Railroads propose safety reforms after fiery Ohio derailment



Train Derailment Florida

This photo provided by the Manatee County Government shows a derailed freight train operated by Seminole Gulf Railway near Bradenton, Fla., on Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023. Officials in Florida are keeping a watchful eye on a train car carrying 30,000 gallons (113,562 liters) of propane that tipped over in a derailment in an industrial area near Sarasota Bradenton International Airport. (Steve Litschauer/Manatee County Government via AP)

JOSH FUNK
Wed, March 8, 2023 

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The major freight railroads announced a number of steps Wednesday that they are taking to improve safety in the wake of last month’s fiery Ohio derailment, but it’s not clear if their actions will be enough to satisfy regulators and members of Congress who are pushing for changes.

Many of the proposals from the Association of American Railroads trade group focus on strengthening the network of trackside detectors that railroads use to spot problems before they can cause derailments. The railroads plan to do this by installing 1,000 more of the detectors nationwide and tweaking the way railroads use the data from them.

Norfolk Southern, the railroad responsible for the Feb. 3 derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, near the Pennsylvania border, proposed similar changes earlier this week, but the Federal Railroad Administration responded saying the company wasn't doing nearly enough.

And several members of Congress — led by Ohio's two senators — have proposed a sweeping package of rail reforms that go well beyond what the industry is proposing. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has also urged the railroads to make immediate changes.

Federal regulators didn't immediately respond Wednesday to questions about the industry's proposals. Congress plans to scrutinize Norfolk Southern's safety record and its response to the Ohio derailment at a Senate hearing Thursday morning that will also examine the reforms Ohio's senators proposed. Two federal agencies also announced broad investigations into Norfolk Southern's safety record Tuesday.

Overall, railroads are proud of their safety record, which reflects a decline in derailments over the past several years, and they like to tout the statistic that 99.9% of all hazardous materials shipments railroads handle reach their destinations safely. Still, there were 1,049 derailments nationwide last year — and the East Palestine one showed how even a single mishap involving hazardous materials can be disastrous.

“Rail is indisputably the safest way to move dangerous commodities,” AAR President Ian Jefferies said. “Yet we fully appreciate that these data do not comfort the residents of East Palestine and that public trust must be restored through action."

The major freight railroads — which include Norfolk Southern, CSX, Union Pacific, BNSF, Canadian Pacific, Kansas City Southern and Canadian National — said they will tighten up the spacing between the hot-bearing detectors to ensure they average no more than 15 miles (24 kilometers) apart along the main routes they use to transport hazardous chemicals. Currently, there are no federal rules on those detectors, which can be spaced up to 40 miles (64 kilometers) apart in places, though most of them are much closer together.

Rail safety expert Allan Zarembski said the existing network of detectors was already quite effective and allowed only a handful of derailments every year related to overheating bearings. But these changes will undoubtedly catch even more of these problems, said the University of Delaware professor who leads the railroad engineering and safety program there.

Zarembski said he believes these changes are likely to be “pretty effective.”

The railroads said they will also commit to stopping and inspecting any train that has a bearing that registers more than 170 degrees above the outside temperature. That’s in line with the standards Norfolk Southern already uses.

The National Transportation Safety Board has said the Norfolk Southern crew received a warning about an overheating bearing just before the derailment but wasn’t able to stop the train before 38 cars, including 11 carrying hazardous materials, jumped off the tracks and caught fire. About half the town of East Palestine — about 2,500 residents — had to evacuate a couple days later because officials were worried that five of the cars carrying vinyl chloride might explode. They then released the chemical and burned it off.

In addition to stopping trains anytime a bearing exceeds 170 degrees, the railroads also analyze the data from sensors all across their networks to identify problems even before a bearing hits that threshold. The trade group said all the major railroads plan to discuss ways to improve that analysis by the end of March.

The railroads said they also plan to train about 20,000 first responders nationwide this year to deal with hazardous materials incidents. As part of that, Norfolk Southern announced plans Wednesday to build a new regional training center in Ohio. Gov. Mike DeWine praised the effort.

“The derailment in East Palestine made clear that ensuring first responders are prepared for disasters involving hazardous materials is vitally important to the safety of communities,” DeWine said. “Often, first responders are volunteers, and their need to have the most up-to-date training and equipment is vitally important."

Buttigieg urges safety changes after fiery Ohio derailment





 HEPACO workers, an environmental and emergency services company, observe a stream in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 9, 2023, as the cleanup continues after the derailment of a Norfolk Southern freight train. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced a package of reforms to improve safety Tuesday, Feb. 21 — two days after he warned the railroad responsible for the derailment, Norfolk Southern, to fulfill its promises to clean up the mess just outside East Palestine, and help the town recover. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

JOSH FUNK
Tue, February 21, 2023 

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg wants the nation’s freight railroads to immediately act to improve safety while regulators try to strengthen safety rules in the wake of a fiery derailment in Ohio that forced evacuations when toxic chemicals were released and burned.

Buttigieg announced a package of reforms Tuesday — two days after he warned the railroad responsible for the derailment, Norfolk Southern, to fulfill its promises to clean up the mess just outside East Palestine, Ohio, and help the town recover. He said the Department of Transportation will hold the railroad accountable for any safety violations that contributed to the Feb. 3 crash near the Pennsylvania border.

“While ensuring the safety of those impacted by this crash is the immediate priority, we also have to recognize that this represents an important moment to redouble our efforts to make this far less likely to happen again in the future," Buttigieg said.

Even though government data shows that derailments have declined in recent years, there were still 1,049 of them last year.

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency plans to return to the town of 4,700 Tuesday along with the governors of Ohio and Pennsylvania to discuss the cleanup and efforts to keep people safe on the same day officials plan to open a medical clinic staffed by contamination experts to evaluate residents' complaints. State and federal officials have reiterated that their testing of air and water samples in the area doesn't show dangerous levels of any toxins, but some people have been complaining about constant headaches and irritated eyes as they worry about returning to their homes.

Buttigieg said railroads and tank car owners should take action themselves to accelerate their plan to upgrade the tank cars that haul flammable liquids like crude oil and ethanol by 2025 instead of waiting to comply with the 2029 standard Congress ultimately approved after regulators suggested the earlier deadline. He also said freight railroads should quickly agree to use a confidential hotline regulators created that lets employees report safety concerns without fear of retribution, and reach agreements to provide their employees with paid sick time to help prevent fatigue.

He also wants railroads to stop asking for waivers from inspection requirements every time they develop new technology to improve inspections, because he said the technology should supplement but not replace human inspections.

Railroad unions have also been raising concerns that car inspections are being rushed and preventative maintenance may be getting neglected after widespread job cuts in the industry in recent years that they say have made railroads riskier. Greg Regan, president of the AFL-CIO's Transportation Trades Department coalition, said Ohio's derailment should prompt reforms.

“I do think that there’s a moment to look in the mirror as an entire industry and decide what we can do better,” Regan said. “I think the industry by and large has been reluctant to make the types of changes that are needed. They have obviously fought regulations in the past, but I think they are running out of excuses here.”

Buttigieg said regulators will be looking at whether they can revive a proposed rule the Trump administration dropped that would have required upgraded, electronically-controlled brakes on certain trains filled with flammable liquids that are designated “high-hazardous flammable train.” The rule was dropped after Congress directed regulators to use a strict cost-benefit analysis to evaluate the rule and they decided the potential benefits couldn't justify the costs.

Buttigieg said he'll ask Congress to “untie our hands here” on the braking rule, and regulators may look at expanding which trains are covered by the “high-hazardous” rules that were announced in 2015 after several fiery crude oil train derailments — the worst of which killed 47 people and decimated the Canadian town of Lac Mégantic in 2013. He also said Congress should raise the current $225,455 limit on railroad safety fines at least tenfold to create a better deterrent for the multibillion-dollar corporations.

Buttigieg criticized railroads for lobbying against the braking rule and challenging it in court. But railroad safety expert David Clarke, who previously led the Center for Transportation Research at the University of Tennessee, said the industry shouldn’t be criticized too heavily for pushing back against proposed regulations when there are questions about their benefits.

“The fact that you couch those in terms of safety makes it seem like it’s, you know, mom, God and apple pie — anything safety related is sacred,” Clarke said. “But the bottom line is companies have to look at the benefits and the cost of any expenditure.”

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine was incredulous when he learned the Norfolk Southern train that derailed didn’t carry that designation, meaning that the railroad didn’t have to notify the state about the dangerous chemicals it was carrying or follow detailed requirements about finding the safest route for those chemicals.

“This is absurd,” DeWine said. “Congress needs to take a look at how this is handled.”

Regulators and the Association of American Railroads trade group say there are hundreds of pages of other rules railroads must follow when they transport any hazardous chemicals, whether it is the vinyl chloride that has gotten so much attention in this derailment, crude oil, nuclear materials or any of the hundreds of other dangerous chemicals that railroads routinely carry.

It’s not clear whether the “high-hazardous” rules could have prevented this derailment. The federal National Transportation Safety Board is in the early stages of its investigation, although officials with that agency have said they believe the failure of an axle on one of the railcars not long after the train crew got a warning about a possible mechanical problem caused this crash.

The Federal Railroad Administration will also work to finalize its proposed rule to require two-person crews in most circumstances that Buttigieg pointed to as one of the Biden administration's main efforts to improve rail safety over the past two years.

The president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, Eddie Hall, said he believes the freight railroads' efforts to cut crews down to one person represent a clear threat to safety.

“Railroads in the United States largely self-regulate, and right now, rather than learn from their mistakes and improve oversight and safety, they are going in the opposite direction,” Hall said. “We welcome efforts by the Department of Transportation to improve rail safety.”

Norfolk Southern officials declined to respond directly to Buttigieg on Monday other than to reiterate the railroad’s commitment to safety and to cleaning up the derailment. CEO Alan Shaw said in a statement the railroad reissued Monday that he knows the railroad will be judged by its actions, but he pledged to do everything he could to help “get East Palestine back on its feet as soon as possible.”

As part of those efforts, the railroad said it has designated one of its local employees who lives in the town as a liaison between East Palestine and Norfolk Southern. That person will oversee a $1 million budget to help the community in addition a $1 million fund the railroad created to help residents and $3.4 million in payments it has already handed out to families. Those payments are likely just the start, as the EPA has said Norfolk Southern will be responsible for the cleanup costs and several lawsuits have already been filed against the railroad.

University of Illinois professor Christopher Barkan, who teaches a class on railroad operating safety and advises the industry on tank car safety standards and environmental concerns, said he believes the railroad will follow through.

“I haven’t the slightest doubt that Norfolk Southern is going to be responsive, and continue to be responsive. until all of the environmental problems have been addressed,” Barkan said. “I understand why the people in that town are really concerned right now. It’s a horrible thing to have happen in your town.”

Buttigieg urges U.S. railroads to boost safety, not oppose reforms






Members of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) inspect the site of a train derailment of hazardous material in East Palestine

Sun, February 19, 2023 By David Shepardson

(Reuters) -U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Sunday he would call on major railroads to improve safety after a Feb. 3 derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, of a train operated by Norfolk Southern.

Buttigieg in a letter to Norfolk Southern Chief Executive Alan Shaw said he would also urge Congress to raise the cap on fines against railroads for violating safety regulations "to ensure their deterrent effect is commensurate with the economic proportions of today's large railroad companies."

Buttigieg said he would soon outline specific safety improvements railroads should take immediately. He harshly criticized them for lobbying against steps "intended to improve rail safety and to help keep Americans safe."

"Major derailments in the past have been followed by calls for reform – and by vigorous resistance by your industry to increased safety measures. This must change," Buttigieg wrote.

Buttigieg has faced harsh criticism from many Republicans in Congress for his response to the derailment of the train loaded with toxic chemicals that caused a fire and sent a cloud of smoke over the town that forced thousands of residents to evacuate while railroad crews drained and burned off chemicals.

No fatalities or injuries have been reported, but residents have been demanding answers about potential health risks.

Buttigieg's letter emphasized "the urgent need for Norfolk Southern to demonstrate unequivocal support for the people of East Palestine and the surrounding areas."

Norfolk Southern said Sunday it "received a copy of the letter from the secretary and are reviewing." Shaw said last week the railroad had established an initial $1 million community support fund and distributed $1.7 million in direct financial assistance to more than 1,100 families and businesses to cover evacuation costs.

"We will not let you down," he told residents in a letter.

Buttigieg's letter said that in response to many derailments, two U.S. agencies had finalized rules on high-hazard flammable trains and Electronically Controlled Pneumatic (ECP) braking.

"Rather than support these efforts to improve rail safety, Norfolk Southern and other rail companies spent millions of dollars in the courts and lobbying members of Congress to oppose common-sense safety regulations, stopping some entirely and reducing the scope of others," Buttigieg wrote.

"As a result, Congress enacted language that undermined the ability of USDOT to sustain the ECP brake requirements, and they were ultimately withdrawn under the Trump administration."

Buttigieg said he also planned to outline "prioritized actions planned" by the U.S. Department of Transportation on rail safety.

In response to the derailment, U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell Friday opened an inquiry into railroad hazardous materials safety practices.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee said Friday it planned to hold a hearing on the derailment.

In a letter to Shaw and CEOs of major railroad companies, Cantwell said "every railroad must reexamine its hazardous materials safety practices to better protect its employees, the environment, and American families and reaffirm safety as a top priority."

The companies included Berkshire Hathaway's Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF), Canadian National, Canadian Pacific, CSX, Kansas City Southern and Union Pacific.

A group representing major railroads said last week 99.9% of all hazmat shipments reach their destination without incident and the hazmat accident rate has declined by 55% since 2012.

(Reporting by David Shepardson in Franconia, New Hampshire; Editing by Lisa Shumaker, Richard Chang and Diane Craft)

A GOP senator says Republican lawmakers are frustrated with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg because he wants 'everything to be climate and politically correct'

John L. Dorman
Sun, February 19, 2023 

West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito has raised concerns about Pete Buttigieg's tenure as Transportation secretary.

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

Hill Republicans are increasingly voicing their issues with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Sen. Capito told The Hill that Buttigieg had a "push" for everything "to be climate and politically correct."

The Department of Transportation has defended Buttigieg's performance in handling recent crises.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has made it his mission to champion President Joe Biden's bipartisan infrastructure law, traveling to various sites across the country to tout major projects that have gotten off the ground thanks to the legislation.

But he has also had to tackle an array of major crises, including a Southwest Airlines system meltdown that affected roughly 2 million travelers in late December, a Federal Aviation Administration system outage that wreaked havoc on flights in January, and a February train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, that resulted in the release of toxic chemicals into the air.

Buttigieg has sought to reassure Americans that his department is working closely with officials and lawmakers regarding each of the respective incidents, but many Republicans in Congress have so far not been enthralled with his job performance. The GOP lawmakers have expressed dismay with what they say is outreach that is insufficient compared to other members of Biden's cabinet.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, who represents a state with vast rural expanses and critical infrastructure needs, told The Hill that Buttigieg's "philosophical push for everything to be climate and politically correct" is at the center of issues that Republican lawmakers have raised.

"We have practical matters we need to do like permitting and building new roads and having new constructions and he pretty much puts his foot down on a lot of that stuff," she told the publication. "He's just not leading and I think that's the frustration."

Senate Minority Whip John Thune of South Dakota told The Hill that Buttigieg's management style wasn't as "hands on" as other Biden officials.

"My sense is that he, like many others in the administration, are not the types of, sort of, hands on managers that you need at a time like that," the senator said. "I think part of it too is just the efforts he makes. … Some members of the cabinet, particularly on the relevant committees, the committees of jurisdiction, do a really good job of outreach and I don't get that from him."

Secretary Buttigieg has been a vocal champion of President Biden's bipartisan infrastructure law.

AP Photo/John Minchillo

Other Republican lawmakers, notably Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, have been critical of Buttigieg for what they've said was his lack of visibility immediately after the East Palestine derailment.

"I understand that the secretary is politically ambitious, and he'd like to move to government housing in Washington right up the street, but he does have a job to do," Cruz told reporters last week, referencing the expectation that Buttigieg will run for the presidency again someday. (Buttigieg ran for president in 2020 and performed strongly in Iowa and New Hampshire before faltering in South Carolina and exiting the race.)

Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio during a recent appearance on the Real America's Voice suggested impeaching Buttigieg over his response to the train derailment.

"I hope he does resign, and if he doesn't, there's a long list of impeachment criteria," Davidson told the outlet.

Democrats contend that the criticism of Buttigieg is purely political.

"Before, if you got your flight delayed, you weren't like 'oh that damn Elaine Chao,'" a Democratic operative told The Hill, referring to former President Donald Trump's transportation secretary. "That's the downside that comes with being such a good public figure."

The Department of Transportation has stood by its response as it works with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Environmental Protection Agency, remarking that the department and staffers "were on the ground hours after the derailment" to aid the NTSB in their investigation.

"It's no surprise to see some playing politics with every crisis, even something as serious as the impacts of a global pandemic on our transportation systems or a train derailment," a Department of Transportation spokesperson said in a statement, adding that the secretary was maintaining a "focus on getting results."

TDG

Train derailments get more headlines, but truck crashes involving hazardous chemicals are more frequent and deadly in US

Michael F. Gorman, Professor of Business Analytics and Operations Management, University of Dayton
Tue, February 21, 2023 

A trooper checks the tire of a truck carrying flammable contents during a random hazmat checkpoint in Colorado. Andy Cross/The Denver Post via Getty Images

Less than two weeks after train cars filled with hazardous chemicals derailed in Ohio and caught fire, a truck carrying nitric acid crashed on a major highway outside Tucson, Arizona, killing the driver and releasing toxic chemicals into the air.

The Arizona hazmat disaster shut down Interstate 10, a major cross-country highway, and forced evacuations in surrounding neighborhoods.

But the highway crash didn’t draw national attention the way the train derailment did, or trigger a flood of calls for more trucking regulation like the U.S. is seeing for train regulation. Truck crashes tend to be local and less dramatic than a pile of derailed train cars on fire, even if they’re deadlier.


In fact, federal data shows that rail has had far fewer incidents, deaths and damage when moving hazardous materials in the U.S. than trucks.

After the train derailment and fire in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 3, 2023, the U.S. EPA tested over 500 homes. It reported that none exceeded air quality standards for the chemicals tested. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Trucks carry more hazmat and more risk

At one time, rail and water were the only options for transporting chemicals and other potentially dangerous materials. The emergence of the automobile and subsequent construction of the interstate highway system changed that, and hazardous materials shipments by road steadily increased.

Today, trucks carry the largest percentage of hazardous materials shipped in the U.S. – about twice as much as trains when measured in ton-miles, according to the Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ latest data, for 2017. A ton-mile is one ton shipped for one mile.

While truck incidents involving hazardous materials don’t look as dramatic as train derailments and are not as widely covered by news media, federal data shows they represent more fatalities and property damage, and there are thousands more of them every year.

Truck-related hazardous materials incidents caused over 16 times more fatalities from 1975 to 2021 – 380 for truck, compared with 23 for rail, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. The difference is more pronounced in the last decade, when U.S. rail transportation of hazardous materials caused zero fatalities and truck incidents were responsible for 83.

Trucks have also caused nearly three times as much property damage as rail incidents since 2000. That might seem surprising since derailments can involve several cars with hazardous materials. But most rail events take place in remote areas, limiting their human impact, while trucks travel on highways with other drivers around and often in busy urban areas.
Where do we go from here?

I study rail systems and regulation, and I have followed the increasing costs to the industry to comply with tightening regulatory rules.

Shipping hazardous materials in the U.S. has been regulated for over 150 years. A deadly explosion in San Francisco in 1866 involving a just-arrived cargo of nitroglycerin, used for blasting rock, led to the first federal laws regulating shipping explosives and flammable materials.

The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks spurred a vast expansion of regulation over movement of hazardous materials. Many cities now have hazardous materials routes for trucks that circumvent city centers to reduce the potential risk to high-population areas.

With the Ohio train derailment now making national news, lawmakers are focusing on regulations specifically for rail.

Ohio’s governor wants rail companies to be required to notify states of all hazardous shipments. This knee-jerk reaction to a major event would appear to be a responsible demand with relatively low costs, but it would have no impact whatsoever on prevention of hazmat events.

Activists are calling for more expensive investments, including requirements for heat sensors on train bearings, which appeared to have been involved in the Ohio derailment, and the restoration of a rule requiring advanced braking systems for trains carrying hazardous materials. Both would raise the cost of rail shipping and could wind up putting more hazardous materials shipments on U.S. roads. The Trump administration repealed the braking system requirement in 2017, arguing that the costs outweighed the benefits.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, speaking with reporters, discussed looking into new rules for advanced braking systems, higher fines and encouraging rail companies to speed up their phase-in of more puncture-resistant tank cars.

On Feb. 14, 2023, a truck carrying hazardous materials crashed on busy Interstate 10 near homes outside Tucson, Ariz., killing the driver and forcing an interstate shutdown and evacuations. 

Arizona Department of Public Safety via AP

Rail is still more economical and better for the environment than trucks for longer distances, but with ever-increasing regulations, rail transport can be economically and logistically discouraged – chasing more traffic to far more dangerous roadways.

If the concern is the public’s exposure to hazardous materials, regulation on road-based hazardous materials transportation should expand as well.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. The Conversation is trustworthy news from experts. Try our free newsletters.

It was written by: Michael F. Gorman, University of Dayton.

Read more:

How dangerous was the Ohio chemical train derailment? An environmental engineer assesses the long-term risks

How vinyl chloride, chemical released in the Ohio train derailment, can damage the liver – it’s used to make PVC plastics

Despite disasters, oil-by-rail transport is getting safer

As an expert in rail policy, Michael Gorman has consulted with railroad companies over the past 20 years. He worked for BNSF in the 1990s.

CSX revamps attendance policy as railroad unions push back on sick time


 A CSX freight train blasts through high snow at a crossing in Silver Spring


Tue, December 13, 2022 
By Lisa Baertlein and Rod Nickel

(Reuters) -Rail operator CSX Corp is changing its workforce attendance policy for unexpected, short-term medical absences next year after U.S. railroads' sick-time policies became a flashpoint in national labor talks.

CSX is among the railroads that used so-called points-based attendance policies to reduce unplanned absences. Under the long-established policies, workers are penalized with points for unscheduled absences, and risk being suspended or fired.

The scheme came under fire during the pandemic, when industry-wide job cuts meant to bolster profits left fewer workers to manage the COVID-related cargo surge.

Rail unions are protesting the lack of federal intervention on sick-time policies outside the U.S. Capitol and in cities around the country on Tuesday.

On Dec. 2, U.S. President Joe Biden signed legislation that broke the impasse that could have halted shipments of food, fuel and medicine, stranded commuters and harmed the U.S. economy without making any changes to sick-time agreements.

When the pandemic struck and freight volumes surged, affected rail workers said those policies discouraged them from seeking medical care or taking time off to recover from illness.

Under the new policy effective Jan. 1, CSX said on Tuesday it will no longer assess points when an employee calls in sick shortly before a scheduled workday with an illness for which they saw a doctor.

CSX's new attendance rules will be "non-disciplinary and non-punitive," the company said in an email to Reuters.

Four of 12 unions involved in the latest railroad contract talks rejected a recently negotiated deal because it did not include any paid short-term sick days and failed to address the attendance points system used by CSX and the two largest U.S. railroads: Union Pacific and Berkshire Hathaway-owned BNSF.

Under the new CSX policy, accrued points will expire on a rolling 12-month cycle rather than accumulate indefinitely, and employees will receive credit for working without an absence and can use those to expunge points. CSX said it does not apply points when employees miss work due to hospitalization or emergency treatment.

Clark Ballew, a former CSX track worker and communications director for the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division (BMWED) rail union, said the changes are a step in the right direction, but fall short of repairing damage from industry cost-cutting.

Union Pacific told Reuters it expects to start working with unions on quality of life issues in the coming weeks. BNSF did not immediately respond to questions regarding its policy on health-related absences.

On Friday, more than 70 lawmakers urged Biden to take executive action to guarantee rail workers paid sick days.

Meanwhile, Canada on Dec. 1 granted workers at railroads and other regulated workplaces at least 10 days of paid sick leave annually. Canada's two biggest freight railways, Canadian National Railway Co and Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd, have about 10,000 employees in the United States. Collective bargaining with U.S. workers will determine sick-day requirements, the railways said.

(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles and Rod Nickel in Winnipeg;

Editing by Tomasz Janowski, Matthew Lewis and Kim Coghill)

Rail workers say deal won’t resolve quality-of-life concerns
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

DECEMBER 3, 2022

Rail strike threat recedes as Congress prepares to impose unpopular contract on unions. Shipping containers and rail cars sit in a Union Pacific Intermodal Terminal rail yard on November 21, in Los Angeles. Mandatory Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — When BNSF railroad conductor Justin Schaaf needed to take time off from work this summer, he had to make a choice: go to the dentist to get a cavity in his molar filled or attend a party for his son’s 7th birthday.

He chose his son.

“Ultimately I decided to take the day off for my kid’s birthday party,” Schaaf said. “Then when I am finally able to get into the dentist four, five, six months later, the tooth is too bad to repair at that point, so I have to get the tooth pulled out.”

Those are the kind of tradeoffs that railroad workers worry they might still have to make after Congress voted this week to impose a contract on them to avoid the economic disaster that would accompany a railroad strike. Workers and their unions say the deal didn’t do enough to address their quality-of-life concerns and didn’t add any sick days.

President Joe Biden signed a bill Friday to block a strike and force workers to accept the agreements union leaders made in September, even though four of the 12 unions — which include a majority of rail workers — voted to reject them. Business groups had been urging Biden to intervene for weeks.

For Schaaf, he’s not sure if the new contract will make it any easier to find another day off sometime next year to pay to have a fake tooth implanted in his mouth.

“If I had the option of taking a sick day … I would have never been in that situation,” he said from his home in Glasgow, Montana.

Schaaf said it was discouraging, but not surprising, to see Congress step in to settle the contract dispute ahead of next Friday’s strike deadline. Lawmakers have made a habit of stepping in to impose contracts when railroads and their unions reach the brink of a strike — 18 times since the passage of the 1926 Railway Labor Act, by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s count — because of the potential economic consequences.

Many businesses rely on railroads to deliver raw materials and ship their final products, so a rail strike would send a catastrophic ripple through the economy. Passenger railroads also would be disrupted because so many use tracks owned by the freight railroads.

The five-year deals that rail workers wound up with include 24% raises and $5,000 in bonuses. But concerns about the lack of paid sick time and the demanding schedules that unions say make it hard for workers to ever take a day off dominated the contract talks. The rail unions say they weren’t able to get more concessions out of the railroads because the big companies knew Congress would intervene.

The railroads refused to add paid sick days to the deal at the end of three years of negotiations because they didn’t want to pay much more than a special board of arbitrators appointed by Biden recommended this summer. Plus, the railroads say the unions have agreed over the years to forego paid sick leave in favor of higher wages and strong short-term disability benefits that kick in after as little as four days.

The railroads agreed to offer three unpaid days for engineers and conductors to tend to medical needs as long as they are scheduled at least 30 days in advance. They also promised to negotiate further to improve the way regular days off are scheduled to help workers better know when they will be off.

But to retired engineer Jeff Kurtz, there is still a lot of work to be done to restore the quality of life he enjoyed before he left the railroad eight years ago. He doubts rail workers today would be able to get time off for key family events on short notice the way he did when he found out his son was getting his doctorate right before Christmas in 2009.

“You hear when you hire out on the railroad you’re going to miss some things. But you’re not supposed to miss everything,” said Kurtz, who remains active even in retirement with the Railroad Workers United coalition that includes workers from every union. “You shouldn’t miss your kids growing up. You shouldn’t miss the seminal moments in your family’s life.”

Over the past six years, the major railroads have eliminated nearly one-third of their jobs as they overhauled operations, making the work more demanding for those who remain.

The unions say they won’t stop fighting for more paid sick leave, but now they may have to wait for negotiations on the next contract beginning in 2025.

The head of the Association of American Railroads trade group, Ian Jefferies, acknowledged “there is more to be done to further address our employees’ work-life balance concerns” but he said the compromise deals that Congress voted to impose should help make schedules more predictable while delivering the biggest raises rail workers have seen in more than four decades.

1933

Why paid sick leave 

became a big issue in 

rail labor talks

Unions say rail carriers cut too much in the name of efficiency, 

leaving them with too few workers to cover for absent colleagues.

By Julian Mark

December 3, 2022

With an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote on Thursday, the Senate forced itself between freight railroad companies and their unions — an action that averted a national rail strike and potential economic catastrophe, but which failed to provide workers with a component they aggressively sought: paid sick leave.

On Wednesday, the House approved two versions of a deal meant to stave off a Dec. 9 strike by rail workers. One echoed the recommendations that union leaders and the White House agreed to in September. The other, pushed by liberal Democrats, included seven paid sick days for rail workers.

The Senate ultimately approved the option without the added paid sick leave, and President Biden signed it. The terms mirror those in the agreement the White House brokered in September, including a roughly 24 percent pay increase by 2024, more flexibility to take time off for doctor’s appointments, and a paid personal day.

After forcing rail deal, Biden works to smooth over labor relations

So why was paid sick leave such a sticking point — and why didn’t workers get it?

Rail carriers have said they need to maintain their attendance policies to ensure adequate staffing. Some industry experts and union officials say the companies no longer have enough workers to cover for absent colleagues because of the switch in recent years to “precision scheduled railroading,” a system designed to improve efficiency and cut costs. Instead of running trains that carried just one type of product — which left trains waiting for long stretches before they had enough load to depart — rail companies now have more trains carrying a mix of goods on a set schedule. Fixed scheduling allows them to use the same crew more often than they could have under the old system.

President Biden on Dec. 1 defended the deal that he negotiated to avoid a rail worker strike and said he would continue to push for paid leave for all workers. (Video: The Washington Post)

From November 2018 to December 2020, the rail industry lost 40,000 jobs, according to a report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The bureau described precision scheduling as possibly the “most widely accredited reason for the decrease in rail transportation employment,” although the pandemic, uncertainties in trade and a decline U.S. coal usage also hurt the industry.

Wall Street at the time cheered the transition to a new system. In 2019, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific stocks rose 30 percent, and shares of Kansas City Southern jumped more than 60 percent.

But the labor force cuts “led to this kind of crisis of work-life balance,” said Todd Vachon, a Rutgers University labor professor who sees short staffing as “a model of maximizing profits to have high returns for shareholders.”

And unions say precision scheduled railroading leaves little room to give workers the benefits they need.

“There is a direct connection to these business decisions that the railroads have made — either PSR by itself or just these attendance policies that’s an offshoot of PSR — forcing people to work more than any average American worker wants to do or can do,” said Dennis Pierce, the national president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, an influential union that narrowly voted to ratify the White House proposal.

Brendan Branon, chairman of the National Railway Labor Conference, who represented the industry at the bargaining table, rejected the idea that paid sick leave represented a sticking point in labor talks. “All rail employees have some form of paid sick leave,” he said in a statement to The Post.

A spokeswoman for the Association of American Railroads, Jessica Kahanek, pointed to a list that includes several leave options, such as a system in which sick employees can temporarily remove themselves from a roster of available workers, as well as time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act. And all employees have a long-term sickness benefit that can pay a portion of the worker’s income for up to 26 weeks, the rail association said.

But time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act is unpaid, according to the Department of Labor. And the system that allows employees to remove themselves from availability is unpaid, union lawyer Richard Edelman said. Workers also could be disciplined for using it, he added.

Moreover, the long-term sickness benefit is meant for more serious illnesses or injuries, he said, and would not help employees who get the flu, for example, or need emergency dental surgery. “All of those things that are one- or two-day things — railroad employees don’t have that,” Edelman said.

Tony Hatch, a longtime industry analyst, said the financial community wants a more constructive relationship between railroad management and their workers.

“We don’t want to see semi-slave labor here,” he said. “We want to see a happy workforce because the railroads have terrific opportunity to recapture … market share.”

The negative effects of scheduled railroading and related staff reductions are a “boogeyman” that has been overblown, Hatch said. But he said that the system has made the industry more fragile and needs more flexibility to deal with emergency situations such as the coronavirus pandemic and sick workers.

“One of the things that you need to run a scheduled railroad is crew availability,” Hatch said. “And if people are quitting, you need to do something about that.”

The rail labor conference’s Brannon said workers and companies must keep talking.

“While the bargaining round has concluded, conversations about bringing greater predictability and work-life balance for railroaders will continue,” he said.

Vachon, the labor professor, said that nothing should prevent rail companies from providing their employees with paid sick leave. He said it comes down to paying for more workers and maintaining a rotating pool of people to cover shifts while others are out.

“There’s nothing inherent about the railroad industry to make paid sick leave unsustainable,” he said, adding that rail workers in Europe have the benefit. “This idea that it’s not possible is really just a cop-out. … The companies are deciding how to spend their resources, and they’re spending the money to buy back their stocks and give dividends to shareholders rather than investing in their workers.

WILDCAT!

U.S. Railroad unions struggle to get rebellious workers to ‘yes’ on contracts


LM Otero/AP Photo

Eleanor Mueller
Tue, November 15, 2022 

More than half of freight rail workers will vote on proposed contracts next week amid a highly organized effort by some of their colleagues to urge a “no” vote.

It’s the biggest test yet of the Biden administration’s push to avert an economically crippling rail strike after it helped a dozen unions broker a compromise with freight carriers in September. A rebel group, Railroad Workers United, is stoking opposition among members who believe the compromise green-lit by union leaders doesn’t go far enough to address working conditions that have led to severe attrition at the nation’s largest carriers.

So far, seven smaller unions have voted to approve their tentative agreements, while three have voted against — one as recently as Monday.

“There's a sense of hopelessness amongst a number of working railroaders,” said one of RWU’s leaders, Ron Kaminkow, who is a member of one of the unions voting next week. “The goal of our campaign is to basically empower people to just vote 'no' if they actually believe that this thing is not good. Don't be conned into voting for something that you really don't want.”

If unions don't get members on board by the end of an industry-wide cooling-off period Dec. 9, just one could spark a strike that capsizes the nation’s supply chain — stripping store shelves, starving livestock and compromising drinking water. At that point, Congress could be forced to step in and extend the cooling-off period, during which workers are barred from walking off the job — or impose the employer-championed recommendations of a presidentially appointed emergency board.

The presidents of the industry’s two largest unions — Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers-Transportation Division and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen — are criss-crossing the U.S. to buoy support for the proposed contracts before their members' votes are tallied Monday. They say they’ve gotten them the best deal possible.

“My message is, ‘Guys, we went all the way to the championship. We never backed down,’” SMART-TD President Jeremy Ferguson said from his car recently on the way to yet another event in Boone, Iowa.

But the RWU’s message is resonating with burnt-out freight rail employees frustrated by what they consider employers’ punitive attendance policies, among other things, and critical of the compromises accepted by their union presidents.

RWU is “just trying to get the unions to put the full interest of the membership ahead of everything else,” said one railroad worker, who is not associated with RWU and spoke anonymously to avoid retaliation from their employer. “I can definitely see interest in their message grow significantly.”

One union official called the situation “out of control.”

“There's going to be lessons learned going into the next round of bargaining about how we … control the narrative a little bit better — and I don't mean that in the propaganda way, I mean making sure that people have the facts,” said Greg Regan, president of the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department. “This was, for all intents and purposes, the first major national bargaining round in which social media reached this place it is right now.”

Since launching its campaign last month, RWU has held virtual events, solicited support from other organizations, and even peddled merch. A recent town hall drew nearly 500 RSVPs on Eventbrite as well as about $4,000 in donations, according to RWU — and, as of last Thursday, around 1,800 views on YouTube.

Union leaders, meanwhile, have been just as active. SMART-TD’s Ferguson has gone on podcasts, sent letters, participated in conference calls and attended town halls across the country alongside BLET President Dennis Pierce.

Face-to-face with workers, “I can tell right away who the ‘no’ votes are” and start “explaining how it works,” Ferguson said. “‘We're at the end. This is it. We're out of runway, guys.’”

Part of the effort is just explaining the negotiating process, said BLET Vice President Vince Verna — and the few options left to unions.

“It reminds me of those signs in the mall that say, ‘You are here,’” Verna said. “That's been part of this whole thing with our members — saying ’Here, ‘we're at this point in the process, and we're at the very last stages of the process.’”

As it stands, union officials are unsure of which way the rank-and-file will vote.

“It’s on a razor's edge,” Ferguson said. “It’s going to be tight.”

Workers’ decision to strike could cause Congress to step in and lengthen the cooling-off period — or impose the employer-endorsed recommendations of a presidentially appointed emergency board.

“We're gonna get what [workers] ratify, or we're gonna go back and forth to Congress — and God knows what's going to come out of this,” Ferguson said.

Either way, AFL-CIO’s Regan said, the proposed contracts aren’t the end of the line for rail workers.

“We are going to need to have major reforms to the industry, period,” he said, noting that those reforms go well beyond what can be negotiated in a labor contract. “All those quality-of-life issues are directly tied to the fact that [carriers] have cut their workforce to the bone.”

So far, RWU has steered clear of endorsing or advocating for specific contract language — earning them criticism from union officials.

“There are factions out there on social media … actively campaigning against this thing, with no thought on the merit,” Jared Cassity, SMART-TD’s alternative national legislative director, said. “It sucks. It sucks.”

RWU’s leaders maintain that there are too many disparate interests at play to weigh in on particular proposals.

”Each craft is going to be very different in their demands,” another RWU leader, Ross Grooters, said. The group “isn't going to represent every specific demand for each craft; that's up to us as workers to bring forward and push up.”

Tanya Snyder contributed to this report.

Another union rejects deal with nation's freight railroads


A worker walks along tracks at a BNSF rail yard, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022, in Kansas City, Kan. On Monday, Nov. 14, 2022, a third railroad union has rejected its agreement with the nation's freight railroads, increasing the chances that Congress may be called upon to settle the dispute and block a strike. 

(AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File) 

JOSH FUNK
Mon, November 14, 2022 

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A third railroad union has rejected its agreement with the nation's freight railroads, increasing the chances that Congress may be called upon to settle the dispute and block a strike.

The small International Brotherhood of Boilermakers union on Monday voted down the contract even though it includes the biggest raises workers have seen in more than four decades. The union represents just a few hundred of the roughly 115,000 rail workers involved in the contract dispute with Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, BNSF, Kansas City Southern, CSX and other railroads.

All 12 rail unions must approve their deals to prevent a strike, although no strike is imminent because all the unions have agreed to keep negotiating even if their members vote no, until a deadline early next month.

Seven other unions have ratified the five-year deals that include 24% raises and $5,000 in bonuses. The focus now is on the three unions that have voted down their agreements and the remaining two that haven’t finished voting.

Workers' quality-of-life concerns about demanding schedules and the lack of paid sick time in the industry have threatened to derail the agreements even with the sizeable raises railroads are offering.

Contract talks with the two unions that rejected their deals last month remain deadlocked over the issue of paid sick time. So it is looking increasingly likely that Congress will have to step in to settle this dispute

“If we can’t improve the agreement by getting some sort of sick leave, I think Congress is going to have to intervene because I think the railroads are just too stubborn to give us what we want unless we are able to strike," Tony Cardwell, president of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division union, said Monday.

The railroads have said they want these contracts to closely follow the recommendations made this summer by a special board of arbitrators that President Joe Biden appointed. Offering sick leave on top of the raises and bonuses that are already in the deal would require the railroads to spend more.

Congress is expected to block a rail strike and impose contract terms on both sides if they can't come to an agreement before next month's deadline. That's because the stakes are so high for the economy with so many businesses relying on railroads to deliver their raw materials and finished products.

When they’re not at the negotiating table, the railroads and unions will be lobbying Congress over the next few weeks about what should be included if lawmakers do decide to impose contract terms on the freight railroads.

If the two biggest unions that represent conductors and engineers also reject their deals when they release the results of their votes next Monday, that would put additional pressure on the railroads. But Cardwell said he doesn't think even that would be enough to get the railroads to budge on sick time.

The railroads declined to comment Monday on the status of the talks with the BMWED and Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen unions, but they have been adamant about not offering paid sick time. They say they believe the unions agreed to forego paid sick time over the years in favor of higher wages and strong short-term disability benefits.

One reason the unions object to the railroads' refusal to offer sick time is because federal contractors are required by an executive order to give that to their employees. The railroads insisted they were federal contractors last year when they required employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine but now they say the sick time requirement doesn't apply to them.

Hundreds of business groups have written letters to Biden and members of Congress urging them to be prepared to intervene in the contract dispute, if necessary. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh has said he is in daily contact with the railroads and unions urging them to work out a deal.