The text below is from General Chairman R. D. Kerley's April 22, 2005 letter to BNSF Vice President-Labor Relations John Fleps which addresses the propaganda currently being circulated by BNSF's Labor Relations Department thru local Operating Supervisors. This communication specifically addresses the Carrier's ridiculous assertion that they are pursuing changes in UTU Crew Consist agreements in order to enhance safety on BNSF.

"I have read your April 15, 2005 missive to UTU International President Paul Thompson, and I am writing to comment on your assertion that

“we want a safer operation, as the technology, which is here now, allows.”

Similar statements have been made by your Operating Supervisors in the field, based on certain “talking points” that they have been instructed to utilize in conversation with operating employees in the workplace.

Your statement implies that BNSF currently has some new, proven technology that will assure a safer operation, but you are somehow prohibited from implementing that safety enhancement because of the existing UTU Crew Consist Agreement. I assure you that no Crew Consist Agreement stands in the way of implementing any new technology that will enhance safety on BNSF. Indeed, I am quite sure that BNSF’s Beardstown ETMS pilot project has been conducted with absolutely no changes in any Crew Consist Agreement. If a safer operation is what you seek, then let’s get on with it under current Crew Consist rules.

Your statement could be taken to mean that BNSF is withholding this new safety-enhancing technology (needlessly endangering your employees) based on a Labor Relations strategy intended to leverage changes in existing Crew Consist Agreements that cannot be legally achieved otherwise. If so, then BNSF’s behavior is unconscionable, and you must implement those new safety-enhancing technologies as soon as possible. If implementation requires some additional duties by UTU represented employees, I assure you that no Section 6 Notice is necessary to initiate discussions on such implementation under current Crew Consist rules. Just give me a call.

You have suggested that the parties have been “talking past one another” so I will attempt to state my view of the situation very clearly.

1. BNSF wants to invest in new technology in order to achieve even greater productivity and profitability.


2. BNSF wants to implement that new technology as safely as possible in order to avoid regulatory intrusion and injury liability.


3. BNSF does not want to finance these new technologies from the huge profits it has enjoyed from past Crew Consist changes.


4. BNSF wants the very employees who made those huge profits possible to also pay for these new technologies through even further reductions in crew size.


5. BNSF can’t eliminate the engineer until they have the appropriate technology, and that technology definitely is not here yet.


6. Thus, BNSF is looking to lay this burden on the backs of the ground service crafts, but then there’s that pesky UTU Crew Consist moratorium.

It was probably not accidental that the list of items you cited as being covered by our UTU Crew Consist moratorium (in your letter to President Thompson and in the propaganda assimilated by your operating supervisors in the field) omits “pure attrition” which just happens to be the first item mentioned in that moratorium provision. Pure attrition has obviously not occurred, but the Carriers served a Section 6 Notice anyway, and they served it on UTU International President Paul Thompson instead of the General Chairmen who have exclusive jurisdiction over Crew Consist issues. That’s why we’re in the courthouse.