WASHINGTON — A group of unions announced today (Tuesday, March 7) that they have filed suit against BNSF Railway over outsourcing of locomotive inspections, maintenance, and repairs, claiming the railroad is cutting its mechanical workforce to boost profits and failing to act in good faith under its existing labor agreements.
The suit by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 19, and SMART-MD (International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers-Mechanical and Engineering Department) was filed Feb. 24 in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
The suit, available here, says BNSF created the need to outsource locomotives to address a maintenance backlog through a “bad-faith course of action,” which it outlines to include the closing of shops; furloughing of employees and failing to recall them in a timely fashion; failure to maintain adequate staffing; a 0% overtime initiative for 2023; and deferral of locomotive inspections and maintenance.
In today’s statement, the unions seek to connect the BNSF move and the Feb. 3 Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, by questioning the safety impact of outsourcing the locomotive work.
“BNSF has been shuttering maintenance shops and delaying basic locomotive inspection and maintenance at the same time it has earned record profits,” IBEW International President Kenneth W. Cooper said. “As we continue to learn of the prolonged and severe impacts coming out of Ohio, it’s important now, more than ever, that inspection and repair of locomotives are performed by the experienced and trained members of the IBEW and other unions.”
SMART General President Joseph Sellers Jr. claimed the railroad had cut its workforce to create a situation where it can “now claim an emergency need to contract out core mechanical work to contractors who qualifications and work standards are unknown. Cutting corners on safety leads to predictably unfortunate results.”
Among details included in the suit is a claim employees were told to mark that they completed certain inspection and maintenance items, even though they had not been performed, to prevent BNSF’s computer system from indicating the locomotives needed to be shopped for additional work.
In response to a query from Trains News Wire, BNSF said in a March 10 that “There is an existing arbitration process in place to handle these types of issues. However, allegations questioning our commitment to our culture of safety are simply inaccurate. Our record speaks for itself. BNSF leads the industry in the lowest number of reportable equipment-related incidents in 2021 and 2022 which reflects our longer-term trend of reducing incident over the past several years.”
— Updated at 10:41 a.m. CST on March 10 with BNSF comment.
I’m with BNSF on this on. A company should be able to manage its business the way it sees fit as long as the process is legal. How many times have we seen “professional” union crews not doing their jobs correctly with disastrous consequences?
What you fail to understand is that these unions have a contract with the Carrier to perform this work. BNSF can’t just contract work on a whim and I can guarantee you that the quality of maintenance performed by BNSF employees is superior to anything done by outside contractors.
Just a little in your face for those complaining about farming out locomotive repair and inspections. How many of us take our cars or trucks to the new car dealers for repair or inspections at labor rates of $80 per hour or to a lower cost local shop for the same service ?
The key point in your question is that we have a choice. I used to fan out my car repairs, but the finger-pointing when something went wrong made me change. Now my dealer does it all and has sole responsibility for the quality of work. But I still have a choice…
“farm”, not “fan”…
Everybody above seems to have ignored this flat out lie: “SMART General President Joseph Sellers Jr. claimed the railroad had cut its workforce to create a situation where it can “now claim an emergency need to contract out core mechanical work to contractors who qualifications and work standards are unknown. Cutting corners on safety leads to predictably unfortunate results.””
Every business that can perform core mechanical work on locomotives is well known the industry. Their qualifications and work standards are also well know, this sounds more like sour grapes to me then it does wanting to protect workers. Especially going after the BNSF, the least of the big 7 that has embraced PSR, the railroad with the OR still in the mid-60’s vs everyone else in the upper 50’s.
Thankx for the post Gerald. I’m sure I’m not the only one reading these pages that agrees with you. SMART’s statement was out of line.
I’ve always been more sympathetic to rail unions than to unions in other trades or industries. In the case of this one statement, it’s a rail union being a union.
Precision “Scheduled” Railroading: Safety 3rd or 10th, or just flat out ignored.
One of the Richest ppl on the Planet owns BNSF outright which makes going on there look like greed and nothing Else. Warren buffet your railroad must do better. Profits over safety seems to be a PSR unintended consequence.
Mike Price: How is this about profits over safety? And what’s wrong with Warren Buffet being wealthy? Do you know anything about his life story, and especially how he *earned* every dollar of his wealth? If you’d bother to learn about his business philosophy, you’d know he’s anything but greedy. You sound like another misguided soul who, for reasons unknown, has a problem with success and wealth.
I am all for protections for workers. Almost any employer will scam as much as he can get away with. Sadly.
Let the attorneys have at it!
There is one shareholder and they were told to manage for 100 years. They have lost their way.
Huh???
But it’s for the shareholders! This should get interesting.