By KALIN KROHE
Panhandle Post
BNSF railroad employees and their families protested working and scheduling conditions with signs along crossings east of Alliance on Nov. 2 as BNSF CEO Kathryn "Katie" Farmer traveled through Alliance during an undisclosed trip.
A total of seven people, along with a backing of many railroaders that could not attend the protest, voiced their thoughts and opinions with multiple hand-written signs.
"We are here because we found out that the CEO of BNSF railway is coming through town on the Officer's Special [train] and we wanted to show her that the community supports all of the railroad unions in our community regardless of how they vote for the tentative agreement," Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen Union, Local 622 Auxiliary President/National Auxiliary 2nd Vice President and Legislative Representative Natalie Miller said. "Whether they vote yes or no, we wanted her to know we stand united with them."
"Businesses are increasingly worried about the renewed threat of a railroad strike after two unions rejected their deals, and they want the White House and Congress to be ready to intervene," Associated Press business writer Josh Funk said in an article published Oct. 27. "A coalition of 322 business groups sent a letter to President Joe Biden Thursday urging him to make sure the deals he helped broker last month get approved because a railroad strike would have dire consequences for the economy. All 12 rail unions must approve their agreements to prevent a strike next month [November]. The five-year deals include 24% raises and $5,000 in bonuses, but the negotiations hinge on quality-of-life concerns about paid sick time and demanding schedules."
"She [BNSF CEO Farmer] needs to understand our communities are supported by railroad workers...our restaurants, our bars, our schools; our wives work in all of those places," Miller said. "We support all those places with our dollars. And our community supports our railroad workers back and so we wanted to show her that. So, we got some people coming to hold up signs as she drives through."
Panhandle Post asked Miller how she believes railroad workers feel about their working conditions.
"I can tell you from experience, we're not happy, we're not satisfied," Miller said. "The working conditions are tough. Our railroad workers are on-call; and I'm not exaggerating, I know people roll their eyes when we say this, 24/7 - 365 days a year. But, it's true, they are. They don't get to have regular days off like people who work regular jobs. They might get called today, but they could sit first-out for ten hours and not get called until tonight. There's some people in Alliance who are in what's called a 'Grand Pool'. And they don't even know if they're going to go to Edgemont, South Dakota or Guernsey, Wyoming...so, they don't even know until they're called. It could be longer away from home depending on where they're going. They're also called to fill-in to go to Grand Island sometimes. It's very unfair, we don't have scheduled days off, we get penalized when we do take days off because of the attendance policy that has been put into effect starting February 1st of this year. So, that is a whole other story unto itself."
Miller explained briefly how the BNSF attendance policy operates.
"But in a nutshell, if they take a day off on a weekend, they get docked 10 points or on a holiday, they get docked 10 points," Miller said. "If they get to take a day off on a weekday, they get docked, depending on their craft, two to seven points. Now, to earn those points back, they have to stay marked up ready to work for a whole entire half, which is 15 days. They cannot lay off for anything, any reason. And they only get four points back if they stay marked up. So if you do the math, and they take a weekend day off for an emergency or for a baseball game, or whatever they have to do, they take 10 points away from them, they have to stay marked up for two weeks to get four points back, two more weeks to get another 4 points back, two more weeks to get that three, four points back. They only get to make 37 points. So it takes them six weeks of being ready for work, ready to accept a call, for six weeks straight to earn those points back for taking one day off on a weekend. Yeah, it's crazy. It's unfair."
Railroad employees feel they have been essential workers as the COVID pandemic continues to loom.
"We had to stay on call, they had to go to work COVID or not," Miller said. "If they got COVID, they got the time off to heal from COVID. And as soon as they were negative [from a COVID test], they had to go back to work. So, as essential workers we feel that that were not taken care of. And they don't care that we're overworked, they don't care that once in a while we need to take time off. We need to have that rest cycle so that we can get our sleep back. And so that we can take those trains safely where they need to go. We are proud of our jobs. We're proud of what we do for a living. We just want a fair compensation."
An anonymous BNSF conductor came out to hold signs along the railroad crossings and voiced his opinions to Panhandle Post.
"Our working conditions have deteriorated since I hired out in 1998," the anonymous conductor said. "And since Warren Buffett has taken over, they just snowballed, in terms of the conditions getting worse. Now, with this, we've gone three years with no contract. Because BNSF wanted to negotiate only with engineers, they wanted to do away with conductors before they ever settled the contract, that was their whole thing. They don't care about safety. They don't care about the people that work for them. The only thing they care about is their bottom line, their bottom dollar...whatever they can send to Warren Buffett's coffers."
Miller said, "To quote Katie Farmer. Our labor does not contribute to our profit margin."
"Yeah, they came flat out and said it...said that in the STB [Surface Transportation Board] hearings, in the PEB hearings, which were for the contract negotiations for the Presidential Emergency Board, because we couldn't come to an agreement," the anonymous conductor said. "He signed a Presidential Emergency Board to help negotiations along. The carriers of all the railroads in that coalition said that labor does not contribute to their profits. They also said we assume no risk, therefore we're not entitled to any profits that they make. But yet, in the last two years, I know three people personally, that not only risked everything they have, they gave everything they had because they died out there [working]. But yet, we don't contribute and we don't assume any risks out here for them [BNSF]"
Another source of stress is the occurrence of fatalities, both of civilians and railroad employees.
"They got guys that have killed people on crossings and are suffering from PTSD [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder] and they can't work," Miller said. "They smell diesel fuel, and they go into panic attacks because the last thing that they smelled when they hit the tractor...and saw the man's flaming body on fire, that smell triggers them. And that just happened six weeks ago. He [a farmer] turned off the highway slowed, they [a BNSF engineer and conductor] thought he was going to stop, he [farmer] looked and then kept going. But he didn't see [the train coming] you know, he just kept going. He kind of paused and then kept going. They hit him about 45 MPH. He flew about 150 feet out. They found him on fire, his flaming body was naked and on fire. It had flown out of his clothes, out of his boots. And his body was on fire. He was killed instantly, but his body was on fire and our conductor thank goodness did not have to put out the flames. He only witnessed the first responders who had to, but he did see the horrific scene up close. Now what if that person was out there all by himself as an engineer?"
The anonymous conductor said that a BNSF engineer cannot leave the locomotive "cab" according to policies.
"If there's a crossing accident, whether that person is right beside the motor or 100 cars back, that engineer has to stay in the cab," anonymous conductor said. "There's nobody there other than the conductor to go back and assess...and render any help."
"Any aid if needed...if the person is still alive...or people or whatever, you know, it's frightening," Miller said. "They don't care about that. Their bottom line is they want profits, profits over people."
"That's pretty much all I got to say, that I can say," anonymous conductor added.
