(The following article by Michael Hooper was posted on the Capital-Journal website on February 27.)
TOPEKA, Kansas — Eighty-nine union workers for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway are waiting for transfer agreements before deciding whether to move to Topeka, a company official said Thursday.
Nearly three months after BNSF announced it plans to transfer 93 jobs to Topeka, unions representing six trades haven’t reached final transfer agreements for 89 union jobs, BNSF spokesman Steve Forsberg said Thursday.
However, a union official told The Hawk Eye in Burlington, Iowa, that a tentative agreement could lead to some Burlington employees finding work in Galesburg, Ill.
BNSF announced in December that its locomotive repair shops would be consolidated in Topeka, bringing 89 union workers and four salaried people to Topeka. BNSF said 44 workers would remain in Burlington.
Dell Babcock, general chairman of the Chicago-based International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, told The Hawk Eye that railroad and union leaders had reached a tentative agrement that would spell out the work transfer. Of the 61 machinists Babcock represented during the negotiations, “no one will be required to go to Topeka,” Babcock said.
Forsberg said 89 workers in Burlington hadn’t made decisions about whether they would be coming to Topeka. They won’t make their decisions until implementing agreements, addressing the transfer of work, are finalized. Unions are representing machinists, electricians, boilermakers, car men, laborers and sheet metal workers.
Forsberg didn’t know how many furloughed workers would be offered jobs in Topeka.
“That will hinge on how many in Burlington choose to transfer,” Forsberg said.
Forsberg didn’t offer a timetable when work would transfer to Topeka, which was first announced Dec. 3.
“The transfer will occur once the implementing agreements are signed and taken care of,” he said. “We’re obviously much closer now than we were Dec. 3.”