-mandated Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and in both circumstances, I was contacted and asked how I was doing. Both times I told them that I was doing just fine and that I was more worried about my engineer or in one case my trainee. I wasn’t lying to these EAP representatives. I truly believed I was OK. The truth of the matter is that everyone processes these events differently. I was actually looking forward to getting on my next train following those incidents and getting those situations behind me.
Over time, the repercussions of what I had witnessed made themselves more evident. What I had not realized is that I was affected and that it changed my personality. The best way I can describe my situation pre-PTSD diagnosis is that my fuse had been cut very short. It did not take much to set me off. I had become temperamental and volatile at work and at home.
Back on the road working, I had plenty of time alone with my thoughts. Hotel rooms at the away-from-home terminal began to feel more like prison cells than anything. While there, I wanted to get home, and when I was at home, I was more anxious than ever before about when I was going to get called back to work. In essence, I was no longer comfortable in my own skin and was always looking for the exits.
Drinking became a part of my everyday routine. What I realize now is that my anxiety about getting to either end of the railroad was that my reward was 10 hours that I could drink myself numb. I was running from something, but unaware that I was doing it.
Eventually, this caught up to me. I was second out in the hotel, and as I was going to bed, my phone rang with a surprise call to work. The crew that had been first out caught a break and got an unlikely deadhead home. As a result, I got called in significantly earlier than I had calculated. When I got to the terminal I failed a random pre-trip blow-and-go sobriety test.
It was the wake-up call I needed.
As part of the path back to reinstatement, I needed to meet with a drug and alcohol counselor. Through my conversation with this man at a coffee shop, the two suicides came up in conversation. My counselor was intrigued by that situation and asked a couple of follow-up questions. When he diagnosed me with PTSD, I was confused, and ironically pissed off. I told him that I disagreed with his point of view.
At an appointment with my regular family doctor, he asked how things were going at work and I came clean about my suspension. I told him about having to go to a substance counselor. When he asked how that was going, I told him that I didn’t like the guy because “he thinks I’m crazy.” After telling him about the situation, my doctor confirmed that he also was diagnosing me with PTSD.
Since I’d been slapped in the face with this twice now, I did some research on the topic. As it turns out my “short fuse” volatility, anxiety and the spike in drinking checked a lot of the boxes for PTSD. The tendencies that I thought were just me being an old, grizzled railroader turned out to be a diagnosable psychological problem.
What’s more important than being diagnosable, is that PTSD is also treatable. I have started to see a psychiatrist, and my goals have changed. Now I try to get better and heal rather than just subconsciously trying to numb myself and run out the clock until I can do it again.
I am writing this to encourage as many of our members as possible not to feed into the idea that we aren’t supposed to be affected by what we see on the job or the lifestyle we live working in the transportation industry. PTSD is a real thing. We have all discussed the need to defend our quality of life. At its root that is what I’m asking you to consider.
Our lives are dictated by our work assignments. That won’t change any time soon. What can change is that you can stop “sucking it up” and living with the anxiety of PTSD. If you have had a critical incident on the job and now live with heightened anxiety, or you sometimes surprise yourself with how harsh the things you say and do are or feel like a third-party observer with no control over your own reactions, please take it from a colleague who has been where you are.
It is difficult to swallow our pride and admit that you might be struggling to work through PTSD. It sure was for me. But I’m glad I was forced to deal with it, and I hope we all can use this June 27th’s PTSD Awareness Day as a point to reflect on how you might be coping with any CI you may have experienced.
If any of this sounds familiar and makes you as uncomfortable as I was when diagnosed, I personally ask that you use the links below to look into the services that are available to help.
For railroad members, the plans are designed to provide financial protection during lengthy RRB occupational disability or FELA case resolutions. For all members, these plans underwritten by Sun Life are available exclusively for full dues-paying members of SMART-TD and offer comprehensive coverage for our members.
Effective from August 1st, 2023, all members are guaranteed VLTD and VLIFE coverage, regardless of their medical condition.
Here are the key features and benefits of each plan for bus and rail members, respectively:
Bus members
Railroad members
Voluntary Long-Term Disability (VLTD) benefits
Voluntary Long-Term Disability (VLTD) benefits
• $5,000 disability coverage enrollment without the need to answer medical questions. • Up to 5 years of tax-free benefits. • 24/7 coverage for covered injuries, illnesses, and surgeries. • Coverage for pre-existing conditions after one year of continuous enrollment. Benefits begin after a 365-day elimination period.
• $5,000 disability coverage enrollment without the need to answer medical questions. • Up to 5 years of tax-free benefits to support you during extended periods of disability. • 24/7 coverage for covered injuries, illnesses, and surgeries. • Coverage for pre-existing conditions after one year of continuous enrollment. • Benefits begin after a 238-day elimination period. • No repayment of VLTD benefits for FELA injury settlements.
Voluntary Group Life (VLIFE) features
Voluntary Group Life (VLIFE) features
• Guaranteed life insurance amounts up to $250,000 for members, $50,000 for spouses, and $10,000 for dependents under 26. • Equivalent Accidental Death & Dismemberment coverage, with the amount doubled for accidental death.
• Guaranteed life insurance amounts up to $250,000 for members, $50,000 for spouses, and $10,000 for dependents under 26. • Equivalent Accidental Death & Dismemberment coverage, with the amount doubled for accidental death.
In addition to the VLTD and VLIFE plans, SMART-TD also offers extra protection options through UTUIA (United Transportation Union Insurance Association), effective from September 1st, 2023. These options include Cancer Insurance, Accidental Death and Dismemberment Insurance and Accident and Hospital Indemnity Insurance.
To enroll in the SMART-TD VLTD plan, please visit www.smart-vltd.com. If you require any assistance during the enrollment process, you can reach our dedicated Customer Service Center at (224) 770-5328.
Please note that only members who are not currently participating in the SMART-TD VLTD plan are eligible to enroll at this time. Members who are already enrolled will have an opportunity to enroll at a later date.
It’s important for interested members to review the complete details and terms of the plans to make an informed decision about their coverage. This first open enrollment period ends on July 27, 2023.
Norfolk Southern is and has been hiring new freight conductors at a noteworthy rate in 2023. As the labor organization that represents newly hired conductors, that is great news to the SMART Transportation Division. But like most pieces of good news that come from the railroad, this one comes with a catch.
In this case, it is a very significant catch. The problem with NS hiring record numbers of new conductors is that this perennial Fortune 500 company has been operating without a Federal Railroad Administration-approved conductor certification training program for 21 months.
The FRA has been questioning NS about its conductor training program since October 2021. Since that time, NS has submitted multiple proposals for training programs to the FRA; however, all of them have fallen short of FRA’s expectations and have been denied.
On Wednesday, June 14, 2023, the clock ran out as FRA served notice to Norfolk Southern’s board of directors that they have 15 days to produce an acceptable plan for a conductor certification training program to them and an additional 30 days (a total of 45 days) to get the plan implemented.
FRA issued three findings it deemed to be unacceptable in the current methodology NS uses to train their new-hire conductors. In the order they sent to NS’s office in Atlanta, it listed each of the three unacceptable issues they found in their safety audit along with FRA-prescribed “corrective actions” that they state NS, “must take” within the 45 days they have been allotted. The findings/actions are as follows:
Increasing the minimum time trainmen can be allotted for On the Job Training (OJT) from the current 13 days.
FRA found a lack of a defined process for OJT, a lack of a process to track the progress of individual trainees, and a lack of on-property training coordinators to lead the OJT programs.
FRA found a pattern of violations on NS’s part involving the company designating employees as “qualified instructors” of trainees without making any attempt to find out if the employees are qualified or willing to act as instructors.
The corrective actions that FRA is mandating NS take to address these issues are broad, potentially expensive and absolutely overdue. It should not be a surprise to a company in the rail industry that 13 days of OJT is not acceptable.
As part of the prescribed corrective action plan from FRA, Norfolk Southern is obligated to consult with “relevant employee labor organizations” as part of developing their plan before they submit it to FRA. SMART-TD has already been working with Norfolk Southern to enhance other quality-of-life issues for our members. NS has already reached out to our union leadership in an effort to include us in the effort to shore up their training program.
This is a responsibility your union takes very seriously. SMART-TD has every intention to work diligently in order to make sure NS’s new training curriculum will be thoughtfully designed and ensures that our new-hire conductors are equipped with the tools they need to be safe and productive members of our railroad family.
On June 13, Greg Regan, president of the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department (TTD), of which the SMART Transportation Division is a member, sent a letter to President Joe Biden regarding recent attacks on Surface Transportation Board Chairman Martin Oberman. The text of the letter is reproduced below.
The Honorable Joseph R. Biden President of the United States The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500
Dear President Biden:
On behalf of the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO (TTD) and the totality of rail labor as represented by our affiliated unions, I write to reaffirm our strong support for Surface Transportation Board (STB or Board) Chair Marty Oberman and Board Member Robert Primus. We vehemently object to the sentiments expressed by Freedom Bloc, Revolving Door Project, and RootsAction (the coalition) in a May 17th letter urging you to relieve Chair Oberman and replace him with Member Primus. We firmly believe that removing Chair Oberman or failing to reappoint him would undermine the significant progress the Board has made during his tenure.
Surface Transportation Board Chairman Martin Oberman
The coalition’s request for Chair Oberman’s removal is in direct response to the Chair’s authorization of a merger between Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) and Kansas City Southern Railroad (KCS). The Chair’s vote in favor of the transaction is no reason to remove him from his position or to not re-nominate him. Compared to the four railroads that dominate the U.S. freight rail network, CP and KCS are comparatively minor players. It must be recognized that the merger was literally “end-to-end”; CP and KCS had one point of connection and they did not compete head-to-head for business. There was no compelling evidence of a real decrease in competition. Further, rejection of the transaction would not have enhanced competition or decreased concentration in the industry in any significant way.
The primary issue plaguing the freight rail industry is not corporate concentration, but rather the implementation of an operating business model known as Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR). PSR prioritizes profits above all other goals, including rail safety, reliable freight rail service, and workplace dignity. Recent high-profile derailments like the one in East Palestine, Ohio are a direct consequence of rail operations under the PSR model. Simply put, PSR is well on its way to destroying the freight rail industry and poses a direct threat to the safety of our communities and economic well-being of our country.
Chair Oberman recognizes the scope of these problems and champions real solutions to them. The call for his removal over the CP and KCS merger is not only unjustified but would be counterproductive to creating a safer, more effective freight rail system. To be clear, our objection to replacing Chair Oberman in no way diminishes our support for Board Member Primus. Mr. Primus has been an aggressive critic of the industry’s practices and we fully support his continued service on the Board as well.
The actions and approach of the current Board are a refreshing change from its predecessors, and Chair Oberman is due much credit for that change. We look forward to the Board’s continued attention to freight rail service issues exacerbated by the scourge of PSR.
The bill will now move on to the state Senate, where the timeline for consideration has yet to be determined, according to union leadership.
SMART-TD Pennsylvania State Legislative Director Paul Pokrowka.
But it’ll be very important to get the attention of senators so that the momentum can continue, says SMART-TD State Legislative Director Paul Pokrowka.
“Thank you first to all of the people who reached out to legislators, including the public, members of our union and others in organized labor,” SLD Pokrowka said. “You all were a big part of why many legislators who have chosen the interests of the constituents over party tendency. But this is only the first in a three-step process and we’ll need to mobilize and motivate.”
Pennsylvania looks to follow Ohio in passing comprehensive rail safety legislation in the wake of the East Palestine rail disaster when a Norfolk Southern derailment released hazardous chemicals just across the Pennsylvania-Ohio border. The images and headlines from the February accident were not forgotten as the House considered the bill, which:
Fines carriers $10,000 for blocking rail crossings for more than five minutes.
Limits train lengths to 8,500 feet.
Permits rail labor representatives to have an active, participatory role while the state investigates rail safety matters.
Requires a two-person crew aboard freight trains and fines carriers who violate the provision.
Authorizes the state to inspect to ensure the functionality of wayside detectors in the state.
Authorizes a state study of hazmat/waste transport.
Creates a reporting system when carriers operating trains carrying hazmat/waste report these to the state.
Pokrowka said it’s important for the bipartisan group of 141 representative to be thanked for keeping the bill intact and keeping their duty to work for the people in Pennsylvania at the top of their mind.
“We’re going to need them again,” Pokrowka said.
But a big effort now is needed to urge state senators for swift passage of the bill for the governor’s signature in the face of intense carrier lobbying.
“We need to lead by example and make it clear that this is what constituents want their government to do and not to bend over backward to appease the carriers,” Pokrowka said. “We need to make it perfectly clear that this rail safety legislation is not something that people in the government should be on the fence about.”
“If we get complacent here, the carriers will step in and try to sway things their way. Rail safety is too important a matter to let that happen,” Pokrowka said. “We need everybody to reach out.”
Norfolk Southern hosted a system-wide safety town hall meeting June 1 in the middle of the largest yard in their system in Bellevue, Ohio.
Carrier CEO Alan Shaw was joined on stage by the presidents from six of the 12 rail labor unions, including SMART Transportation Division President Jeremy Ferguson. Leading up to the presentation simulcast to every yard office on the NS system, the representatives from the labor unions and NS executives had an opportunity to meet and greet the employees of Bellevue Yard.
The theme of the event had a dual purpose. CEO Shaw’s vision for a new top-down redesign of NS’s safety culture was one of the main topics as well as the vision of how the company and rail labor could forge this new path focusing on the shared goal of safety. Shaw and his team looked for input from all of the labor representatives in attendance as well as the front-line employees at Bellevue from multiple crafts.
With SMART Transportation Division President Jeremy Ferguson listening at left, Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw addresses the audience at the Bellevue Yard in Ohio on June 1.
Shaw’s message was clear to everyone in attendance, “For those of you who have worked for Norfolk Southern for more than a decade, you remember when we had the best service, and we had the best safety in the industry. And we took a lot of pride in that. I want to get that back. I want to be known for that.”
Shaw expressed his intention to distance NS from the “do more with less” mentality that continues to prevail as a management tactic in the industry. In discussing the operation at Bellevue, he touched on the carrier’s removal of one of two hump yards there as a cost-saving maneuver during PSR. He pointed to the recent reopening of the second hump as an indication that doing more with less was no longer the path that his company was on.
“We made a short-term decision looking to cut cost, and we took the hump out. That’s not what we’re doing going forward. We’re going to be different. We’re going to grow,” he said. “We’re going to grow and we’re going to invest. We’re going to invest in our franchise, we’re going to invest in our facilities, and most importantly we’re going to invest in our people.
“My vision for Norfolk Southern is a growth company. So we reopened this hump. And now we’re pushing more volume through here and our service is a lot better.”
He went on to emphasize that NS would no longer be following the model of focusing on short-term margins and cutting costs.
“If you keep cutting and that’s your strategy, you’re probably not going to look like how you look in about 4 or 5 years, because it’s not sustainable,” he said. “For those of you who worked out in the field and still do, I know what those cuts did. I know that they were really hard on you. I know it was really frustrating. That’s not our path forward.”
Shaw also made a unique commitment to his workforce in his speech.
“Too often you see railroads cut employees, and cut workers out in the field when they saw volume decline. Then we didn’t have a good service product when the volume returned. That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” Shaw said. “I’m more focused on what we look like five years from now and 10 years from now than what we’re going to do next quarter. So, I said the next time there is an economic downturn, we’re not going to furlough. We’re going to invest in our employees.”
NS unveiled a locomotive with the insignias of all rail labor unions adorning it at the town-hall event June 1.
Time will tell how legitimate this system-wide corporate rebranding based on safety culture is at Norfolk Southern, but if Thursday’s town hall that included the company’s workers to be heard from and not just spoken to is an indication of what is to come, it seems as though NS is on the right track.
Rail labor in general, and specifically SMART-TD see it as our role to make sure it stays that way. Like the cars rolling down Bellevue’s hump, NS has momentum. It is SMART-TD’s role to be the retarders in this scenario and keep that car under control and make sure it doesn’t jump the tracks or couple up our members again in its pursuit of profit margins.
President Ferguson was the first of the union representatives to address the group. He thanked NS and its team at Bellevue Yard for hosting the event.
SMART Transportation Division President Jeremy Ferguson addresses the audience as Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw, left, looks on during the June 1 event at NS’s Bellevue Yard.
“Our union was created on the need for safety.” Ferguson said, then describing the factors he saw as key. “There are two fundamentals that we have to work with. The first is culture, and the other one is ownership. Part of culture is us being able to change how we treat each other and to show respect when someone raises a hand and says, ‘I’m concerned about this,’ or ‘I think this is an unsafe condition.’ That is a commitment we have to make to each other.
“The other key component, as I said, is ownership. We all have a part in that. The old saying in the unions is that we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. That’s what we have to do. Make sure all of us, including the managers, including the switchmen, the maintenance of way workers, everybody, we take care of each other to make sure everybody is safe. We can’t just say it, we’ve got to live it.”
In addition to President Ferguson, President Mike Baldwin of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, President Tony Cardwell of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division, President Leo McCann of the American Train Dispatchers Association, and Assistant General President Carl Lakin of the Transportation Communications Union all spoke.
