FORT WORTH, Texas — A year-old partnership between BNSF Railway and three of its labor unions has dramatically reduced injuries and derailments.
The Transportation Safety Agreement between BNSF and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, SMART-TD, and Transportation Communications Union was ratified early in 2022 and mostly covers southern portions of the railway.
The deal created new craft safety positions. The goal: Improve the local focus on safety. The effort created 33 full-time positions, more than 60 part-time positions, and 22 part-time training jobs.
It also strengthened communication and collaboration between management and labor, improved operations testing, and introduced a “coaching first” approach to safety rule violations.
“Since the new agreement was ratified, there’s been a notable shift in safety engagement and growing safety ownership across all levels of the organization,” BNSF says. Among the results:
- Reportable injuries are down 54% on a year-over-year basis.
- Human-factor derailments are down by 15%.
- Divisions that historically had lower safety performance have seen noticeable improvement on the ratified territories.
- Intermodal equipment operators have experienced one injury so far in 2023 compared to 14 during the same time last year.
- More physical plant exposures and at-risk behaviors have been identified and corrected.
- Front-line supervisors are better positioned to have proactive coaching conversations with union workers instead of approaching them with potential impending discipline, which BNSF says has contributed to a more conducive learning environment.
Union leaders have said the program is a win-win because it improves safety through training rather than discipline.
“Safety remains the most important thing we do at BNSF, and this agreement is doing exactly what we expected,” says Matt Garland, BNSF’s vice president of transportation. “It’s strengthening our ability to meet our shared safety vision of a workplace free of accidents and injuries. We thank everyone involved in making the TSA a success.”
BNSF continues to work with union leaders representing those territories that have not yet ratified the agreement and hopes they will sign on. In those territories BNSF has created a dozen non-union manager of safety positions. If unions in the northern regions sign on to the program, the railway would create around 100 new craft safety jobs.
The Federal Railroad Administration says the results of the “robust program” speak for themselves and are a testament to the seriousness with which the partnership is viewed by the carrier and labor. FRA encourages labor-management partnerships, which vary from railroad to railroad, making it difficult to draw comparisons between the results on each system.
The Safety Summit Agreement was cancelled and BNSF is trying to force the TSA on the unions. They’ve had “alternative handling” since 2002. A coaching before discipline philosophy is nothing new.
Katie Farmer herself said safety was a problem.
“Compared to last year, our 2022 injury frequency rate of 1.05 was 18% higher and our rail equipment incident rate of 2.06 was up 34%”.
You need to stop letting BNSF write your articles.
Our union led safety team in Needles, CA has 0% integrity, we had a member of the safety team get disciplined for sleeping on a moving train, guess what? They are still on the safety team.