(The following article by Joe Malinconico was posted on the Newark Star-Ledger website on August 19. William Keppen is a former BLE Vice-President and Robert Vallochi is the BLET’s General Chairman for New Jersey Transit.)
NEWARK, N.J. — It was the promotion nobody wanted.
The immediate supervisors of veteran train engineers and conductors at NJ Transit were making less money than their crews. In fact, five veterans resigned from their management positions last winter to return to higher-paying rank-and-file jobs, leaving less-experienced workers to fill their slots.
Now, in an attempt to recruit supervisors with more experience, NJ Transit has raised salaries for the positions.
Starting last month, the agency’s 12 senior road foremen, who supervise 402 engineers, received an extra $10,000 a year, bringing their average salary to $80,000. Engineers with five years of experience averaged $77,800 last year, including overtime.
Meanwhile, NJ Transit’s 19 trainmasters, who oversee 1,086 conductors and trainmen, received an extra $5,000, boosting their annual pay to about $75,000. The average salaries for conductors and trainmen with five years’ experience were in the upper $60,000s, officials said.
“This is a small investment that will achieve big gains,” NJ Transit spokeswoman Lynn Bowersox said. “At the end of the day, it’s all about safety, and we put our money where our mouths are when it comes to safety.”
The salary discrepancy drew scrutiny earlier this year, after train operators drove through stop signals six times between November 2004 and March 2005 and NJ Transit hired a consultant to review engineers’ training and supervision.
The consultant, William Keppen, attributed the stop signal violations to engineers who were not focused on what they were doing, rather than to any systematic flaw in training or supervision. But Keppen recommended NJ Transit improve the training for its supervisors.
“Mr. Keppen’s interviews also confirmed that salary compression is the principal reason why it’s been historically difficult to attract and retain high-quality, experienced locomotive engineers to road foreman jobs,” NJ Transit Executive Director George Warrington wrote in a letter to the agency’s board of directors.
At present, NJ Transit has two openings among its road foremen.
Union officials said veteran engineers are more likely to apply for those positions with the new salary structure in place.
“I think this will make a big difference,” said Robert Vallochi, general chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.