WASHINGTON — The Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, the umbrella group that includes all railroad labor unions, today urged Congress and federal regulators to protect workers whose jobs are affected by the rollout of automated and autonomous railroad technology.
In a broadside against technological advances — including automated track and train inspection systems, automated train dispatching software, the use of remote control locomotives on main line trackage, virtual block signal systems, automated locomotive smart cruise control, and Parallel Systems’ autonomous, battery-electric intermodal cars — the TTD said the Federal Railroad Administration should deny all railroad safety waiver requests that would permit the testing of “unproven technology.”
Waivers, which suspend certain FRA regulations to permit testing in conjunction with reduced inspection frequencies, have long been used to advance safety. A track inspection waiver granted to the Long Island Railroad in 1975, for example, is still in force.
In recent years, Class I railroads have used track and train inspection waivers to test automated equipment and scaled back visual inspections by railroaders. Under the Biden administration, the FRA has consistently denied or ignored requests for extensions of existing waivers or requests for new ones when organized labor has opposed them.
The railroads say they want to turn track and train inspectors into fixers rather than finders of defects in cases where technology can do a better job. The unions say the railroads aim to deploy tech to replace workers and further reduce already thin employment levels.
TTD also urged FRA to propose regulations covering new technology.
“It is imperative that the FRA promulgate new regulations to address the introduction of new technology, equipment, or software, whether it is new or newly put into service, to provide for the safety and general welfare of railroad workers and the public who would be affected by the introduction of those products,” TTD said.
The policy statement urges the incoming Trump administration to provide job guarantees and training programs for rail workers who may be affected by technology advancements and to ensure workers are consulted about how new technology is used.
“No one understands the realities of rail operations on the ground as well as frontline workers. Whether it be the deployment of new technologies, the crafting of new work rules, or the promulgation of new regulations, the meaningful inclusion of rail workers in these conversations and consideration of workers’ input is the only way to maintain and promote safety now and in the future,” TTD said.
An old cliche is ‘rust never sleeps’ and the railroads have never stopped adopting technology to reduce head count since they first proved they could do so in the 1800s. My time on the railroad was relatively short – 10 years total – but I saw the BN, MILW and ATSF engage in technology-related head count reduction from the day I hired on until the day I took the BN’s earliest severance package in 1982. I don’t blame the trades for doing their best to hang on to their jobs, but I doubt they’ll succeed.
A tough situation for workers. Nobody wants to lose their job to automation, especially when everything costs more and they are struggling to keep their heads above water. Which makes me ask, how many of the respondents to this article are retired and not worried about a job.
Ha. If the horse carriage workers were unionized the rail workers wouldn’t even have a job today. And we’d still have horse poop all over our streets.
Apparently some are not aware of what they are saying, and what they say is nonsense. Less people to check on things means more people needed to fix things. Business always finds a way to do it better and cheaper.
Dockworkers are another union group seeking to stop automation and other processing improvements. The new Luddites?
Federal Railroad Administration should deny all railroad safety waiver requests that would permit the testing of “unproven technology.” How ridiculous is that statement. Testing is how you prove the technology. So this is an attempt to stop the progression of technologies that will make railroading safer.
Technology changes. We went through this previously with the unions fighting to keep a fireman in the diesel plus 2 brakemen–a crew of 5 on every freight.
There might be a compromise where some of the effected jobs are changed or even collapsed when the person holding them leaves, including the RR doing buy-outs of jobs as was done the prior century.
Look what the unions did to Boeing. Now they are laying off thousands of employees. The unions never complained about getting automated track machines with air conditioning. Give them a spike mall and tie tongs.
How does the rail industry differ from many other areas of employment from fast food to aircraft production and stevedores. Another industry parallel to railroading is trucking, less than twenty % of truckers are unionized, and if they get automated and rail unions fight against it they may lose all the jobs of all their members.
So, just how do you find out something new will work if you can’t test it ???
Supreme chutzpah! Imagine where we would have been without technological innovation: no diesels (no need for all the skilled laborers for steam locomotives), no trains even — unless carriages pulled by livestock, etc.