A Regulatory Solution to Railroad Worker Fatigue

A Petition for a Regulatory Solution
to Railroad Worker Fatigue

Calling Upon:

The Federal Railroad Administration
The Department of Transportation
The Department of Labor
The National Transportation Safety Board
The Surface Transportation Board
The National Mediation Board
The North American Rail Alertness Partnership
The Association of American Railroads

Along With:

The Rail Carriers of The United States of America, including
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway
CSX Rail Inc.
Consolidated Rail Inc.
Norfolk Southern Inc.
Union Pacific Inc.
Kansas City Southern Industries
Railamerica Inc.
National Railroad Passenger Corp.

For And In Behalf of: The Train Yard & Engine Workers of the Railroad Industry

The undersigned railroad employees and supporters petition for the commission of a regulatory approach to counter fatigue in the railroad industry. For several years now, the affect of fatigue on train yard and engine employees has been documented as a severe problem and a serious concern for the workers, carriers, and citizens of the United States. Despite substantial evidence, no formative advances have been implemented to counter fatigue and protect the safety, labor rights, and quality of life for rail employees. It is evident to us that a significant factor in this stagnant enforcement is the lack of regulations, governmental or otherwise, that mandate rest and recuperation for railroad employees.

This petition is born from the distress-- physically, mentally and emotionally-- that fatigue brings upon us. It is important to realize that fatigue is not only a industry safety issue, but also a human rights issue when concerned with the quality of life of railroad employees. Below are a set of key reasons why fatigue must be addressed.

1) A Safety Risk to the Industry: Employees who work long shifts (12-14 hours) with little time for rest, pose a serious risk when they return to work, specifically by an inability to recognize their own condition. The FRA has stated: The costs related to fatigue are often hidden in the carnage of fire and twisted metal, in the sorrow of weeping families, and in the tragedy of maimed and disfigured human beings.

The FRA has likened chronically fatigued workers as functionally synonymous with drugged or drunk individuals. (FRA Fatigue Countermeasures Presenters Guide 3/15/98)

2) A Health Risk to the Workers: Several studies researched by the government, labor, and private parties, prove that when given an erratic schedule, specifically shift schedules, the human body weakens to the point of shutting down its basic needed functions, including: immunity, growth, and digestion. These workers are more sick, with a much lower life expectancy. Its important to realize that train yard and engine employees have schedules that are MORE erratic than shift workers, with more time per week on duty.

It should also be mentioned, a sick or injured employee has no substantial amount of time to plan a doctors visit, has no schedule to commit to such a visit, and even less time to file a claim for the injury incurred. This leads to an extremely large amount of untreated and unreported injuries, and a statistic that unfairly allows the railroad industry to claim: We are safe.

3) Inability to Address Union Issues: Railroad labor, which is accorded restricted rights for protest under the Railway Labor Act, must instead use collective bargaining power and information organization to fight what they may consider a wrong doing. However, the railroad industry, which has the mandate to function continuously, in effect nullifies the organizing power of railroad unions by requiring employees to call in sick or take a paid day off when they are unavailable for work during union meetings and events. This swing in pay can be as large as one thousand dollars, and puts the responsibility of organizing on the shoulders of a weary few, and an unavailable many.

This must also be taken in stride with the sparse amount of time employees are given after shifts, perhaps enough time to loosely meet federal guidelines for sleep, but most certainly not enough time to meet the needs of both sleep and labor issues, thus, paralyzing the union from any action, as they choose sleep in order to stay alive.

4) Inability to Meet Personal Needs: The majority of working railroad employees function under restricted amounts of rest that create a system pursuant to starving employees of sleep. An hourly amount of time is accounted for rest, but takes no notice of the time to perform other functions necessary to surviving, such as: Eating, parenting, paying bills, buying groceries anything whatsoever. Railroad workers must choose whether to rest or meet these basic needs. If we sleep, our quality of life plummets to that of working and sleeping, if we choose to meet our basic needs, we rob ourselves of medically needed rest, and injure ourselves as well as provide a serious safety risk.

We have found that the problem is inherent in a system that allows employees to work twelve hours awake, often on duty for fourteen, and are restricted to only six to eight hours off, whether or not they rest, and then allows for another twelve to fourteen hour day. This is not suitable.

5) Inability to Address Wrongs from our Employers: Every railroad employee must understand and maintain an intricate amount of regulations and guidelines while operating or servicing a train, and has little time to keep abreast of the constant contractual changes and missed pay. The railroads have created complicated systems of forms for claiming pay, many of which are initially denied, and we as employees are too weary to follow up on unrightfully denied pay, allowing the carriers to work us without compensation.

We have little time to understand the rules by which our employer must abide, or enforce such rules violations because we are barely given time to eat and sleep.

We have found it evident that through the present system we create a health and safety risk, and are prevented, in tremendous manners, from righting the wrongs that might be put upon us.

We have found it evident in our working conditions that current policy allows for a mandate to be given, but provides no methods of insuring implementation. This is largely due to the fact that the Department of Transportation and Federal Railroad Administration have neglected to enact regulations, favoring the carriers with the argument: We cant stop the railroad, it runs the nation. Thus allowing a human cost. These points are crystal clear in the comment by NTSB Leader Marion Blakely:

"Throughout all modes of transportation, our investigations have found that lost sleep equals lost lives."

Marion Blakely has also made repeated recommendations for a regulatory approach to railroad fatigue.

We realize that it is our duty to right these wrongs, as a labor force and a supporter of the railroads, but the system has been so construed as to prevent a rail worker to solve these problems, moreover, they have given the railroads an amount of leverage that approaches tyranny.

We also realize that it is the duty of The Federal Railroad Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board, The Department of Labor, The National Mediation Board, and state legislative boards, to protect our RIGHT TO SOLVE our own problems.

Understanding these problem, we implore, yea, demand that train yard & engine employees be allotted our basic human need for rest through regulation based reform., and the restriction of punishment for railroad employees who must have rest in order to survive and function. We call upon the regulatory agencies named above to give our nations railroad workers a voice, and see these regulations enacted upon all carriers. In closing, we stress that the issue of fatigue is inevitable; it WILL produce devastating repercussions if its not addressed and countered promptly.


The Trainmen, Engineers, Conductors, and Foremen
U.S. Railroad Industry