Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen Local 16

Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen Local 16

TP Hudson

814 Mount Moriah Rd.

Greenwood, SC 29646

tph24@embarqmail.com

Minutes from the meeting at LaGrange, Ga. – March. 21, 2015
President Karle called the meeting to order at 9:20 am.
Brother Karle appointed Brother Jason Skidmore to be Chaplain and Brother Robert Mayfield to be Sergeant-at-Arms for our union meeting.
There were 12 Local members, 4 members of the General Committee and 4 Local officers present for this meeting. We were honored to have our retired member, Brother Mickey Snow. Brother Snow has been retired for 10 years now. We also welcomed Mr. Bill Tucker; one of our BRS designated counsel and his investigator, Mr. Steve Martin. Brother Karle expressed appreciation for their attendance and support on behalf of Local 16.
Brother Karle gave Mr. Tucker the floor. Mr. Tucker began by explaining the impact of the Whistleblower Law. This law penalizes Carriers for retaliation, if proven, on an employee for reporting unsafe conditions or injuries, i.e. “protected activity”. The easiest example of an application of this law would be discipline following an incident involving injury or accident. The Railroad can be severely penalized for the action of harassment or retaliation, which can be in the form of discipline or worse. An employee, or representative of an employee, who believes that he or she has been retaliated against in violation of this statute may file a complaint with OSHA. It is important to note that the Federal Railroad Safety Act prohibits complainants from filing multiple discrimination complaints under other laws for the same allegedly unlawful act of the employer. Complaints must be filed within 180 days of the alleged unfavorable employer’s action occurs (that is, when the complainant becomes aware, or should have become aware, of the retaliatory action). For additional information go to the website;

whistleblower.gov/protection_railroad_employee

Brother Karle asked General Chairman Gus Demott for a report from General Committee.

Next, Brother Demott discussed the Agreement Merger talks that have continued into 2015. Two years ago, CSX Labor Relations (CSX LR) presented the CSX General Chairmen with a notice to combine the various signal agreements across the system. We have been reporting on the progress of these discussions every union meeting. These merger meetings have been productive on the BRS’s part; however, CSX LR has stalled the process. This has occurred for many reasons. It is to be noted that our BRS negotiating committee has presented many rule changes to CSX LR. A mountain of effort has been spent meeting and writing new agreement language, but CSX LR still has not signed off on a majority of the common rules. It keeps dragging on and in a surprising move late last year; CSX invoked the assistance of the National Mediation Board. This has further complicated and stalled the process. Brother Demott described that we will reach some kind of agreement on common rules or the process will just end. Our plan was to combine the Clinchfield Agreement with ours and join our two General Committees together; however, negotiations are now within the direction of the NMB. At this point, we do not know where CSX is on this merger. It is puzzling to know what they want to achieve. Merging agreements is one thing, but continued attempts to change work rules through this process has complicated every meeting. Early meetings indicated that CSX LR keeps pushing signal teams assigned to a roadway System Production Gangs. This is simply a bad idea for signalmen and the railroad, but they keep coming back to this proposal.

Upon Brother Yates announcement of stepping down from the Local 16 Financial Secretary position, President Karle appointed Brother Brian Jahay to this position effective April 1, 2015.