Post by calzephyr on Oct 21, 2015 6:15:48 GMT -8
This is an ongoing situation with the BNSF railroad at this time. No comment except it is interesting how safety concerns by this engineer were treated when they were reported.
Article on Yahoo today.
Larry
Engineer who raised concerns about train signal malfunctions.
By Stuart Silverstein and Brian Joseph
Published: 21 October 2015 02:01 AM
Updated: 21 October 2015 06:27 AM
As both a veteran railroad worker and union official responsible for safety, Mike Elliott became alarmed when he learned of trouble-plagued train signals in his home state of Washington.
Signals, he said, at times would inexplicably switch from red to yellow to green – potentially creating confusion that could lead to a crash. Elliott raised that and other signal issues repeatedly with his managers at Fort Worth-based BNSF Railway Co. But eventually, Elliott concluded that “these guys are running me around in circles.”
So Elliott, 57, of Tacoma, Wash., pressed his concerns with the Federal Railroad Administration, summarizing the matter in a January 2011 letter. The FRA investigated, and discovered 357 safety violations, including 112 signal system defects.
Speaking up for safety, though, only made matters worse for Elliott at BNSF, where he already had clashed with managers. Within weeks, the company fired Elliott from his job as a locomotive engineer – an act that a federal jury this summer ruled was illegal retaliation by BNSF against a whistleblower.
The June 30 decision by the Tacoma jury, which awarded Elliott $1.25 million but is being appealed, spotlights the unjust punishment that critics say sometimes is meted out to railroad workers who report injuries or safety problems. These critics, including plaintiff lawyers and union officials, say the harsh treatment reflects old, hard-line management tactics that persist in corners of the industry.
Under the 22 federal whistleblower laws administered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, American workers who disclose hazards or engage in other “protected activity” are shielded against retaliation by their employers. The protected activities vary by industry, but include reporting injuries, disclosing the misuse of public funds and refusing to perform dangerous tasks that would violate safety rules.
OSHA protection covers, among many others, public transit employees, nuclear plant operators and, since 2007, railroad workers. Yet despite the broad safeguards for railroaders – or perhaps partly because of that – complaints of illegal retaliation abound in the industry.
From October 2007 through June 2015, OSHA figures show, railroad workers filed more than 2,000 retaliation complaints, although the pace has slowed lately. Among the top 10 targets of complaints over the period, seven were railroads, led by the two largest U.S. railroads, BNSF (409 complaints) and Union Pacific (360).
OSHA investigators and Labor Department administrative law judges repeatedly have upheld complaints against the railroads, more than half of which involve illegal retaliation against workers who report personal injuries.
In one such case an administrative law judge in 2013 ruled against Union Pacific, declaring: “The actions by Union Pacific have been so egregious in this case, and Union Pacific has been so openly blatant in ignoring the provisions of [federal law], that I find punitive damages are necessary to ensure that this reprehensible conduct is not repeated.”
In January of that year, BNSF, without admitting wrongdoing, signed an unprecedented accord with OSHA after the federal agency alleged that several of the company’s policies discriminated against injured employees.
Officials of the Association of American Railroads, the leading industry group, declined to be interviewed for this story. Instead, it issued a brief statement saying, “The safety of employees and communities along the nation’s 140,000-mile rail network remains a top priority for the entire industry and is taken very seriously.”
Union Pacific also refused interview requests. So did BNSF, which was created by the 1995 merger of Burlington Northern Inc. and Santa Fe Pacific Corp., and is now a unit of investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. However, in a statement after the jury decision in the Elliott case, BNSF said, “retaliation against safety complaints is contrary to how we operate and the training our people receive.” The company added that Elliott “was dismissed for unrelated rules violations.”
(On Oct. 1, the federal judge who heard Elliott’s case rejected BNSF’s motion for a new trial. The judge said disciplinary proceedings against the former employee were “seriously flawed” and that BNSF executives “displayed personal animosity against Mr. Elliott.”)
The alleged violations defy a key intent of federal whistleblower laws: to encourage employees who discover possible hazards to come forward before an accident happens. The potential value of such an early warning system is underscored by the deadly passenger rail accidents and oil train wrecks in recent years.
Joseph C. Szabo, who headed the FRA from 2009 until this January, said industry supervisors often are under “immense pressure” to curb costs by moving trains quickly out of rail yards. That, in turn, translates into pressure on rank-and-file workers “to ignore safety protocols and to just get the damn train out of town.” That’s why, Szabo said, it’s “critically important” that railroad workers are “very comfortable in doing the right thing without any fear of retribution.”
Likewise, safety advocates say, the ability of workers to report injuries without jeopardizing their livelihoods is crucial in a field with many hazardous jobs. Railroads have relatively high rates of on-the-job fatalities – although the toll has fallen dramatically over the last three decades.
What’s more, injury totals may be substantially higher than reported. In 2012, amid widespread suspicion that railroads were undercounting injuries, in part by pressuring workers not to report them, the industry dropped its 99-year-old annual Harriman safety award, which was largely based on employee injury reports.
Railroad whistleblowers under federal law must first file complaints with OSHA; they can pursue their cases through conclusion with the agency or, if their issues haven’t been resolved, after 120 days they can opt out and take their cases to court.
In the last year, both OSHA and federal juries have issued a string of big decisions against railroads in cases brought by whistleblowers.
Elliott, a former chairman of the Washington legislative board of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen union, won an important round in court but expects a drawn-out appeals process. In the meantime, he has decided against seeking reinstatement to his job at BNSF.
Instead, he is working these days as a lobbyist and spokesman for the union. The role is crucial, he says, because his former co-workers at BNSF need someone to speak out about safety issues.
“The culture and the workplace fear of reporting injuries or safety problems hasn’t changed," Elliott said. “Our members are still afraid.”
FairWarning (www.fairwarning.org) is a nonprofit news organization based in Los Angeles that focuses on public health, safety and environmental issues
Article on Yahoo today.
Larry
Engineer who raised concerns about train signal malfunctions.
By Stuart Silverstein and Brian Joseph
Published: 21 October 2015 02:01 AM
Updated: 21 October 2015 06:27 AM
As both a veteran railroad worker and union official responsible for safety, Mike Elliott became alarmed when he learned of trouble-plagued train signals in his home state of Washington.
Signals, he said, at times would inexplicably switch from red to yellow to green – potentially creating confusion that could lead to a crash. Elliott raised that and other signal issues repeatedly with his managers at Fort Worth-based BNSF Railway Co. But eventually, Elliott concluded that “these guys are running me around in circles.”
So Elliott, 57, of Tacoma, Wash., pressed his concerns with the Federal Railroad Administration, summarizing the matter in a January 2011 letter. The FRA investigated, and discovered 357 safety violations, including 112 signal system defects.
Speaking up for safety, though, only made matters worse for Elliott at BNSF, where he already had clashed with managers. Within weeks, the company fired Elliott from his job as a locomotive engineer – an act that a federal jury this summer ruled was illegal retaliation by BNSF against a whistleblower.
The June 30 decision by the Tacoma jury, which awarded Elliott $1.25 million but is being appealed, spotlights the unjust punishment that critics say sometimes is meted out to railroad workers who report injuries or safety problems. These critics, including plaintiff lawyers and union officials, say the harsh treatment reflects old, hard-line management tactics that persist in corners of the industry.
Under the 22 federal whistleblower laws administered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, American workers who disclose hazards or engage in other “protected activity” are shielded against retaliation by their employers. The protected activities vary by industry, but include reporting injuries, disclosing the misuse of public funds and refusing to perform dangerous tasks that would violate safety rules.
OSHA protection covers, among many others, public transit employees, nuclear plant operators and, since 2007, railroad workers. Yet despite the broad safeguards for railroaders – or perhaps partly because of that – complaints of illegal retaliation abound in the industry.
From October 2007 through June 2015, OSHA figures show, railroad workers filed more than 2,000 retaliation complaints, although the pace has slowed lately. Among the top 10 targets of complaints over the period, seven were railroads, led by the two largest U.S. railroads, BNSF (409 complaints) and Union Pacific (360).
OSHA investigators and Labor Department administrative law judges repeatedly have upheld complaints against the railroads, more than half of which involve illegal retaliation against workers who report personal injuries.
In one such case an administrative law judge in 2013 ruled against Union Pacific, declaring: “The actions by Union Pacific have been so egregious in this case, and Union Pacific has been so openly blatant in ignoring the provisions of [federal law], that I find punitive damages are necessary to ensure that this reprehensible conduct is not repeated.”
In January of that year, BNSF, without admitting wrongdoing, signed an unprecedented accord with OSHA after the federal agency alleged that several of the company’s policies discriminated against injured employees.
Officials of the Association of American Railroads, the leading industry group, declined to be interviewed for this story. Instead, it issued a brief statement saying, “The safety of employees and communities along the nation’s 140,000-mile rail network remains a top priority for the entire industry and is taken very seriously.”
Union Pacific also refused interview requests. So did BNSF, which was created by the 1995 merger of Burlington Northern Inc. and Santa Fe Pacific Corp., and is now a unit of investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. However, in a statement after the jury decision in the Elliott case, BNSF said, “retaliation against safety complaints is contrary to how we operate and the training our people receive.” The company added that Elliott “was dismissed for unrelated rules violations.”
(On Oct. 1, the federal judge who heard Elliott’s case rejected BNSF’s motion for a new trial. The judge said disciplinary proceedings against the former employee were “seriously flawed” and that BNSF executives “displayed personal animosity against Mr. Elliott.”)
The alleged violations defy a key intent of federal whistleblower laws: to encourage employees who discover possible hazards to come forward before an accident happens. The potential value of such an early warning system is underscored by the deadly passenger rail accidents and oil train wrecks in recent years.
Joseph C. Szabo, who headed the FRA from 2009 until this January, said industry supervisors often are under “immense pressure” to curb costs by moving trains quickly out of rail yards. That, in turn, translates into pressure on rank-and-file workers “to ignore safety protocols and to just get the damn train out of town.” That’s why, Szabo said, it’s “critically important” that railroad workers are “very comfortable in doing the right thing without any fear of retribution.”
Likewise, safety advocates say, the ability of workers to report injuries without jeopardizing their livelihoods is crucial in a field with many hazardous jobs. Railroads have relatively high rates of on-the-job fatalities – although the toll has fallen dramatically over the last three decades.
What’s more, injury totals may be substantially higher than reported. In 2012, amid widespread suspicion that railroads were undercounting injuries, in part by pressuring workers not to report them, the industry dropped its 99-year-old annual Harriman safety award, which was largely based on employee injury reports.
Railroad whistleblowers under federal law must first file complaints with OSHA; they can pursue their cases through conclusion with the agency or, if their issues haven’t been resolved, after 120 days they can opt out and take their cases to court.
In the last year, both OSHA and federal juries have issued a string of big decisions against railroads in cases brought by whistleblowers.
Elliott, a former chairman of the Washington legislative board of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen union, won an important round in court but expects a drawn-out appeals process. In the meantime, he has decided against seeking reinstatement to his job at BNSF.
Instead, he is working these days as a lobbyist and spokesman for the union. The role is crucial, he says, because his former co-workers at BNSF need someone to speak out about safety issues.
“The culture and the workplace fear of reporting injuries or safety problems hasn’t changed," Elliott said. “Our members are still afraid.”
FairWarning (www.fairwarning.org) is a nonprofit news organization based in Los Angeles that focuses on public health, safety and environmental issues
