President

January 5, 2006

Carrier officers out of control?

This office has recently received many calls about the deportment of the Union Pacific’s carrier officers. These calls have described situations where carrier officers have told or have tried to tell our members to violate rules and perform unsafely. These calls and stories all have one thing in common. The person on the other end is upset. Instead of getting upset, use the following letters to remind officers of what is expected of them.

Please use your Ike Evans empowerment letter. No employee will be required to perform any unsafe act including any violations of law or Union Pacific rules.

No employee will be disciplined, discriminated against or harassed as the result of their decision to empower themselves regarding safety issues that directly compromise personal safety.

Please see Dennis Duffy’s letter that endorses Ike Evans’ letter for rule compliance being essential to safe operations and employees to always take the safe course without fear of reprisal.

Please see Dick Davidson’s letter on ethics and business conduct policy. Note the Union Pacific Values Line (800-998-2000) for reporting violations. Copies of these letters are available at this office

Division-56 members, your committee will do whatever is needed to help in this process. Any harassment, behavior problem, or being told to violate a carrier rule or State or Federal regulation by a carrier officer must be reported to the Union Pacific Values Line ( 800-998-2000). After you report the problem follow up with a short letter to this office (fax 909 514-0314). Your letter does not need to be pretty, just relate the basics. Please include the following:

Date
Job number
Units in your charge
Time
Location
Carrier officer name,
What has taken place

This Committee will address your complaint with the Superintendent. If we receive no results on this level, we will go to the Western Regional Vice President. We need to quit complaining about these problems and put them in writing. In order to pursue your complaints, this office needs written documentation.

If you want justice, you can’t be lazy.

For the Committee,

Ray Carver
President, BLET Division-56

As of May 1 you can choose on of the following three ways to contact Vanguard to enroll or make contribution changes.

Internet Account access at www.vanguard.com
Automated VOICE (R) network at 1-800-523-1188
Vanguard (R) participant Services associates at 1-800-523-1188 Monday - Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., Eastern time.

Letter to Ike Evans about rule change of Yellow Flag protection.
Effective: June 21, 2002.
System Special Instructions/System General Order no.37

Ivor J. (Ike) Evans
President & CEO
Union Pacific Company
1416 Dodge St., Rm. 1230
Omaha, NE. 68179-1230

This committee is having a hard time coping with a rule change implemented under the name of Dennis Duffy. Mr. Duffy has not only taken away the safety net of our crews, but also the safety net of other Union Pacific employees. The rules that the company has chosen to dangerously disregard are: 5.4.1, 5.4.2 and 5.4.3, the yellow flag, red/yellow flag and their protection.

Mr. Duffy has changed the wording from Must to May. This is in connection with providing yellow flag protection 2-miles from a speed restriction or where men and equipment are working.

You and I, even Dennis Duffy, are human. As humans we forget things and do make mistakes. If we are lucky an inconsequential mistake is all it is.

A yellow flag is a safety reminder for all involved, nothing more, nothing less. For a corporation that stresses safety not only to its employees, but to the public as well, it is obvious that you have overlooked why this rule was in place. It was in place to help remind crews of an up coming restriction, or of men and equipment working on or near the tracks. Because crews are human, they sometimes forget.

This committee knows what happens when yellow flags are not displayed. We have been fighting this fight for many years and have the documentation to prove it. If you and the Union Pacific are lucky, people will only be out of service or disciplined. If you and the Union Pacific are not lucky, people may be killed or maimed. I will never understand a corporation taking a chance on the roll of the dice.

As an employee, this is a slap in the face as you have told me point blank you don’t care about my safety as your employee.

For the Committee,

Ray Carver

President,
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineer’s Division-56

cc:
Tim Smith- CSLB
Bill Hannah-General Chairman W.L.
Larry Law-Local Chairman Division-56

more on the beltpacks

THE WASHINGTON TIMES - 1/30/2002

     A railroad technology scheduled for its first use among major U.S. railroads next week is threatening nationwide labor turmoil among locomotive engineers.
     Railroads hope to save hundreds of millions of dollars a year and speed up shipments to customers using remote-control devices to move locomotives in rail yards. But they also are angering locomotive engineers whose jobs could be eliminated.
     A pilot project using remote control to switch rail cars between locomotives is scheduled to begin Feb. 4 in a Kansas City rail yard. Railroad giants Union Pacific Railroad, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway and Kansas City Southern Industries are participating in the project.
     Until a federal judge slapped their union with a preliminary injunction Jan. 16, engineers concerned about being replaced by machines threatened to strike when the first use of remote control began.
     Now, the 33,000-member Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers is weighing its options. BLE spokesman John Bentley said the judge's order has stopped any plans for a strike.
     Meanwhile, the union is awaiting a court decision on whether to make the preliminary injunction permanent. They argue that their rights under the Railway Labor Act to collective bargaining would be infringed if the court grants the permanent injunction. No date has been set yet for a hearing at the federal court in Chicago.
     "It's been our position all along that locomotive engineers should run locomotives, regardless of whether they're in the cab or on the ground," said BLE President Don Hahs after the Jan. 16 ruling.
     The dispute arose when several large railroads agreed to assign all remote-technology jobs to members of the rival United Transportation Union, whose 75,000 members include many rail-yard workers. The technology allows rail-yard workers wearing transmitters on specially designed belts to maneuver locomotives even when no one is aboard.
     "We estimate that the Beltpack could save the U.S. railroads as much as $250 million in operating income annually, once fully implemented," says an industry analysis issued by the Wall Street investment firm Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.
     Among those who would benefit are shippers who would pay less to ship their goods and consumers who would pay less to buy their products.
     On Oct. 5, Mr. Hahs sent a letter to the railroads objecting to their use of remote control.
     "The railroads understand the BLE letter to be an explicit strike threat," U.S. District Judge Joan Gottschall wrote in her ruling granting the preliminary injunction. "The BLE does not deny that it intends to enter into a strike if the railroads assign the remote control technology operations to ground service employees and not locomotive engineers."
     She conceded the BLE has rights under the Railway Labor Act, but said a strike could cause too much damage.
     "A nationwide strike by the BLE would clearly create irreparable harm to the railroads," Judge Gottschall wrote. "Finally, it seems clear that a preliminary injunction preventing the union from striking would not harm the public interest but protect it, as a wide variety of industries depend on the railroads to be able to operate."
     The Federal Railroad Administration approved guidelines last year for railroads to use remote control. Each $140,000 remote-control device means at least one fewer job is needed for a rail-yard engineer.
      "We approved the use of remote-control technology because a significant amount of research indicates that the technology has the potential to increase safety and possibly efficiency in certain rail operations," said Federal Railroad Administration spokesman Warren Flatau.
     The research comes primarily from Canadian railroads, where remote control has been used since 1989. They report 30 percent cost reductions for rail-yard switching and a 56 percent increase in safety.
     The dominant manufacturer for the devices is Montreal-based Canac Inc., which makes the Canac Beltpack. Another is Sharpsville, Pa.-based Cattron-Theimeg.
     Railroad companies plan to use the devices throughout their network of thousands of rail yards nationwide.
     Rail-yard workers wearing Beltpacks with radio transmitters on them can manipulate dials to maneuver locomotives outfitted with computer-controlled radio receivers. The devices allow faster switching of rail cars between locomotives and smoother yard operations for routine maintenance. They also reduce the risk of injury by having workers stand at a distance as the locomotives move around and bump into position to pull rail cars.
     One of the railroads at the forefront of the effort is CSX Transportation, which is the biggest freight hauler on the East Coast. Amtrak runs its trains throughout the Southeast and Gulf Coast on CSX tracks. CSX has ordered 100 remote-control units, the first of which are planned for use at rail yards in Tampa and Baldwin, Fla.
      Another is Richmond-based Norfolk Southern Railroad, which already purchased four remote-control devices and plans to phase in the use of more of them.

President's note: this is the way the carriers fixes things. They get someone
to put something in the press and it all taken care of. Please e-mail Leroy
Jones and the boys letting them know you want mandated rest.

Jul 20, 2001 (Omaha World-Herald - Knight

Union Pacific Curbs Costs by Ending 'Work-Rest' Agreements for Some Engineers Union Pacific Railroad Co. has ended 18-month-old safety measures designed to ease fatigue for some substitute locomotive engineers along its 33,000-mile system.

The Omaha-based rail company on Jan. 1 ended work-rest agreements that had given some substitute locomotive engineers, known as "extra board" engineers, guaranteed days off. The company also eliminated 300 jobs for members additional back-up engineers -- back-up substitutes -- whose work had made the guaranteed days off possible. The company says those engineers have been transferred to other jobs.

To curb costs, Union Pacific eliminated some work-rest agreements between itself and the
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. Those agreements were implemented two years ago after a series of train wrecks. The railroad said its decision would have no impact on safety and was an option it had always preserved.

The engineers' union hasn't challenged the company's authority to change the work practices. It says, however, that the changes will result in engineers working while tired and will compromise safety on Union Pacific rails. It also says engineers' quality of life will suffer.

Under the old work-rest practices, substitute engineers were on-call for seven days and had three guaranteed days off. They were paid for the entire month regardless of how often they worked.

With the changes, the substitute engineers are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They fill in for regular engineers, who also can be placed on-call but tend to have more seniority and thus more predictable schedules.

Terry Olin, general director of labor relations for Union Pacific, said the work-rest provisions were costly and created dips in productivity because substitute engineers often weren't available to work. The company hopes to cut costs by having more
engineers working and more on call, permitting it to hire fewer engineers.

Mike Young of Cheyenne, Wyo., general chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers in a region that includes Nebraska, said engineers fear that the loss of guaranteed days off will increase worker fatigue. That could lead to more train
accidents and possibly injuries or deaths, he said.

Union Pacific implemented most of the work-rest agreements in the summer of 1999, as part of several ongoing safety programs aimed at alleviating fatigue. The Federal Railroad Administration investigated U.P. after 11 fatigue-related fatal train accidents in 1997, following its 1996 merger with the Southern Pacific Railroad.

The work-rest programs have been eliminated at some U.P. hubs, such as North Platte, Neb., and Cheyenne. Railroad executives said the work-rest practices remain in place elsewhere. Altogether, the change affects fewer than 300 of the company's 8,200 engineers systemwide (and roughly 100 in the Midlands).

Engineers point out that if they do not know when their next rest day is, they may not be properly rested if called to work unexpectedly. Plus, some engineers argue that quality of life is impaired if they cannot plan on days to spend with families or on hobbies.

U.P.'s Olin said the company realized in mid-2000 that the work-rest agreements benefited engineers at the company's expense. He said engineers in Council Bluffs worked, on average, seven days a month but were paid for the entire month. Now, that same engineer is working 12 to 13 days a month.

"We can't afford to keep them this way," he said. "We want to come up with new procedures that properly balance U.P.'s needs and the employees' needs.
"It was like a three-legged chair, but the one leg (engineers) was higher than the other two." Olin said the company tried to work with union leaders but ended up scrapping the agreements anyway.

Young, of the locomotive engineers, said the union has been negotiating with Union Pacific since January to reinstate the fatigue prevention measures. The union does not dispute U.P.'s right to revoke them, but maintains they were necessary for safety.
"We're not very happy," he said. "We thought they were good agreements."

Engineers can work up to 12 hours a day. By the time they get back home or to a bed if they are away from home, engineers say, they often get less rest than the required 10-hour break between shifts. And they have long argued that being on call 24 hours, even if they are not called to work, is no substitute for a day off that can be spent taking care of errands or with family.

Union Pacific officials said eliminating the work-rest agreements did not disregard safety. Company officials pointed out that its regular pool of engineers do not have guaranteed days off. Dave Harbert, director of safety for U.P., said the company has moved beyond its service crisis, hiring more workers and giving workers reasonable time off between trips.

Larry Breeden, a U.P. senior director of operating practices and a once active engineer, said that last year, out of the 129 times that trains missed a stop signal, there was only one incident when an engineer had fallen asleep. He said the engineer in that case had made a lifestyle choice to not sleep. Breeden said some engineers have a lawn service or other jobs while being paid for their engineer work.

An average salary for an engineer is in the mid-$50,000-a-year range. Olin, the U.P. labor relations executive, said eliminating the work-rest agreements is part of reaching a balance that benefits both the company and employees. The union's Young said he could not give an average number of days worked by extra board engineers because the amount of work varies with the route. He said that a mid-range salary for an engineer is in the mid-$50,000.

Burlington Northern also has ended its guaranteed days off for substitute engineers on some routes.

Merle Geiger, a general chairman for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers in Fort Worth, Texas, represents BN rail workers in 24 states, including Nebraska. He said the company ended a work-rest program in Alliance, Neb., and more than a dozen other locations in late June.

Under the old BN work-rest agreement, extra board engineers were scheduled on call eight days and required to take three days off. Those engineers were guaranteed a month's salary for days worked and days off.

But Geiger said that system was too expensive. He said the locomotive engineers' union and BN are having engineers on certain routes through a 24-state area work seven days with the option of taking three unpaid days off, instead of being required to take off time.

Geiger said the new schedule is being used in the Pacific Northwest, and the engineers there "like it quite well."

"The real issue is getting time off," he said. "The industry hasn't changed for 150 years. We're on call seven days a week and 24 hours a day."

Burlington Northern spokesman Patrick Hiatte said the new work-rest offer is the direction the company is leaning for its entire system.

By Grace Shim

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