History and Summary of Special Board of Adjustment 1141 (Remote Control Arbitration)

 

History

 

At a FRA Technical Conference on Remote Control Locomotives held on July 19, 2000, in its opening statements the UTU informed the conference of the agreement between the operating craft unions to maintain a single position, stating that "because of the significance of this issue to the lives and safety of the people working in our industry, the UTU and BLE are here today united and speaking with one voice. We are here today as one group to actively participate in development of a proposal on substantive provisions designed to ensure the safety of employees represented by both unions, and to limit the use of remote control to those operations currently existing."  For conference testimonies visit the (DOT) website at: http://dms.dot.gov/ Click on simple search and enter Docket # 7325.

 

The data offered by the American Short Line and Regional Rail Association, among others, was vehemently disputed by the BLE/UTU contingent. Actual data provided by the unions contradicted the sparse and highly selective presentation made on the carriers' behalf.  

 

The UTU and BLE were to send out a press release in July stating safety concerns as the primary reason that the railroads in this county were not ready for the technology.  But the UTU stalled on the press release, and it was never sent out. 

 

On September 26, 2001 the UTU signed a “Letter of Intent” with all Class 1 railroads to allow the implementation of Remote Control Technology that would use UTU trainmen to replace BLE represented engineers.

 

On January 14, 2002 Judge Gotschall decided that the operation of locomotives in terminals and yards by train service employees using remote control technology was a "minor dispute" which should be decided by arbitration.  Judge Gotschall also issued a preliminary injunction preventing the BLE from striking over the remote issue.

 

Just hours after the court's decision on January 14, the United Transportation Union and the National Carriers' Conference Committee released a joint press release announcing an agreement to initiate pilot projects implementing and utilizing remote control technology.

 

The BLE responded by organizing several rallies and demonstrations across the country to educate the public about the dangerous implementation of remote control in their cities and towns.  Government bodies were also contacted, and several City Councils passed resolutions banning remote control in their communities.

 

Special Board of Adjustment 1141 (Remote Control Arbitration)

Web Page:  http://www.ble.org/pr/news/rco.asp 

 

The BLE, UTU, and the railroad carriers submitted written and oral arguments on November 18 and 19, 2002 in Chicago.

 

In the arbitration, the BLE’s primary argument was that the existing agreements and established practice create an exclusive right of locomotive engineers to operate locomotives in connection with the movement of cars or trains in terminal operations and that the carriers' assignment of other operating craft personnel to do that work via remote control is improper.

 

In regard to the remote control agreement signed by the UTU on August 20, 2002, the BLE stated that,  “UTU trumpets to you how broad their agreement is. The carriers themselves admit that they intend to use RCOs for every operation besides simply moving freight from point A to point B. The geographic circle of their intentions, according to them, goes as far as 60 miles outside terminal limits.  It would be one agile RCO to do that from the ground.”

 

The carriers argued that the existing and exclusive duties of engineers were not being assigned to others, they were being computerized.

 

In his statement, BNSF AVP John Quilty stated, “engineers are responsible in switching operations for moving the locomotive, and this is both in a forward and reverse movement, accelerating and decelerating the movement and stopping the movement.  And this is in response to hand or radio signals given by ground service employees.  And how they do that, how that's accomplished, is done by manipulating the controls on the locomotive, primarily the throttle and the brakes that are on the locomotive.”  

 

Mr. Quilty’s description of a ground service employee is as follows, “I'll give you an example.  Let's say I'm going to shove that cut of cars and maybe I'm a groundperson, I want to shove it in 20 car lengths.  I've got to weigh that in my mind, how fast do I want to bring him forward with that, how fast do I want to bring him in.  Can I do it at ten miles an hour, are the grade conditions such for me to do that?  If I bring him ahead ten miles an hour, maybe at ten cars, I'd better have him slow it down to five.  I may tell him on the radio five or give him a hand signal.  I'm trying to make the judgment as to how I can get him at a safe coupling speed of less than one mile an hour.  That's the judgment that I'm trying to weigh.”

 

To surmise, the carriers stated, “…. it is ground service employees that control locomotives in conventional operations.  They have the skill and the judgment about when to start, how fast to go, when to stop.  That's all within the purview of ground service employees.”

The UTU basically repeated the rhetoric of their allies, the carriers.  The UTU stated in their argument that, “Assuming for the sake of argument that the presence of a remote control agreement in the agreements that UTU holds does not fully answer this case as we say it does, a comparison of the -- it is clear from the NCCC (National Carriers' Conference Committee) submissions and argument yesterday that the work of remote control operators has not been reserved exclusively to the craft of engineers…… Now instead of giving hand or lantern or radio signals to control the movement of the locomotive, electronic signals are transmitted to a microprocessor, a computer on the engine, which then performs the work that was formerly done by the locomotive engineer…… it's not the opening of the throttle that moves trains, it's the signal from the ground to commence the movement.  And when the RCO signals the movement now, he or she doesn't open the throttle, the microprocessor does that.”

 

For a little glimpse into the future, the UTU testified, “And a global positioning system and transponders can automatically stop the equipment short of obstruction, signal, end of track or limits of track authority, and all of those require action on the part of an operator during conventional operations and none of them require action by any operator in the current state of remote control locomotive operations.”

 

When the UTU described the duties of operating employees, they said, “They (ground persons) give orders to the engineer from the locomotive cab now and they're just doing the same thing with the remote control Beltpack.”

 

In the BLE’s rebuttal, they stated, “So what does duties and responsibilities of an engineer mean?  That, too, is quite simple.  It means operating the locomotive.  It doesn't mean only from a fixed set of controls on a stand as our opponents say it does.  It means doing whatever it takes to operate the locomotive.”

 

The BLE went on to say, “Naturally, UTU argues and the carriers agree that the conductor is the one in charge of the train as if the engineer is his lackey.  As this board well knows, that is not the case, that is an exaggeration. When it comes to running the engine, the engineer has always been in charge and the conductor is little more than an observer.  Their own operating rule confirms that.  Rule 1.47 says the engineer is responsible for safely and efficiently operating the engine, not the conductor, not any other groundperson.  And it says that the crew members must obey the engineer's instructions that concern operating the engine.”

 

“The carriers and the UTU want you to decide a different dispute than the questions that are presented. This is not a craft or class dispute, this is a work jurisdiction dispute. There are two crafts operating inside of this industry.  The mediation board twice has rejected UTU attempts to make them one.  We have separate agreements.”

 

Special Board of Adjustment No. 1141 Award

Web Page: http://www.ble.org/pr/pdf/rco011003.pdf

 

On January 10, 2003 the decision was given on the remote control arbitration for yards and terminals.  In that decision Arbiter Gil Vernon stated that “The UTU’s position is similar to the Carriers’ with respect to the nature of the switchmen’s function, the engineers’ function and that the latter function has been eliminated by remote control technology.” 

 

Vernon’s decision stated, “With regard to this question, the Neutral respectfully disagrees with the BLE and agrees with the UTU and the Carriers that these control decision in yard and terminal operations, in their most fundamental form, are not made exclusively by the engineer but are made by the groundman.”

 

“Thus, the RCO is not supplanting the engineer.  It is the computer.”

 

“To again tread on the treacherous ground of analogies, it could be said that a traditional engineer operating an engine is like a highly skilled French chef preparing a seven-course meal from scratch (adding various combinations of ingredients and cooking them in various ways) and the RCO in yards and terminals just puts the TV dinner in the microwave, sets the time and pushes the start button (set it and forget it).”

 

“The Chairman indeed shares the BLE’s and perhaps the FRA’s concern about the Carriers trying to possibly parlay this dispute into a blank check to operate all road switchers and locals via remote control regardless of whether they operate in terminals.   Road operations are not ‘move’ intensive and are not as highly characterized as are yard and terminal operations by groundman command of the train.”  “If a local or road switcher is confined to terminal limits, it contractually can be operated by an RCO.”

 

 

 

 

Dissent to Special Board of Adjustment No. 1141

Web Page: http://www.ble.org/pr/pdf/dissent.pdf

 

On January 17, 2003, BLE President Don Hahs filed his dissent to Chairman Gil Vernon’s decision in the remote control arbitration case.  Vernon was the “neutral” member of the four-member Board, which also included Hahs, NCCC Chairman Robert Allen and UTU President Byron Boyd.                     .                               

The NCCC’s Allen and the UTU’s Boyd voted in favor of Vernon’s decision. BLE’s Hahs’ dissent made the final vote 3-1.                                 .

Hahs’s dissent stated that the Chairman’s decision was an “aberration” that was “fundamentally flawed.”                                   .    

“The carriers’ common agreements with BLE have always been applied to require an engineer on every locomotive that moves cars and freight and to require the carriers to assign the operation of locomotives, regardless of the means of control, to locomotive engineers,” Hahs wrote. “As far back as 1944, the carriers and BLE expressed their understanding in the so-called ‘Diesel Agreements’ that a locomotive consist could be operated from one cab by one engineer with one set of controls and that the ‘duties and responsibilities of engineers’ regardless of the size of a consist ‘will not be assigned to others.’ The operation of locomotives to move cars and freight is what those ‘duties and responsibilities’ have always been.”

BLE President Hahs also disputed Vernon’s opinion that a computer or microprocessor had replaced or eliminated the duties of the engineer.

“This is not a situation where an employee’s work has been eliminated by technology,” Hahs wrote. “The Board has mistakenly compared this situation to advances in radio telemetry and data input. This is a case where the carrier, under the guise of technological advancement, has assigned the actual duties and responsibilities of one craft to another.”

Hahs also said he was “appalled” at Vernon’s dismissal of the many local agreements that were presented by BLE General Committees of Adjustment during the November 18 and 19 hearings.                        .

Many of these local agreements were “manning" agreements stipulating that at least one locomotive engineer must be assigned to all train movements. In BLE’s opinion, these agreements proved that the assignment of remote control work to other than engineers was a violation of the Brotherhood’s collective bargaining agreements.

“Both BLE and the carriers made extensive filings on these issues and representatives of the General Committees of Adjustment orally argued their respective positions before the Board,” Hahs concluded. “For the Board to dismiss them (which the Board should not have done in any event) with a checklist of reasons, not even identifying the specific basis for which any agreement provision is being rejected, is both disgraceful and a disservice to the parties.”