Union rejects BNSF proposal for one-man train crews

A tentative agreement to reduce train crews to one person at BNSF Railway has been turned down, according to the union whose members voted on it this week.

The pact would have eliminated on-board conductors on 60 percent of the network of the Fort Worth-based railroad, which is owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.

BNSF sought union approval to operate most trains with a single engineer on lines protected by Positive Train Control, a collision avoidance system required by Congress in 2008.

John Fleps, BNSF’s vice president for labor relations, said in a statement Thursday that it was up to members of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air and Rail Transportation Workers to decide whether to adopt the changes.

“They have decided not to move forward at this time and we respect the process,” Fleps said.

Under the pact, engineers would have received a pay raise and conductors would have been given the chance to become engineers.

Trains carrying hazardous materials, including those with large volumes of crude oil or ethanol, would still have operated with two people on board.

The agreement would have applied to roughly 3,000 BNSF workers across several states.

A message sent to union members late Wednesday by Randall Knutson, general chairman of SMART’s GO-001 committee, informed them that the proposal had failed and that more detailed results would be available in coming weeks.

It also said that the committee will remain open to “informal conversation” about the matter with BNSF.

According to a statement from Railroad Workers United, which advocates for rail workers, one-man crews pose “grave dangers.”

“Single-employee train operations — with or without Positive Train Control (PTC) — would compromise the safety and security of train crews, motorists, pedestrians, trackside communities, the environment and the general public,” said Ron Kaminkow, the group’s general secretary. “Railroad workers are determined to fight this with everything we have.”

After a deadly derailment of a crude oil train in Quebec last year that had a sole engineer, the Federal Railroad Administration proposed a rule this year that would have required two-person crews on most trains.

The rail industry argued that no data supported the government’s assertion that two-person crews enhance safety. And the National Transportation Safety Board takes no position on how many people are in the cab of a locomotive, as long as the train is protected by Positive Train Control.

Congress ordered railroads to install the safety system by the end of 2015, but railroads have sought to delay that mandate to at least 2020 because of logistical and technical problems.

The safety system is designed to address human error, which is responsible for about 40 percent of train accidents. It uses GPS, wireless radio and computers to monitor train position and speed and stop them from colliding, derailing because of excessive speed, entering a track where maintenance is being done or going the wrong way because of a switching mistake.

This report includes material from The Associated Press.

This story was originally published September 11, 2014 at 2:51 PM with the headline "Union rejects BNSF proposal for one-man train crews."