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A UTU member will be collecting more than $95,000 in penalties assessed against BNSF by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) for the railroad’s violation of the Federal Rail Safety Act.

OSHA found BNSF guilty of intimidating and harassing an injured UTU member who reported his workplace injury to the Federal Railroad Administration. The monetary award covers back wages, compensatory damages, attorney’s fees and punitive damages.

This is the first major award by OSHA after UTU International President Mike Futhey requested UTU designated legal counsel ramp up efforts to assist members whose whistle-blower rights under the Federal Rail Safety Act have been violated.

BNSF employee Ronald Helm (Local 1532, Kansas City), targeted for discipline after being injured on the job, didn’t feel so helpless against his powerful employer after his local chairperson, Joe Lopez, attended a seminar on whistle-blower rights given by a designated legal counsel. Helm is a 33-year veteran of the former Santa Fe and BNSF.

With assistance from General Chairperson Jim Huston (BNSF, GO 009), and committee Secretary Rex Pence, a case was developed and presented to OSHA, which administers the law as it applies to whistleblower protection.

Helm had been assessed a 30-day record suspension with no time lost, given one-year probation, and assessed 40 points against his personal performance index after reporting his personal injury to the FRA. Had the injury not been FRA reportable, he would have been assessed only five points.

BNSF said the penalty against Helm was for using a pin lifter, instead of a hickory stick, to adjust mismatched couplers in BNSF’s Argentine, Kan., yard. Evidence showed BNSF had not made the hickory stick available until after Helm’s injury.

Moreover, according to OSHA, BNSF’s discipline was arbitrary because BNSF typically does not discipline workers for using different tools if work is performed in a timely manner.

“An employer does not have the right to retaliate against employees who report work-related injuries,” said OSHA. And BNSF’s points system serves to discourage the proper reporting of workplace injuries, said OSHA.

In addition to the monetary penalty, BNSF was ordered to inform each of its employees in its Kansas Division — and in writing — of their whistle-blower rights under the Federal Rail Safety Act of 2007.

“This case and the work of our designated legal counsel shows that the federal law protecting whistle-blowers has teeth and that it can and will be used to stop the intimidation and harassment faced by our members,” Futhey said.

“UTU members who think they have been retaliated against for reporting workplace injuries should discuss the matter with a UTU designated legal counsel, their general chairperson or state legislative director,” said Futhey.

Complaints must be filed with OSHA within 180 days of the alleged employer retaliation.

Click on the following link for a listing of UTU designated legal counsel:

https://www.smart-union.org/td/designated-legal-counsel//

Click on the following link for a detailed OSHA fact sheet:

www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA-factsheet-whistleblower-railroad.pdf

Now that Congress has approved, and sent to President Obama for signing, the compromise tax cut and jobless benefits legislation, the question UTU members have, is, “What does it mean for me?”

  • For the jobless — and there are currently some five applicants for every available job in the nation — long-term federal unemployment jobless benefits are extended through Dec. 31, 2011.

These federal-aid benefits begin after an initial 26 weeks of state-provided jobless benefits. The federal benefits extend the 26 weeks of state-provided jobless benefits to 60 weeks in states with unemployment rates of less than 6 percent; and to 99 weeks in states where unemployment rates top 8.5 percent. It is estimated that some 3 million Americans have exhausted their initial 26 weeks of unemployment benefits.

  • Social Security taxes — and Tier I Railroad Retirement taxes — will be cut by two percentage points for employees for the entirety of 2011. The reduced payroll taxes — from the current 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent — are expected to boost the economy through increased spending by workers.

For workers earning $50,000 annually, the additional take-home pay from reduced payroll taxes will be some $1,000 over the course of the year. For those earning the maximum Social Security (and Tier I Railroad Retirement) taxable income, the additional take-home pay will top $2,000.

Additionally, the legislation:

  • Prevents income taxes from rising for millions of middle-class Americans — a tax increase that could have topped $3,000 per middle-class family.
  • Provides millions of middle-class American families with relief from the alternative minimum tax, which otherwise would have hit 28 million households instead of the current 4 million households.
  • Extends the dependent child-care credit, extends an increase in the adoption tax credit, and extends education tax credits (including an additional deduction for interest on student loans).
  • Extends relief from the so-called marriage penalty by increasing the standard deduction for joint filers to twice the standard deduction available to single filers.
  • Extends tax credits for energy efficient improvements to homes.

The legislation also provides tax relief for short line railroads that invest in their properties. The tax relief encourages more investment by short lines, protecting jobs of short line rail workers as well as Class I workers that benefit from the interchange traffic flowing to and from short lines that otherwise would travel by highway.

Amtrak maintenance-of-way employees say they want a new wage package at least equivalent to what is paid on the highly profitable freight railroads, reports Angela Greiling Keane for Bloomberg. But unlike profitable freight railroads, Amtrak loses about $1 billion annually, says Bloomberg.

Bob Poole, founder of the Reason Foundation, a think tank advocating smaller government and more privatization — and expected to have influence on a new Congress heavily peppered with conservative Tea Party members — calls the BMWE demand “well beyond what the public would think is reasonable given the state of the economy and what’s happened to private sector compensation over the last couple of years,” reports Bloomberg.

Amtrak funding by Congress next year will face “much tougher scrutiny than they have ever had” as the House Republican leadership and a more conservative Senate consider deficit reduction, Poole told Bloomberg.

Congress determines Amtrak’s annual subsidy — $1.58 billion in fiscal year 2010, reports Bloomberg — and could cut back on Amtrak funding or impose its own labor agreement if negotiations between Amtrak and any of its unions reaches an impasse and the sides cannot agree to recom

mendations of a presidential emergency board. Under the Railway Labor Act, existing contracts remain in force until amended.

Bloomberg quotes BMWE official Jed Dodd as urging his members to hold out for more than the almost 15 percent over five years already agreed to by the Transportation Communications Union (TCU) and Amtrak. The UTU is still in contract negotiations with Amtrak.

During the previous round of Amtrak negotiations — which took eight years to conclude — Amtrak agreed to wage increases of some 35 percent over 10 years, reports Bloomberg. That agreement was retroactive to 2000.

When you think you have heard it all, along comes this one.

Union Pacific, according to the Associated Press, has filed a lawsuit against an Idaho food processor, alleging its processed dehydrated mashed potato flakes stuck to the wheels of some freight cars and caused a 2009 derailment at UP’s massive North Platte, Neb., classification yard. UP says the potato flakes affected the cars’ brakes.

The lawsuit, initially filed in a Nebraska state court, was transferred to a federal court, with UP seeking nearly $242,000 in damages, reports the Associated Press.

Idahoan Foods, of Lewisville, Ida., says its dehydrated mashed potatoes rival the taste of real mashed potatoes. Apparently, however, they don’t complement the wheel-rail interface.

PUEBLO, Colo. — The number of passengers boarding regional carrier Great Lakes Airlines at Pueblo is up 45 percent this year, which may help the airport qualify for additional federal funding, reports the Pueblo Chieftain.

The UTU represents Great Lakes pilots and flight attendants. Great Lakes operates three flights daily between Pueblo and Denver.

COMMERCE, Calif. — Hundreds of pedestrians and drivers are killed on railroad tracks and at highway-rail grade-crossings each year, but a triple fatality near Los Angeles Dec. 13 was especially horrific.

The Los Angeles Times reports three young men — perhaps all teens — were walking on tracks in Commerce around 9 p.m. Dec. 13 when they were hit by an Amtrak train and killed.

Two were identified as 15 and 17 years of age, while the age of the third was not determined.

The Amtrak train, with 125 passengers, was enroute from San Diego to Los Angeles.

Last week was not a good one for two Midwest bus drivers.

In Urbana, Ill., a transit driver who chose to run smack dab over a snowman lost her job, reports the Chicago Tribune.

The snowman had been built in the middle of a University of Illinois campus street. A YouTube-posted video showed the transit bus “veering toward the snowman and running over it,” reports the newspaper. Another vehicle in the video was seen avoiding the snowman. The bus driver resigned after transit officials viewed the video.

In Portage, Mich., a school bus driver faces drunken driving charges after allegedly having five beers at a bar prior to taking the wheel to transport 36 middle-school honor students on a field trip, according to the Associated Press.

Bar patrons notified police, who pulled over the bus with students aboard, reported the Associated Press. The driver, according to police, tested at twice the legal blood-alcohol limit for operating a motor vehicle. The driver, who was fired, had an earlier drunken driving conviction that went unnoticed in a background check, reported the Associated Press. The driver was fired.

WASHINGTON — Unsafe commercial bus operators are to be targeted by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration through a program to be called Compliance Safety Accountability.

The agency said the program will include an analysis of safety-based violations — including safety inspections and crash data — to determine the least safe carriers. “Corrective intervention” will follow, said the FMCSA.

The safety-based analysis will utilize seven safety improvement categories to examine a carrier’s on-road performance and potential crash risk: Unsafe driving, fatigued driving (based on hours-of-service violations), driver fitness, drug/alcohol violations, vehicle maintenance, cargo-related accidents and vehicle crash history.

“By looking at a carrier’s safety violations in each category, the FMCSA and state law enforcement will be better equipped to identify carriers with patterns of high-risk behaviors and apply interventions that provide carriers the information necessary to change unsafe practices early on,” said the agency.

Unlike prior years, where railroads cut loose employees during lean times, leaving them without benefits, Union Pacific during this recession has attempted to keep many on a reduced schedule, allowing them to retain health care benefits, reports the Topeka Capital-Journal.

A UP spokesperson told the Capital-Journal it had furloughed 5,300 people across the system at the height of the recession, but the number of furloughed workers is now only about 1,000.

The UP spokesperson told the newspaper it has tried to keep many of the 5,300 furloughed workers on a reduced schedule, allowing them to retain health care benefits and avoid having to retrain.

“When you bring someone back to work in the rail industry [after they were cut loose], they have to go back through [safety] rules training. They have to have refresher courses. This time we had employees stay with us and work at a reduced number of days.

“An employee may be working eight days a month and is only getting paid for eight days a month, but more importantly he is retaining his benefits,” said the UP spokesperson. “He is able to keep his rules current and doesn’t have to go back through training. As soon as things start getting better, an employee can step up and work right away.”

The UTU has been urging other railroads to follow a similar course of action, which UTU International President Mike Futhey calls “a win-win for the railroad and their highly trained and dedicated work force.”

NORTH PLATTE, Neb. — Union Pacific is four years into its five-year pilot Confidential Close Calls Reporting System (C3RS) and participants are giving it high marks for improving safety culture.

C3RS encourages engineers, conductors, trainmen and yardmasters to report close calls that may have resulted in accidents or injuries without fear of discipline or FRA enforcement action, even if rules violations are involved.

All C3RS reports by employees are collected anonymously and kept confidential.

The UP pilot program — one of four involving the UTU and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen — is supported by the Federal Railroad Administration.

Once confidential employee reports are submitted, they are examined confidentially by the U.S. DOT’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics, which removes all identifying information.

That information is then transmitted to the carrier, where a C3RS peer review team recommends corrective action, such as improved training, changes in physical plant, changes in existing federal safety laws or regulations, changes in carrier operating rules, improved training and/or education.

Examples of close calls include varying levels of risk, such as leaving pieces of equipment unsecured, improper blocking, operating trains beyond track authority, or violating operating rules.

Union Pacific says that such analysis “has spurred systemwide change,” including “reformatting track warrants so they are easier to read.”

A UP officer said that C3RS is helping UP move from a blame culture to one that bridges communication gaps between employees and management.

Other Confidential Close Calls Reporting System pilot projects are being conducted on Amtrak (systemwide), Canadian Pacific at Portage, Wisc., and New Jersey Transit (systemwide).

“Non-punitive reporting produces safety data that could not otherwise be obtained while helping to identify and mitigate risks before another serious incident occurs,” said UTU International Vice President John Previsich, who has been helping to design and implement C3RS pilot programs.