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RR Carriers Bring One-Person Crews to the Table

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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by daveklepper I have to admit I may be wrong about unit trains being better maintained that run-of-the-mill, but the point is that the unions should stress safety in their negotiations and save jobs by careful limitations on the applicability of the one-man concept to just those areas where it is safe. If there are only a few areas where it is really safe, then aren't a lot of jobs saved? [/quote] Safety. Believe it or not, safety is one of the most misused words in the labor-management vernacular, by both sides. First, please define what "safe" means. There are as many definitions as there are sandhouse lawyers to coin them and don't let the real lawyers into this fight... If you doubt this, take the time to read a few court opinions in FELA cases. One of the real problems is that both labor and management use safety as a spear and a shield as it suits them. This really renders safety arguments meaningless. It has gotten so when management hears labor say it's a "safety issue" management immediately thinks "Aha! Those featherbedders are at it again", rather than, "hey, there might be a genuine concern here". The problem is, there are many employees that play right into this charade. Who in T&E service doesn't know of an Engineer who regularly shows up for work and promptly finds issues with every locomotive available and demands they be repaired before he will use them. By the time mechanical forces can respond and repair the power (often no more than changing a brake shoe, adjusting piston travel or wiping up oil on the engineroom floor) he is on OT. Years ago, we had one such Engineer (an old NYC man) known as "Mercury" (after the fast NYC train of the same name, with heavy sarcasm) who it seemed could never manage to work without outlawing and not reaching the away terminal as a result of just these sorts of antics and others that were equally bad. Of course, one can see that the safety argument has not prevailed in the past. Witness the demise of the caboose in favor of the EOTD and wayside defect detector, more recently the RCL debate, and perhaps more pertinent, the elimination of the position of Locomotive Fireman. In that case one of the arguments was that having two men in the cab, capable of running the train was much safer than one. While there is some truth in that, the argument has not prevailed. Employee costs are still the single largest number in RR operating budgets. As long as that is the case managements will keep trying to reduce the headcount in any way possible. LC
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