(The following article by Katherine Yung was posted on the Dallas Morning News website on February 19.)
DALLAS, Texas — Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. and other major railroads want to run some of their freight trains with only one employee on board, aiming to boost their profitability by eliminating thousands of jobs.
But the railroads’ efforts to slash jobs by deploying computer and global-positioning technologies are running into fierce resistance from unions representing the nation’s thousands of conductors and engineers.
In addition to concerns about job losses, the unions say that operating trains without conductors would be dangerous because the technology isn’t ready. The railroads insist the equipment is safe.
The contentious issue has become a major obstacle in negotiations for new labor contracts in the booming $42 billion industry.
“We would have an agreement with the carriers already if they weren’t pushing for one-person crews,” said Frank Wilner, a spokesman for the United Transportation Union, which represents 36,000 conductors in the contract talks.
Railroads such as Fort Worth-based BNSF, the nation’s second largest, have an incentive to take a hard stand at the bargaining table.
By some estimates, one-person crews could save the industry more than a billion dollars annually.
Even though railroads now operate with far fewer workers than in past decades, labor remains a huge expense.
At BNSF, compensation and benefits accounted for 35 percent of operating expenses last year.
The $3.5 billion tab far surpassed the $2 billion spent on fuel, the next biggest expenditure.
Moreover, during the next few years, railroads will have to spend millions of dollars hiring and training thousands of workers to replace a wave of retiring baby boomers. Forty-five percent of BNSF’s more than 40,000 employees will be eligible for retirement over the next 10 years.
One-person crews could help railroads avoid some of this burden. “There are significant savings to be had,” said Anthony Hatch, an independent rail analyst in New York. “It will be a big deal.”
Question of efficiency
BNSF and other railroads say existing staffing rules are not the most efficient way to run their trains. They point out that railroads are among the most capital-intensive businesses, requiring huge investments to maintain and expand tracks.
One-person crews are “central to the railroads’ ability to remain competitive,” said a spokesman for the National Carriers’ Conference Committee, the national bargaining agent for the railroads.
The savings would come at the cost of thousands of middle-class jobs. Even if railroads agree not to lay off workers, their jobs would be lost forever once they retire.
For unions, the financial reasons for adopting one-person crews ring hollow. Thanks to strong freight demand and a tidal wave of imports from China, railroads are making more money than they have in decades.
“They are making money hand over fist right now,” said Don Hahs, president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, which represents 35,000 rail employees. “Why not try to build a business instead of squeeze employees? We think we are very productive with a two-man crew.”
This isn’t the first time unions have faced such a threat. Decades ago, train crews consisted of five people: a conductor, engineer, fireman and two brakemen. Crews have been shrinking because of technological advances and huge leaps in productivity.
As a result, an industry that once employed 1.8 million people in 1917 – more than any other – now operates with just 236,000 workers. Yet railroads are moving four times more freight today than they did 100 years ago.
Positive control
The technology behind one-person crews, known as positive train control, serves as a kind of safety net for engineers, making it possible to operate without conductors.
The systems can automatically apply a train’s brakes to stop or slow it down if an engineer doesn’t respond to warning signals. This would help prevent trains from speeding, going through stop signals and straying from their approved travel areas.
The systems rely on on-board computers, a global positioning system and other devices to monitor and control trains. They give railroads a tool to combat human error, the leading cause of train accidents.
So far, railroads are in various stages of testing the technology, with BNSF the leader. For almost two years, the railroad has been piloting Wabtec Corp.’s Electronic Train Management System on 50 locomotives operating on 135 miles of track between the southern Illinois towns of Centralia and Beardstown.
Wabtec officials said last October that the pilot program had produced 1,300 error-free runs. BNSF is now seeking the federal government’s permission to deploy the technology from Fort Worth to Arkansas City, Kan., southeast of Wichita, said Denny Boll, BNSF’s assistant vice president of signals.
“It’s ready to go,” he said of the system.
So confident is BNSF of the technology that it filed a product safety plan with the Federal Railroad Administration in December to get approval to implement the system across its network. The plan is now being reviewed, a process that could take up to 180 days.
BNSF won’t discuss its efforts to implement one-person crews because of the ongoing labor negotiations. But Matthew Rose, its chairman and chief executive, told Wall Street analysts in a conference call last fall that after the second pilot program is completed, the railroad would be ready to implement the train control system.
“We think it is working exactly like it is intended to work,” he said. “It’s certainly not something that will happen in 2006, but … I’m positive that we’re not going to be satisfied at all of waiting until 2010.”
Different views
But the railroad’s unions offer a different assessment of the Illinois pilot program. During a third of the test runs, the technology did not operate the way it was supposed to, said Mr. Wilner of the conductors’ union.
The unions say more testing is needed. Though single operators now control fighter planes and many garbage trucks, freight trains are often more than 100 cars long, sometimes carrying dangerous chemicals such as chlorine.
“No union has ever stopped technology,” Mr. Wilner said. “We are not opposed to one-person crews when the technology has proven to be safe.”
BNSF disputes the unions’ assertions. “ETMS throughout the pilot has worked as intended,” said Patrick Hiatte, a company spokesman. “ETMS is doing what it’s supposed to do.”
The issue is hampering contract negotiations. In late January, the two unions representing engineers and conductors announced they were putting aside past differences to jointly oppose any reduction in train crew size, calling the move a danger to the lives of all rail workers and the public.
The bargaining agent for the railroads denied this accusation. “Any suggestion that the railroads would do anything to jeopardize the safety of their operations in the future is blatantly false,” it said.
The dispute has spread to the courts. The conductors’ union filed a lawsuit last March to prevent the railroads from bargaining over crew size in the current talks.
The suit says the issue cannot be negotiated on a national level because of existing local crew agreements. The railroads disagree.
The lawsuit is still pending.