Other train accident rate-Other train accidents per million locomotive and mor train-miles, 1961-65

1

1 Based on locomotive and motor train-miles for 1961 to 1964 as revised by H. E. Greer; 1965 data from ICC Statement M-400.

Source of basic data: Interstate Commerce Commission, Statement M-400; Report to the Committee on Commerce, U.S. Senate, on the Administration of Public Law 88-108. Witness: I. E. Greer, p. app...

Senator BARTLETT. Does that complete the testimony to be presented by your group, Mr. Heiss?

Mr. HEISS. No, Mr. Chairman. As Mr. Gilbert indicated, we have the statements of a number of witnesses which we would like to offer and have incorporated in the record.

We do not have the witnesses present and we shall not produce them unless the committee so wishes. It would take me 2 or 3 minutes to identify these statements and then our presentation is closed.

Senator BARTLETT. All right. You may proceed.

Mr. HEISS. At pages 34 and following of the printed proceeding Mr. Gilbert testified as to a number of wrongs common to most of the carriers involved in these proceedings and described in some detail the injuries resulting from these wrongs.

I shall not repeat those injuries as described by Mr. Gilbert. Mr. Gilbert's description of the injuries and the hardships was supported i by the testimony of any number of brotherhood witnesses and other i individuals coming from the individual properties. Those state-1 ments were read orally to the committee at the hearings last session

At the close of the last session, the committee heard from a num ber of railroad personnel and transportation officers in the mai answering the descriptions of the hardships and the injuries made by Mr. Gilbert, supported by the testimony of the witnesses. We have now rebuttal statements from the brotherhood witnesses a follows:

Statement of G. E. Dunaway, general chairman, B.L.F. & E in rebuttal to the statement of R. L. Grimes, assistant chic transportation officer, Louisville & Nashville Railroad.

Rebuttal statement of William Bueker, in rebuttal to the statement of W. L. More, vice president, personnel, Atchison Topeka, & Santa Fe Railroad.

Statement of Harold G. Spencer, general chairman, B.L.F. & E in rebuttal to statement of William J. Ahearne, director of labe relations and personnel, Boston & Maine Railroad.

Rebuttal statement of M. H. Nelsen, general chairman, the Pennsylvania Railroad Co., in rebuttal to the statement of Mr. N. P. Patterson, manager, labor relations, Pennsylvania Railroad Co.

Rebuttal statement of J. W. Price, general chairman, B.L.F. & E., Pennsylvania Railroad Lines (west), in rebuttal to the statement of N. P. Patterson, manager, labor relations, Pennsylvania Railroad Co.

Statement of Ted Morgans, general chairman, B.L.F. & E., the Central Railroad Co. of New Jersey, in rebuttal to the statement of J. A. Craddock, vice president and general manager of the Central Railroad Co. of New Jersey.

Rebuttal statement of R. C. Gilbert in rebuttal to the statement of J. A. Craddock, vice president and general manager of the Central Railroad Co. of New Jersey.

Rebuttal statement of R. E. Bretz, in rebuttal to the statement of J. A. Craddock, vice president and general manager of the Central Railroad Co. of New Jersey.

Rebuttal statement of A. B. McNabney, general chairman, B.L.F. & E., Southern Pacific Co., Pacific Lines, in rebuttal to the statement of L. M. Fox, assistant manager of personnel, Southern Pacific Co., Pacific Lines.

Statement of Beecher F. Worden, general chairman, B.L.F. & E. in rebuttal to statement of B. W. Smith, director of labor relations, Missouri Pacific Railroad.

Rebuttal statement of R. J. Green, general chairman, B.L.F. & E., Union Pacific Railroad Co. Lines (east), in rebuttal to statement of G. L. Farr and W. L. Burner, Jr.

Statement of William Stephenson, general chairman, B.L.F. & E., in rebuttal to statement of J. J. Ratcliff, director of labor relations, St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Co. (The statements referred to above follow:)

STATEMENT OF G. E. DUNAWAY, GENERAL CHAIRMAN, B.L.F. & E. IN REBUTTAL TO STATEMENT OF R. L. GRIMES, ASSISTANT CHIEF TRANSPORTATION Officer, LOUISVILLE & NASHVILLE RAILROAD

My name is Glennis E. Dunaway and I am general chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad L. & N. district. I testified before this committee previously on August 2 and 3, 1965. My background and qualifications appear in the record commencing at page 174. In an attempt to rebut my statement, the carrier offered as a witness Mr. R. L. Grimes, assistant chief transportation officer of the L. & N. Railroad. He gave his statement on September 24, 1965, which appears beginning at transcript 1511. My comments today will be limited to some of the more serious of the false and misleading statements made by the carrier witness.

The carrier's complete lack of defense to the allegations of fact made in my statement is apparent at the outset. After stating that the application and interpretation of the award of board 282 and the application of existing collective bargaining agreements is not his "primary field" (transcript, 1512), the carrier witness proceeds to discuss at great length the effect of the award in general and in particular a program for accelerated retirement of certain engineman. (See transcript 1515-1523.) The carrier witness concludes that his descriptio of the voluntary retirement program "more than answers, in its broadest aspects, any claim that we have discriminated against younger firemen and at the same time heaped distress on our older men" (transcript, 1523). Since the carrier's defense to its gross misconduct rests on the voluntary retirement program, it is well to shed some light on that program.

The carrier would have this committee believe that it initiated the voluntary retirement program for the benefit of the C-6 firemen -that is, firemen with more than 2 but less than 10 years of seniority. Instead of severing the hundreds of C 6 firemen on the railroad, what the carrier said it did was to "institute an early retirement program for locomotive engineers and elder nonpromotable firem et.. In semority order we offered the option of retirement with the payment of the equivalent of 1 year's salary on those seniority districts where we had a sur;. .s of fremen. These employees earned from $8,000 to $15,000 per year and this offer on our part was a costly one" (transcript, 1519). Allegedly, this progrÁTT, cost the carrier over $25; million and “dramatically benefited all remaining engine service employees and most particularly those firemen" who were the subject of my chief complaints (transcript, 1516).

Now let's examine the true motivation of the carrier in enacting this "volunt arv retirement program." The true reason for the carrier's putting the program i do effect was to save the carrier millions of dollars. As you will recall, under t award C-6 firemen have to be retained in service as firemen unless the carrier offered them comparable jobs with guaranteed earnings for 5 years equal to trvar earnings for the year prior to the effective date of the award. For several years prior to the award the L & N. had a severe shortage of firemen and had ref is i to hire new firemen in order to alleviate the shortage. The result was that meet firemen were required to work considerable periods of overtime and had unuses av large earnings. If the C6 tremen had been offered and accepted compar.." jobs, the carrier would have been required to guarantee them their uniwerally high car angs for a period of 5 years. To illustrace, the most junior C 6 trenin at the time the award took effect on the main stem first division was B.. A. T.-* * * His 1963 earnings exceeded $11,000. Thus, the L. & N. would have had to guarantee lam $55,000 over a 5-year period if he were offered and accepted a comparable job. Sizce Turner was the most junior man, the other fremet mi ta senior to him had even greater earnings prior to the award. It was for this TV that the carrier embarked on the voluntary retirement program in with at paid $2 million to induce the retirement of engineers and certain no-promota serdor ( 7 firemen as to whom the carrier was required to employ as tremen under the award. The carrier eliminated approximately 230 engorers alul senior fire men.

It was far less expensive for the carrier to pay these men from 88,000 15 815,00 each. At a conference held early in 1965 I was told by W. S. Schou, director of personnel, and H. Wasser, a traveling accountant for the L. & N., 450 a ja ni sponsible for the estimates of the costs and savings for this program, that by J 1965, the L. & N. would save $9 million after taxing it to accomp. ps p investment.

Contrary to the carrier witness' statement, the program had no bene** in fact is a detriment to the junior firemen who were not promoted to tak Admittedly, these men were not permitted to exercise their seracnity to the hi paying road freight firemen jobs but were linated to the lesser paytag, less deng yard and hosthi az assignments. Moreover, the Voluntary retirement progr was made available by the carrier only on those divisions where there was sla”. number of € 6 bremen whom the carrier would have to offer comparable unless it could indice engineers to retire. Thus, the program was selective a for the carrier's bene't.

In my opening statement I explained in detail how the carrier uila?c? a. v abolished the seiority rights of the firemen who were retained in service and denied them their night to bid m on the more preferible and better paving ji Irvsscript, 176 wd following pages. Most significantly the cater wi admitted t: is evil practice when he said that under the voluntary retirement program I he senior men, those holding the better firemen jobs, were ad nuoret to e albeer while the more jutor firemet, moved up to rejuar firemen ass g Trascript, 1520 emphasis suppled- Thus the retained thereto a not permattu 1 to move up to the "better" assigning's n. accordance with ti I ́e nature and elarveter of the carrier's half-trut' s and complete misri permu 17,828 Also n beated by other statements mad by the earTION, WITTION

volat "ary retirement program For esan ple

T: h a tw of the carrers gebetasty 15 paving the rotorea A vaca' of allowa 1༞་པ་ན་རྩི་སོ་ixf $a, 6« !༞"g° T* 1'e fact is bow ver, !' .' t ༈ »E II f ཉོནམས ༈ས ན ར བྱས {u % %, "、”nf, %£「zwa8z» vi Pe carrier was required to pay it un fer ex »* 152

1521

css refers to a statement by a Me Herron strat se PLATTICE W Press fajed to not a Mr Herron was a general organ

for a labor organization for 16 years. That is how he "worked on 50 class I railroads" (transcript, 1521). The fact that Herron was a general organizer for a labor organization for 16 years and retired to work in the personnel department of this carrier is sufficient explanation for his self-serving statement.

With respect to Fireman Posey the statement quoted by the carrier at transcript 1521 proves again the overwhelming importance of the seniority principle. As to Posey, however, the fact is that he was able to obtain a regular job as a fireman for a period of at least 1 year prior to the effective date of the award. This is admitted by the carrier witness at page 1522. Therefore, even if the voluntary retirement program had not been put into effect Mr. Posey would have been able to hold a regular assignment.

The carrier witness also seeks to give the impression that the carrier offered to rehire all of the C-2 firemen who were severed from employment under the award (transcript, 1517). In fact, the carrier never did offer to reemploy all of these firemen at the time their jobs were terminated as firemen. Indeed, there were many such firemen who applied for reemployment whom the carrier refused to hire.

The carrier witness points with pride to the carrier's action in separating only one C-6 fireman (transcript, 1519). I have previously indicated why the carrier chose not to offer comparable jobs to the C-6 firemen. Such a job offer is essential under the award before the carrier can separate a C-6 fireman. The carrier did, in fact, offer only four so-called comparable jobs to five C-6 firemen on the Cumberland Valley division. These men were offered jobs as brakemen and four of the men accepted them. One of the men did not want to work as a brakeman and the carrier, therefore, paid him the severance allowance. This man did not "demand" a severance allowance, but was entitled to it under the award after the carrier decided to offer him a "comparable" job.

Beginning at transcript 1523 the carrier witness attempts to meet some of the specific hardship claims that I described beginning at transcript 177. Previously I explained how the carrier discriminated against senior firemen in relation to the extra board (transcript, 177-179). In response the carrier witness said that "when a junior C-6 or C-7 man is forced off the board a blankable job is bulletined. This gives every man on the roster a chance to bid on the new regular job and move off the extra board depending on their seniority status" (transcript, 1524). This statement is false. Up until the time I testified in August 1965, the carrier had not bulletined blankable jobs in order to permit bidding on them on a seniority basis. Rather, the junior men who were forced off the board were merely assigned by the carrier to these regular jobs. Since the time I testified, the carrier has begun to bulletin blankable jobs when necessary to reduce pool or extra boards and when C-6 or C-7 men are displaced.

At transcript 1525 the carrier witness quotes my earlier statement that: "As a result of the artificially created shortage of firemen by the carrier practices * * * many senior firemen are required to serve on their off days***” *. Apparently the carrier witness quotes this with approval because he does not deny the fact. Certainly, there is nothing contradictory in my earlier remarks that the carrier has rehired as firemen a total of five C-2 firemen.

With respect to the "guaranteed pool" (transcript, 1525-1526) the fact is that the carrier refused to pay men assigned to the pool the amount required under the guarantee. In view of this fact the B.L.F. & E. had no reason to request transfer of men from the extra board to the guaranteed pool board. The carrier witness must be aware that I have filed many claims on behalf of firemen for payment under the guaranteed pool board requirements, which claims the carrier has always denied.

In my opening statement I noted that as a result of the shortage of firemen created artificially by the carrier's practices, there are many senior firemen who are required to serve on assignments on their off days (transcript, 180). The carrier witness did not deny this directly but offered to show that firemen generally are working less hours since the award (transcript, 1526-1528). He said that the carrier response was "tedious, time consuming, and expensive.' If what I said was wrong the carrier's response could have been a simple denial. In any event, the carrier witnesses' conclusion, based on its computation and comparison of average hours worked, is misleading and erroneous. The period prior to the award from March through May 1963 was a time when firemen were working in all classes of service; namely, freight, local freight, mine run switching. These jobs always had a considerable amount of overtime. However, during the same 3 months in 1965 the carrier had blanked the through freight, local freight, and mine switching jobs which carried heavy overtime hours. Since the

firemen were not permitted to be assigned to these jobs (except on the few vetoed jobs) the average overtime put in by the firemen during the 1965 3-month period would obviously be much less than it was in the same 3 months in 1963. Further, most of the jobs open to firemen in the 1965 3-month period are yard assignments where there is considerably less overtime.

The carrier witness admits that it has operated vetoed freight and yard assignments without firemen-helpers in plain violation of the award (transcript, 181. 1528). In an attempt to justify this the carrier witness said that this practice has been only "sporadic.' The fact is, however, for example, that during the period from January 1 to July 5, 1965, the carrier operated 90 vetoed assignments without firemen on the Cincinnati division, Kentucky seniority district. On nine of these occasions the carrier employed an engineer in lieu of a fireman. That apparently is what the carrier witness means by "sporadic." I advised the committee as to some of these specific facts in response to a question by Senator McGee (transcript, 221), and the carrier witness has not controverted them.

The carrier witness also seeks to justify the use of engineers in lieu of firemen on the ground that the men also had "firemen seniority" (transcript, 1529). Of course every engineer has seniority as a fireman-that is how they got to be engineers. The carrier witness would also justify operating vetoed assignments without firemen on the basis of its interpretation of a 1961 agreement (transcript, 1529). That agreement, however, relates to emergency situations and not to shortages of firemen which exist over a period of many months or when the carrier has created the shortage artificially.

The carrier witness also states that the B.L.F. & E. protested the carriers attempt to schedule examinations for promoting firemen to engineers on the ground that the examinations were being given too soon and the men were not qualified to take it (transcript, 1530). In October 1965, just subsequent to the time the carrier witness testified before this committee, the U.S. District Court in Louisville, Ky., issued an injunction restraining the L. & N. Railroad from giving the examinations on the ground that the men were not yet qualified. In particular, the injunction restrained the carrier, on two of its divisions, from giving the pro- ! motional examinations because the men did not have the 3 years in road service as required under the existing rules, and therefore were not qualified to be promoted. That decision substantiates my earlier statement that the rule requires firemen to have at least 3 years' experience in road service before they can be promoted to engineer (transcript, 182). The carrier witness also failed to state why the carrier sought to promote inexperienced firemen. The reasons are: (1) the shortage of engineers which, in turn, is due to the carrier's severing too many firemen as a result of Public Law 88-108 and award 282; and (2) the carrier has blanked all road freight assignments other than the vetoed jobs, thus limiting I severely the number of firemen who have 3 years' experience in road service. Indeed, the shortage was and is so acute that the carrier attempted to promote some firemen who had less than 6 months' experience in road freight service.

To illustrate some of the monetary hardships imposed by the carrier under the award I cited the cases of fireman B. A. Turner and A. M. Holden and noted that as a result of the carrier's application of the award the income of these men was cut in half (transcript, 182-3). With respect to these men the carrier witness states his "investigation revealed some rather interesting details" but these "details" did not contradict my prior statement (transcript, 1531). The carrier witness would have this committee believe that newly hired firemen have higher earnings in their first year of employment than they do in their second ! and third years. This simply is not true. In Turner's case, for example, during 1962, his first year of employment, he earned $8,291. In his second year, 1963. he earned $11,213. In 1964 he earned $9,642. However, of the latter amount $6,282 was earned in the first 6 months of 1964 and only $3,360 was earned in the last 6 months of 1964 (after the award took effect in May). The carrier witness' statement that "upon application of the award they (Turner and Holden) were forced to hostling service for the first time" is also erroneous (transcript, 1532). These men were first assigned to hostling service on March 13, 1963, or more than 1 year prior to the effective date of the award. While the carrier witness' explanation is thus in error, the significant fact is that he admits that as a result of the award the average earnings of these firemen were cut in half.

Beginning with transcript 186, I noted the monetary hardship imposed on fireman R. B. Dowell and emphasized that since he had approximately 16 years of seniority as a fireman he was not be affected at all by the arbitration award. The carrier witness states that Dowell's hardship statement is untrue (transcript, 1533). However, the carrier witness admits that in comparing the earnings of