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BLE International Vice-President Jim McCoy and members of his safety team have secured changes to Union Pacific's Upgrade Discipline Policy which will reduce employee probationary periods for minor rule infractions.
The changes became effective January 1, and are retroactive to Dec. 15, 1997.
"Keep in mind that these changes are not the end result of our SACP Committees, but are the initial steps taken to secure better working conditions for our UP Brother engineers," Vice-President McCoy said.
"In recent months so many negative things have happened or have been written about the UP, but these changes are very positive."
The three main changes are:
The Level 1 probationary period has been reduced from 18 months to six months, the Level 2 probationary period has been cut from 36 months to 12 months, Level 3 from 36 to 16 months, and Levels 4 and 4.5 have been cut from 36 to 24 months.
In addition, employees who are assessed a Level 4 by virtue of a single incident will have their status reduced to Level 3 after a six-month period from the date of the incident if there is no further disciplinary action during that period.
Also, if an employee commits two Level 4 infractions within a 24-month period, the discipline will be assessed as Level 5.
"As you can see, we have made tremendous strides on behalf of our UP engineers, but we still have a long way to go," McCoy said.
The BLE currently has 17 Brothers serving on various committees formed by the SACP initiative.
"The Brothers who are serving on these committees have been working diligently and have participated in some very turbulent and intense meetings in their efforts to reform these conditions and upgrade the quality of life for the engineers we represent," McCoy said.
"This has been a complete team effort and the following Brothers are to be complemented for their diligence in this enterprise Brothers Gil Gore, Bill Hanna, Gene Thompson and Bruce MacArthur."
Brother Gore of Division 193 in New Orleans, said the changes were made as a result of cooperation between labor and management.
"While the changes are not as liberal as some will expect, the new probationary periods will take some of the stress off the Brothers with levels on them," Gore said. "While I have not been bashful about speaking my piece, there was a whole lot of effort from a bunch of labor and management folks that brought these changes about. I am proud of what we accomplished on the labor side. By the various unions sticking together, we forced UP to go farther than they wanted to. That is a good thing."
The ultimate goal of the SACP members, however, may not be achieved for some time.
"Our ideal goal would be to completely rescind the carrier's Upgrade Discipline Policy, and while that is not possible at this time, we will continue to progress more drastic measures in regressing the carrier's firm guidelines of its Discipline Policy," McCoy said.
"This is not the end of the revamping of this policy," Gore said. "We are currently studying the prospect of implementing a totally new policy with emphasis on managerial accountability for the application of the policy plus counseling, education, and training as an alternative to formal discipline." ·
The Union Pacific Railroad has turned to the BLE in its latest attempt to correct its continued service problems and traffic tie-ups.
UP President Jerry Davis has asked BLE President Clarence Monin to appoint a task force to assist the UP in becoming a more smoothly-run railroad.
In a show of sincerity, Davis has agreed to pay all BLE members appointed to the task force for lost time and expenses.
"The UP asked BLE members what they need to do to fix things," President Monin said. "They've got trains standing still, and they want us to talk about what it takes to run this railroad."
President Monin said the task force will travel from city to city and hold "town hall" meetings with BLE engineers and members of other operating crafts in an effort to gain information about some of the problems that currently exist on the UP system. Particularly, the task force hopes to travel throughout Texas.
"One of the problems members have already told us about is that there's an abnormally large number of road foremen running trains," Monin said. "It'll be our duty to get the company officials out of our business."
Monin also said that while some road foremen are allowed to run trains in specific instances, they have overstepped their bounds in recent months.
"We'll get the road foremen out by running the railroad efficiently," Monin said. "It's up to the BLE to show them how."
Monin also stressed that BLE membership input will be a big part of the task force's recommendations.
"I don't run trains for UP everyday, and the workers that do are the ones who know how to fix things," Monin said.
"We're going to go into our divisions and say, 'OK guys, tell us what to do.'"
Less than one month after it was signed into law, three railroads are challenging a state of Wisconsin law that requires a two-person crew on all trains operating in the state.
The railroads claim that less stringent federal laws take precedence over the state law, and that the two-person crew requirement will harm interstate commerce.
The Wisconsin Central, Union Pacific, and the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe filed their lawsuit in U.S. District Court on Jan. 5.
Calling the law "a victory for the people of Wisconsin," BLE President Clarence Monin supported the passage of the bill for it's tough stance on safety.
"With this law, the state is taking a strong stand for the protection not only of rail workers but of Wisconsin communities," he said.
Monin thanked Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson for helping to quickly move the law through the legislature. It passed unanimously in both chambers 99-0 in the state Assembly and 33-0 in the Senate.
"As we told the FRA at its hearing in Appleton (Wisc.) last December, remote-control technology cannot replace qualified operators," Monin said. "We have maintained all along that one-person engineer-only crews are inherently unsafe."
The railroads contend that, "The FRA has audited railroads' use of one-person crews in their operations and has never taken the position that the use of such crews is directly prohibited by the Federal Railroad Safety Act or any FRA Act."
Under the law, passed as Assembly Bill 35, all Wisconsin rail operations must have both a qualified engineer and a qualified conductor on each train. ·
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