SMART Transportation Division President Jeremy Ferguson issued the following statement on Feb. 21:
“The greatest threat to the American railroad industry and the communities with which it intersects is Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR). The changes PSR has brought since its inception in 2017 have only served to make executives and Wall Street shareholders richer, while the risk to employees and the public has become greater.
“The derailment that occurred in East Palestine was predictable and preventable. Unfortunately, financially driven equations, like the operating ratio, have caused rail carriers to abandon fundamentally sound practices for haphazard, inherently dangerous, impetuous movements of freight and locomotives across America’s rail system — all in the pursuit of increasing the bottom line. This is neither responsible nor sustainable, and we are now seeing the reality of this fact coming into fruition.
“Because of PSR, we find ourselves in an era of exponential increases to train length, less consideration to train make-up or construction, the desire to reduce crew size and introduce automation, the reduction in frequency and quality of inspections to equipment and infrastructure, and the permissibility of railroads to self-report and self-police — none of which are consistent with safety.
“Now is not the time to introduce more technology but rather to focus on the fundamental changes needed to reverse railroading’s dangerous trajectory. Now is the time to put an end to PSR.
“While our hearts break for the people of East Palestine, Ohio, we are thankful that our calls for meaningful oversight are finally being heard. We look forward to working with President Biden and the Department of Transportation to get this right. The catastrophe in Ohio and Pennsylvania demands that we get this right.
Based on industry standards for such incidents (this isn’t the first time a railroad disaster has spoiled the environment of a town and surrounding areas), the article estimates that any financial setback to the company and investors as a result of the Feb. 3 disaster will be overcome by May.
“As a rail service is restored, rail shares have historically not seen a material impact from accidents on a three-month horizon.” Ken Hoexter of Bank of America was quoted in the article.
Incidents of the magnitude of what happened in Ohio have the ability to alter the lives of thousands of people who live in communities near rail tracks, yet here, again, we see that they do not serve as much more than a slight dip in the quarterly lap around the corporate speedway to more profits. This is a less than encouraging reality. It begs the question whether there’s any tangible motivator for Norfolk Southern or the other Class I freight railroads to do better than simply mouthing “safety is our top priority” when the financial hit is brushed away like a piece of lint. The residents of the affected area? Well, they have to cope with the stress of homes and property tainted by chemical fallout and the anxiety of not knowing whether there will be long-lasting ramifications to their general physical and mental health as a result of the disaster while the legal wrangling occurs.
As the article in FreightWaves points out, NS had a similar derailment in 2005 in Graniteville, S.C. There, the carrier was found to be liable for 550 people being admitted to hospitals with respiratory issues, and nine deaths due to the release of chlorine. NS paid out $39 million between expenses and penalties. This resulted in a mere 1.7 percent decrease in its operating ratio for a single quarter. The financials of the company, including its stock prices, had entirely recovered by the end of that year, the article said.
While the benefits reaped by carriers seeming “too big to fail” works out just fine for the shareholders, rail labor has to cope with job cuts and compensate at an operational level for the decisions of Class I management. It’s our members who know they are being pushed to operate questionable equipment subject to relaxed safety inspections. Our men and women have front-row seats to watch the hedge fund profit-first mentality that fuels Precision Scheduled Railroading as it rots out our industry. Many workers have had the thought or have said to a manager that cultural shifts away from proper inspections and maintenance were going to create disasters like we saw in East Palestine. It turns out that we were right, but so were they in thinking the PSR playbook is still profitable, even with the occasional disaster baked into the cake. Until these carriers are financially unable to recover so quickly from these catastrophes, they have no reason to increase staffing and get back to a safety-focused culture.
So if history holds, analysts suggest, the temporary price drop in NS stock should actually be viewed as a rebound opportunity. Savvy investors could buy into the company on the cheap now, then reap the rewards when it bounces back. It’s a dark and chilling commentary on an eventual return to business as usual within months of East Palestine’s nightmare. Yet the recovery for the village’s about 4,500 residents will take substantially longer.
Senator Bernie Sanders speaks during the Capitol Hill rail solidarity rally.
The SMART Transportation Division organized rallies in multiple locations Dec. 13 to bring attention to rail-related issues, including maintaining the current safe level of a minimum two-person crew in the cabs of locomotives, paid sick leave for workers and an end to the carriers’ Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) scheme.
A solidarity rally took place at Capitol Hill days after the Dec. 2 federal imposition of a national rail contract on SMART-TD and three other unions, drawing support from the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department, multiple unions from inside and apart from the rail industry, a bipartisan contingent of U.S. representatives and senators and others.
Watch coverage of the Capitol Hill rail solidarity rally in episode four of SMART News.
“Every single day in this nation, a life is saved because of the actions of a two-person crew. When a train whistle is blown and a kid gets out of the way — that is a life that is saved in a moment. But you never hear about it because the railroads are not required to report it,” SMART-TD Alternate National Legislative Director Jared Cassity told the crowd of supporters in Washington, DC. “PSR is a deadly animal to this entire nation. Public safety is under threat because of cuts for profit that the railroads are trying to make. They want to keep cutting. They want to keep taking crew members off trains — they’re going to do whatever they can do to keep making another dollar. We have got to put an end to it, but the only way we do that is that we all fight together and keep going.
“Keep talking to your brothers and sisters. Let them know that the fight continues — the only way that we win this battle is if everybody is out, everybody is fighting and everybody is loud and everybody is doing their part to make sure our job, our union, our solidarity is being fought for. You’ve got to be the leader at home. You’ve got to let your people know that the time is here, the time is now. We’re all in this fight together.”
The rally at the Capitol was one of a series that took place in multiple states, including Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Utah and Wyoming.
“These reforms aren’t going to happen on their own. We’re going to keep pushing to make them happen so we can deliver for railroad workers. At a minimum, every single railroad worker deserves paid sick leave and the guarantee of a two-person crew. These reforms will create a safer and better freight system for everyone,” said TTD President Greg Regan, who introduced a number of the speakers from Congress.
“When we leave here today, do not go home and think that you did your part. You have not done enough yet. We have not done enough yet. No one has done enough yet,” Cassity added. “We will get strong. We will get louder. We have got to continue.”
Rep. Ocasio-CortezRep. BaconRep. Bowman
While Congress stopped a nationwide rail strike by imposing a contract on workers in December, the devastating workplace conditions perpetuated by major rail corporations continue to prevail.
More than a dozen members of Congress addressed the rally, including: U.S. Reps. Donald Payne (D-N.J.), Andy Levin (D-Mich.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Don Bacon (R-Neb.), Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), Jesús “Chuy” Garcia (D-Ill.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), John Garamendi (D-Calif.), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), as well as U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.).
“What you have shown the country is how outrageous this level of corporate greed is and how we have it in the rail industry and in other industries across this country,” said Sanders. “Tell the people that own this country that we are going to put an end to their greed.”
Sanders railed at the carriers’ refusal to meet workers’ demands for paid sick leave in the industry during the contract negotiations that concluded with the federal government imposing a contract on a majority of rail workers.
“The truth of the matter is, that if we had any justice in this country, we wouldn’t have to make that demand because this country would do what virtually every other major country on Earth does and guarantee paid family and medical leave.”
He also told workers that PSR will be in Congress’s cross-hairs: “You guys now have to do more with less. That’s their ideology — how do we work people to the bone so we can make $20 million a year? And that is why we have to put an end to Precision Scheduled Railroading,” Sanders declared. “We’re going to bring not only the rail unions together, we’re going to bring the workers together to bring the justice that is long overdue.”
The rallies coincided with a hearing led by the Surface Transportation Board to examine Union Pacific’s service performance failures that have harmed the supply chain, and preceded the public hearing before the Federal Railroad Administration on the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding two-person freight crews.
WASHINGTON – SMART Transportation Division organized rallies in multiple locations Dec. 13 to bring attention to rail-related issues, including maintaining the current safe level of a minimum two-person crew in the cabs of locomotives, paid sick leave for workers and an end to the carriers’ Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) scheme.
A solidarity rally took place at Capitol Hill days after the Dec. 2 federal imposition of a national rail contract on the SMART-TD and three other unions, drawing support from the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department, multiple unions from inside and apart from the rail industry, a bipartisan contingent of U.S. representatives and senators and others.
“Every single day in this nation, a life is saved because of the actions of a two-person crew. When a train whistle is blown and a kid gets out of the way – that is a life that is saved in a moment. But you never hear about it because the railroads are not required to report it,” SMART-TD Alternate National Legislative Director Jared Cassity told the crowd of supporters at Capitol Hill. “PSR is a deadly animal to this entire nation. Public safety is under threat because of cuts for profit that the railroads are trying to make. They want to keep cutting. They want to keep taking crew members off trains — they’re going to do whatever they can do to keep making another dollar. We have got to put an end to it, but the only way we do that is that we all fight together and keep going.
“Keep talking to your brothers and sisters. Let them know that the fight continues — the only way that we win this battle is if everybody is out, everybody is fighting and everybody is loud and everybody is doing their part to make sure our job, our union, our solidarity is being fought for. You’ve got to be the leader at home. You’ve got to let your people know that the time is here, the time is now. We’re all in this fight together.
“When we leave here today, do not go home and think that you did your part. You have not done enough yet. We have not done enough yet. No one has done enough yet,” Cassity said. “We will get strong. We will get louder. We have got to continue.”
The rally at the Capitol was one of a series that took place in multiple states, including Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Utah and Wyoming.
“These reforms aren’t going to happen on their own. We’re going to keep pushing to make them happen so we can deliver for railroad workers. At a minimum, every single railroad worker deserves paid sick leave and the guarantee of a two-person crew. These reforms will create a safer and better freight system for everyone,” said TTD President Greg Regan, who introduced a number of the speakers from Congress.
While Congress stopped a nationwide rail strike by imposing a contract on workers earlier this month, the devastating workplace conditions perpetuated by major rail corporations continue to prevail.
More than a dozen members of Congress addressed the rally, including: U.S. Reps. Donald Payne (D-N.J., Dist.10), Andy Levin (D-Mich., Dist. 9), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa., Dist. 1), Don Bacon (R-Neb., Dist. 2), Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y., Dist. 16), Jesús “Chuy” Garcia (D-Ill., Dist. 4), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y., Dist. 14), John Garamendi (D-Calif., Dist. 3), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J., Dist. 12), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash., Dist. 7), Cori Bush (D-Mo., Dist. 1), Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif., Dist. 34), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich., Dist. 13) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn., Dist. 5) and U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Bob Casey (D-Pa.).
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders addresses the crowd at the Capitol Hill labor solidarity rally on Dec. 13.
“What you have shown the country is how outrageous this level of corporate greed is and how we have it in the rail industry and in other industries across this country,” said Sanders. “Tell the people that own this country that we are going to put an end to their greed.”
Sanders railed at the carriers’ refusal to meet workers’ demands for paid sick leave in the industry during the contract negotiations that concluded with the federal government imposing a contract on a majority of rail workers.
“The truth of the matter is, that if we had any justice in this country, we wouldn’t have to make that demand because this country would do what virtually every other major country on Earth does and guarantee paid family and medical leave.”
He also told workers that PSR will be in Congress’s crosshairs:
“You guys now have to do more with less. That’s their ideology — how do we work people to the bone so we can make $20 million a year? And that is why we have to put an end to Precision Scheduled Railroading,” Sanders said. “We’re going to bring not only the rail unions together, we’re going to bring the workers together to bring the justice that is long overdue.”
The rallies coincided with a hearing led by the Surface Transportation Board to examine Union Pacific’s service performance failures that have harmed the supply chain and preceded the public hearing before the Federal Railroad Administration regarding the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) regarding two-person freight crews.
Colorado
Members of SMART-TD rally at the overpass above BNSF’s Denver roundhouse and yards Dec. 13. (Photo courtesy Colorado SLD Carl Smith.)Union members mobilize before their rally.Members hold a banner at their rally Dec. 13.
Labor supporters rallied outside the Ohio statehouse on Dec. 13.
Wyoming
People turning out in Cheyenne in 15-degree temperatures with 25+mph winds and a -22-degree wind chill. “Huge shout out to Tammy Johnson, Wyoming AFL-CIO Executive Secretary, who helped me and did so much of the organizing,” said Wyoming SLD April Ford.
The CEO of the National Association of Chemical Distributors seems to understand how to fix the railroads better than the carriers do.
Supply Chain Dive published an opinion article Oct. 17 by Eric R. Byer, who leads the National Association of Chemical Distributors (NACD), in which he laid out some basic blueprints to rebuilding the American railroad industry.
NACD’s Eric Byer
Written from the perspective of heavily rail-dependent customers, Byer does a great job of laying out an overhead shot of the current state of the rail industry, and then poses the question, “Why are we in this predicament?”
Refreshingly, his answer is, “Because the freight rail companies put us here.”
From the perspective of the rail customers, Byer points out the obvious. The fact is that manpower issues on the railroad are making it difficult for rail-dependent companies to function, meet supply deadlines and be profitable. This is not a new thought, but Byer’s angle on how to address the problem is very different from the traditional one taken by railroad executives.
Byer thinks the solution is to add more horses to the plow team rather than giving the farmer more whips. That is to say, creating a satisfied, fully staffed and not habitually broken workforce is a better fix than squeezing every minute carriers can legally get out those who are still working for them.
He also discusses that, in addition to PSR, quality-of-life concerns led to the manpower shortage. He references the fact that our members are highly skilled professionals with extensive training who are subject to working standards that don’t meet the criteria of unskilled full-time workers.
From left, Local Chairperson Chris Bond (Local 513, Gainesville Texas); Local Chairperson Steve Groat (Local 329, Boone, Iowa); General Chairperson Matt Burkart (GCA-341); SMART Transportation Division President Jeremy Ferguson and AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department President Greg Regan wait to deliver their testimony before the Surface Transportation Board on April 26, 2022.
Video recap of the damning testimony on rail carrier policies.
On April 26, SMART Transportation Division President Jeremy Ferguson and three members of the union shed light April 26 on the devastating effects Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) has had on customers and labor alike before the Surface Transportation Board (STB).
Their testimony came on the first day of STB’s hearing on “Urgent Issues in Freight Rail Service” convened in Washington, D.C.
“As professionals, it’s painful to watch our shippers get bad service or no service at all, much higher rates, destroyed product and equipment, and in some cases having to resort to shipping by truck whenever possible,” President Ferguson said. “I want to make our voice heard that we stand with the shippers who want our professional service to keep the supply chain open and keep this country’s economy moving.”
President Ferguson’s testimony will begin immediately upon clicking the image.
President Ferguson referred back to the “safest and most productive era” of railroading years ago with more service flexibility, proper maintenance and full extra boards that has now been sacrificed for the higher stock prices sought by Wall Street investors through the implementation of PSR.
“Thousands of men and women have been laid off with reckless abandon while no consideration has been given to the service that has ultimately been forsaken,” he said. “All that is known to us and our members at this point is that the railroads are dead set on achieving the lowest operating ratio attainable at any cost.”
“Railroading, once revered as one of the most-coveted blue-collar jobs in the world, is now hemorrhaging employees at unprecedented rates because of the abusive work environments PSR has created. Truth is, employees are leaving the industry faster than the railroads can hire.”
He referenced the “Hi-Viz” attendance policy that BNSF implemented in February several times, stated that its implementation has led to the departure of 1,000 workers who were forced to choose between trying to attain enough sleep to safely work their next shift or try to spend limited time with family for a undervalued employee that often has only one day off a month.
“Now, because of PSR, two choices exist for rail labor: Work or be fired,” President Ferguson said.
Brother Burkart’s testimony will begin immediately upon clicking the image.
General Chairperson Matt Burkart (GCA-341), a fourth-generation railroad worker, yardmaster and member of Local 1975 (Kansas City, Mo.), testified that the relative simplicity of railroading over its nearly two centuries in the United States is being violated.
“It takes three things to railroad: Power, crew and rail. That’s it. Something to pull it, somebody to move it and something to run on,” said Burkart, a former member of management. “You give us those three things and we can run all day long. We’re not running all day long right now.”
Burkart mentioned the lengthy trains PSR has brought, many which exceed 10,000 feet when yards and sidings were made to accommodate World War II-era lengths of 3,000 feet. Not only does it take more moves to build or put a train away, it also takes more time, thus burning through the crew base.
Brother Burkart also brought to light our equipment, including the hand-held radios supplied to our members, were not made to accommodate these types of train lengths either, stating that, “the radios do not work with the longer trains, hampering the crew’s ability to communicate when inspecting larger trains” he said.
“It just doesn’t make sense, it’s perpetuating manpower issues, it’s dangerous, and it’s not servicing our customers. All of it’s bad,” Burkart said.
And, lastly, BNSF, contrary to belief, has implemented PSR and has imposed its own data-driven metrics based on reducing resources and headcount for years, Burkart said.
He offered a pair of simple solutions looking back a decade and a half:
“It takes planning. It takes common sense,” Burkart said. “Two things can be legislated today: a maximum of 8,000 foot on trains. We don’t need these three-mile-long monsters running around. We need to disincentivize any reason to ever store a locomotive. In Donley Creek we have five miles of engines stored. There’s no reason for a train to sit without power.”
Brother Groat’s testimony will appear immediately upon clicking the image.
Also testifying was Local Chairperson Steve Groat (Local 329 — Boone, Iowa), a Union Pacific engineer, who mentioned the slower velocity caused by inadequate track maintenance, derailments and mechanical failures caused, in part, by long trains.
“Since the increase in train lengths, I’ve noticed more hard wear,” he said — broken cars split in half, drawbars and knuckles being left on the ground. “These train lengths increase the in-train force that stresses the components that don’t normally fail.”
Travel times for trains also have increased and locomotive use hasn’t been efficient, Groat told the board.
“This is like hooking up a 28-foot camper to a Toyota Prius and trying to drive to Colorado,” he said. “At what time do you expect the engine to fail or a component of the locomotive to fail?”
Brother Bond’s testimony will appear immediately upon clicking the image.
Local Chairperson Chris Bond (Local 513 — Gainesville, Texas), an engineer, spoke about BNSF’s throttle and power limitations that had been rescinded April 15 after the STB hearing had been announced.
“The carrier has put profit over everything,” Bond said. “Over customer service, over employees, even over safety.”
Hi-Viz also has caused an employee exodus and a personnel shortage at the carrier when there wasn’t one before, Bond said.
“This new policy has employees resigning in record numbers. I have several employees who are facing discipline and possible dismissal right now,” he said, including a single mother who has staggered custody of her child, now facing potential termination as a result of Hi-Viz.
“With BNSF losing people because of resignations and terminations, they’ve attempted to recall furloughed employees that are hearing of the current work environment and choosing not to return,” Bond said. “The new conductor trainees who are hiring on are quitting almost right away.”
The testimony from SMART-TD was preceded by Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO President Greg Regan, who recently detailed PSR-related meltdowns that have adversely affected shippers.
“The workers represented by TTD-affiliated unions have been sounding the alarm on the state of the freight-rail industry for years,” he said. “It’s deeply unfortunate but completely predictable that we would find ourselves here today as both railroad employees and customers sit before you to express a shared simple fact — that today’s freight-rail network is not working for anyone other than railroad investors.”
Regan reminded STB members that Class I railroads shrank their workforce well before the pandemic by 29 percent over the last six years — about 45,000 jobs and were making the system less flexible by storing equipment.
“The elimination of jobs across all crafts of the freight rail network has undoubtedly contributed to operational breakdowns and service degradation, including the ability to operate, inspect, maintain and repair every component of a railroad.”
He mentioned service disruptions experienced by customers of BNSF, Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern in recent months.
“For as long as these railroads continue along their current path, these meltdowns and service degradations will continue,” Regan said.
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen Vice President Mark L. Wallace also testified on behalf of labor.
Members of the SMART Transportation Division and other unionized rail workers came together for a day of protest May 10 outside the North American Rail Shippers (NARS) annual meeting.
Early in the day, SMART TD Kansas State Legislative Director Ty Dragoo, New Mexico State Legislative Director Don Gallegos, TD Auxiliary President Kathryn Seegmiller and many other union members, spouses and supporters spent hours outside and around the Kansas City Marriott Downtown in Kansas City, Mo., to draw attention to Class I carriers’ Precision Scheduled Railroading scheme, BNSF’s “Hi-Viz” attendance policy and the fact that National Rail Contract negotiations are approaching a third year.
“We had people joining in just walking by, people honking showing support as they drove by,” Dragoo said. “We had people from many different Class 1 railroads there, not just BNSF.”
Some of the protesters outside the North American Rail Shipper conference hold signs May 10 in Kansas City. (Photo courtesy Kansas SLD Ty Dragoo)
Dragoo thanked many of the lead organizers of the event, including SMART-TD National Safety Team Alternate Director — East and Kansas State Legislative Secretary Dan Bonawitz (Local 1409, Kansas City, Kan.), Kansas State Alternate Legislative Secretary Mike Scheerer (Local 94, Kansas City, Kan.), Legislative Representative Tim Alexander (Local 1532, Kansas City, Kan.) and Local 1532 Trustee Matt Collins, as well as 1532 member Jason Bluett and member Rodney Sparks of Local 5 (Kansas City, Mo.).
“Dan Bonawitz and his team have done a tremendous job getting the word out. These events are crucial as we wage the war of public opinion in legislatures across the country and congress,” Dragoo said. “Citizens need to know that their communities are in danger not only by reducing crews from a public safety standpoint, but the economic impact that has on communities when good union jobs leave. We will keep the fight up and we won’t back down!”
The demonstration outside the NARS gathering, which was attended by C-suite-level executives from many of the Class I freight railroads, was not the only coordinated demonstration that has taken place.
“The goal of this informational picket was to raise awareness with the public of the BNSF Railway policies that are not only degrading our workforce and harming our families but directly impacting our communities and increasing the cost of goods for all Americans,” he told newspaper reporter Mark DeLap. “The informational picket was also an effort to spotlight how BNSF Railway is directly at fault for the regressive policies causing these hardships.
“We, as families, friends, employees and retirees, have never experienced such an antagonistic approach to a workforce and their employees before,” Knutson said.
SMART TD Local 445 was in attendance at the May 15 rally in Ft. Madison Iowa.
Another rally was hosted by the Lee County Labor Chapter on Sunday, May 15 in Ft. Madison, Iowa. Dozens showed up at the informational protest and a news crew from ABC-affiliate WQAD8 was on hand to interview the protestors about their dissatisfaction with the Class I carriers.
There are two more informational protests scheduled in the greater Chicago area on May 25 and 26.
The first protest will be at the CN Glass Palace on Wednesday, May 25 at 5:30 a.m. Those attending should meet up on the corner of Ashland Ave. and Maple Rd.; or 1657 Maple Rd., Homewood, IL 60430. For more information see the first picture at the end of this post.
The second protest will be Thursday, May 26 at 5:30 a.m. at the Union Pacific Proviso Yard at 5050 W. Lake St., Melrose Park, IL 60160. For more information, see the second picture below.
Additional events will continue to be organized at all levels in order to inform the public and other groups about the concerns of rail workers.
Pictured in the Governor’s office, left to right: Senator Carolyn McGinn (R); Mike Scheerer, LR Local 94; Troy Fansher, Local 1503; Governor Kelly (seated); Nick Davis, Local 527; Ty Dragoo, SLD Kansas; Chad Henton, ASLD Kansas; Kyle Brooks, Local 1503
In late April, members of the SMART Transportation Division joined Kansas legislators and Governor Laura Kelly at the state capitol in Topeka, where Governor Kelly officially proclaimed April 28th “A Day of Honor and Remembrance for Railroad Workers” in the state of Kansas.
Along with witnessing Kelly sign the proclamation, Mike Scheerer of LR Local 94 (Kansas City), Troy Fansher of Local 1503 (Marysville), Nick Davis of Local 527 (Coffeyville), Kansas State Legislative Director (SLD) Ty Dragoo, Alternate SLD Chad Henton and Kyle Brooks of Local 1503 joined the governor to discuss the vital role railroaders play in the state and in the nation at-large – as well as honor, recognize and remember the ultimate sacrifice some railroaders have made.
“Today reflects our ongoing relationship with Kansas’ government and the recognition that rail labor is vital to the state, and that we are appreciated,” Dragoo said. “It is a proud day for Kansas’ SMART Legislative Board.”
Dragoo also noted that Governor Kelly has been a steadfast champion of SMART TD members and all of rail labor throughout her time in state government. “She has proposed the two-person crew regulation and has been a steadfast wall of support when legislation is directed to harm our jobs,” he explained. “She has been there on every issue; she includes us in policy discussions, and we always have a seat in Kansas.”
The text of the proclamation is below:
WHEREAS, since the first railroad was chartered to carry freight and passengers in the United States in 1827, this nation’s railroads have been vital to the national economy and defense; and
WHEREAS, it is estimated that each American freight rail job supports 9 jobs elsewhere in the U.S. economy; and
WHEREAS, over one-fourth of all freight movement in ton-miles annually in this country occurs by rail, including many of the goods upon which Kansas residents and businesses rely; and
WHEREAS, thousands of passengers arrive, depart, and travel through Kansas on Amtrak passenger trains annually; and
WHEREAS, the rail lines crossing Kansas provide a vital transcontinental link facilitating the movement of this freight and these passengers; and
WHEREAS, the safe and efficient movement of the trains transporting this freight and these passengers through Kansas is due foremost to the dedication, professionalism, and knowledge of those employees who are directly involved in train movements, including Train and Crew Dispatchers, Maintenance of Way personnel, Signal Maintainers, Mechanical personnel, and fully staffed two-person Train crews;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, LAURA KELLY, GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF KANSAS, do hereby proclaim the day of April 28, 2022, as
Federal Railroad Administrator Amit Bose last week addressed a shippers’ conference and said that part of his agency’s rationale in approaching a minimum crew size rulemaking will be taking into consideration the carriers’ use of longer trains, Trains Magazine reported April 8.
“We think having a consistent standard for crew size across the country benefits the rail industry, benefits safety, and gives certainty on the regulatory environment when it comes to train safety,” Bose told the North East Association of Rail Shippers. “Also, coupled with that, don’t forget: The trains are running longer. The length of trains is growing.”
In 2014, FRA issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on a minimum size for freight rail crews. Public comment was sought, thousands of Americans responded, including fire chiefs, police chiefs and emergency responders, with the vast majority of those submitted in favor of establishing a standard of at least a certified conductor and certified engineer present in the cab.
The agency has not relaunched the NPRM process for the minimum freight crew size rule, but when it does, Bose says FRA will be actively seeking comments from labor, the public and the carriers.
The board, an independent and bipartisan federal agency charged with the economic regulation of various modes of surface transportation, primarily freight rail, announced the meeting April 7 in the light of indications of poor performance data.
“Rail network reliability is essential to the Nation’s economy and is a foremost priority of the Board. In recent weeks, the Board has heard informally from a broad range of stakeholders about inconsistent and unreliable rail service. The Board has also received reports from the Secretary of Agriculture and other stakeholders about the serious impact of these service trends on rail users, particularly with respect to shippers of agricultural and energy products. These reports have been validated by the Board’s weekly rail service performance data.”
Board Chairman Martin Oberman went into additional detail about how job cuts in particular have hampered the carriers.
“I have raised concerns about the primacy Class I railroads have placed on lowering their operating ratios and satisfying their shareholders even at the cost of their customers. Part of that strategy has involved cutting their work force to the bare bones in order to reduce costs,” he said. “Over the last six years, the Class Is collectively have reduced their work force by 29% – that is about 45,000 employees cut from the payrolls.
“In my view, all of this has directly contributed to where we are today – rail users experiencing serious deteriorations in rail service because, on too many parts of their networks, the railroads simply do not have a sufficient number of employees.”
Carriers summoned to appear include BNSF Railway Company, CSX Transportation, Inc., Norfolk Southern Railway Company, and Union Pacific Railroad Company. Executive-level officials from the other three Class Is also were invited to attend, as were labor organizations and shippers.
The hearing will take place at the Board’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., with each session beginning at 9:30 a.m.
