(The following story by Foss Farrar appeared on the Ark City Traveler website on September 15.)
ARKANSAS CITY, Kan. — Some 150 to 200 railroad workers based in Arkansas City could have their jobs moved elsewhere if a management-labor dispute isn’t resolved soon.
The Burlington Northern Santa Fe management recently sent letters to local rail union leaders threatening to run some trains in interdivisional service from Kansas City to Oklahoma City, bypassing crew change stops in Ark City.
The letters were sent after union members failed to ratify a management proposal for a change in how crews operate between Ark City and Gainesville, Texas.
Steve Forsberg, a BNSF spokesman, said Monday that the letters are meant to spur further talks between senior representatives of labor and management. The talks will be held within the next few weeks.
“This is standard procedure when a proposed agreement like that is turned down,” Forsberg said. “Our operational management has made no secret that (a current labor pool agreement) is a real bad deal for the company economically. It’s not something we can live with.”
That agreement, known as the Purcell Long Pool, has been in place since 1972. It has allowed two-man conductor-engineer pool crews from Ark City and Gainesville to work the 261 rail miles between the two cities.
The BNSF wants to do away with the 1972 agreement because it is paying monthly penalties for not adhering to the agreed-upon labor cycle between the two cities.
However, BNSF does not plan to eliminate runs from Ark City and Gainesville completely, Forsberg said.
“Management also served notice that there would be a short pool to handle trains between Ark City and Oklahoma City,” he said, “and another notice between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth, with a short pool between Gainesville and Fort Worth.”
But some rail union leaders see the management proposals differently. They say BNSF apparently is working toward lengthening runs and eliminating Ark City as a crew change stop.
“The carrier has in mind to do away with the (Ark City) terminal,”said Mark Banton, vice general chairman of the Brotherhood of Local Engineers and Trainmen union. “It’s pretty dang close to a done deal.”
Banton said the railroad wants to keep “pushing the envelope” on the number of miles between crew change stops. For instance, the proposed interdivisional run between Kansas City and Oklahoma City is 356 miles.
But labor leaders are skeptical that a crew could make the 356-mile run within 12 hours, the federally mandated hours-of-service limit. Union officers contend that it is not viable for crews to make the proposed Kansas City-to-Oklahoma City run in twelve hours.
“This is a multi-billion dollar company and that isn’t too worried about any particular town,” he said. “To them, it’s a purely economic issue. If they could change crews four times on a run instead of six times, they would do it.”
Nevertheless, the unions will continue to “fight the good fight” in upcoming negotiations. They will try to save the Ark City and Gainesville terminals.
Forsberg commented on the possibility of changing freight train routes so that Ark City would be eliminated as a terminal.
“If nothing occurs in these upcoming discussions, that ultimately could happen,” he said. “But we’ll just have to wait and see what these discussions produce. That ends up being the ultimate alternative that could come to pass if there isn’t an acceptable solution that is worked out.”
Labor officers in Ark City said that the recent BNSF proposal was voted down by their members in part because it didn’t have any safeguard for workers if the proposed change in operation didn’t work out.
“It was a fairly decent agreement but it didn’t have any teeth in it,” said Jim McDaniel, the chairman of Local 464, United Transportation Union. “And an agreement without teeth is no agreement at all.”
McDaniel said the agreement wasn’t acceptable because it didn’t contain a cancellation clause for labor.
“The carrier (BNSF) always has a cancellation clause so they can get out of it, but we had none,” he said.
A cancellation clause allows either party to cancel the agreement by giving notice within a certain number of days, if the agreement isn’t working, he added.