Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen Local 16

Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen Local 16

TP Hudson

Recording Secretary Local 16

814 Mount Moriah Rd.

Greenwood, SC 29646

Minutes from the meeting at LaGrange, Ga. - March 17, 2013

President Karle called the meeting to order at 9:15 am.

President Karle appointed Brother Robert Shumpert to be Chaplain and Brother Mayfield to be Sergeant-at-Arms.

There were 3 local members, 7 members of the General Committee, and 3 Local officers present for this meeting. We welcomed Mr. Steve Martin, from the Tucker Law Office located in Birmingham, Al. We were also honored to have one of our new retired members and former general committee member, Brother JM “Smack” Bennett, on hand for our meeting.

President Karle introduced Mr. Martin and he commented on some of the litigation our BRS designated counsel, Mr. Bill Tucker, has been handling.

President Karle asked for a motion to accept the meeting minutes from Rocky Mount, N.C. Motion to accept the minutes by Brother Marcus Cocke, seconded by Brother Donnie Woolard, unanimously accepted.

Brother Billy Yates, Local 16 Financial Secretary, reported our membership is still strong at 595; several retirements at the end of 2012 reduced our numbers below 600. Plans to hire are in place for 2013; however, 2013 will be another year of numerous signalmen reaching the 60-year retirement age. Our unencumbered treasury funds are at 40k, and we continue to look toward increases through this year. As the 2014 BRS Convention approaches we could have as many as 14 delegates eligible to attend. Next year will be a busy election year, since Local and Convention elections will take place in early 2014.

President Karle gave Brother Bennett the floor to speak on legislative activities at the close of his rail career. Brother Bennett had been following lawmakers activities with respect to freight and passenger rail at the Georgia Legislature and had been active with the Georgia AFL-CIO for the past few years. Brother Bennett presented a short report to our meeting about some of the legislative bills in the Georgia House and Senate that are slanted toward anti-unionism. For example, a bill drafted and introduced in the Georgia Legislature by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce actually called for a law making it a felony to picket or protest to support labor organizing. This bill in itself hinders free speech and virtually makes it a crime to organize a picket line to strike. This kind of insanity demonstrates the efforts by corporations in Georgia to be insulated from organizing by creating laws to handcuff workers from forming associations.

President Karle asked for a report from the General Committee members:

Brother Yates from north Florida reported that he has recently filed 3 vacation claims (rule 10b).Time limits are close and he is looking for settlement soon.

Brother Ken Lamb has some pending hurricane overtime claims. He also commented that the PTC boom, which caused the Shop to put on a second shift, hasn’t really produced the heavy volume of wiring that was projected.

Brother Andy Harbin reported that PACS issues persist with JBID problems. Recently, Manchester Yard puts out “tie lights.” These apparatus convey the clearance point in a switch turnout. Brother Harbin has been consulting with the General Chairman as to the validity of calling these “signal lights.” Trainmasters or whoever placed these markers on the cross ties and if it is determined that this work could be covered by our Scope, a claim will follow. Brother Harbin also remarked that he is going to begin filing claims for the trainmasters performing shunt tests that alter signal aspects.

Brother Darrell Allen from North Carolina said that his claims have been handled. Not much to report.

Brother TP Hudson from South Carolina reported that he has currently has two signal teams working in the area replacing the signal system on the Monroe Sub. He also has?????????????

President Karle gave General Chairman Gus Demott the floor for a report from General Committee.

Brother Demott began with the problems with PACS. PACS functions before the implementation of JBID were done manually with clerks monitoring and trying to keep advertisement/award process accurate. When JBID came on line, automation should have made the system more reliable, but certain program provisions according to our agreement were either overlooked or misinterpreted. So, system errors exponentially introduced more problems under the JBID system. Brother Demott has been involved with a new web based system called JOBTRAX, which should come on line soon and it should alleviate the issues that JBID has created. We hold out hope that the railroad can get their manpower management under control with accuracy and dependability. Gus has devoted a lot of time taking care of the dilemma created by JBID. Please be patient when you call about a problem. Brother Demott mentioned that an email to Amanda Simmons, with a copy to him, should help correct an error without having to wait for action from his office. Her email is and his is

Based, in part, on the problems created by PACS and the agreement based requirements placed upon PACS, Brother Demott introduced a new idea. A concept that gives everyone seniority in all classes would greatly reduce the complicated process of bidding and acquiring seniority in higher classes. It’s an idea that has worked for the other departments and even in some BRS agreements. We haven’t constructed any agreement language and this change has not been presented to Labor Relations yet, however the General Committee has been discussing this new approach to seniority in the foreman/inspector and technician classes.

Brother Demott addressed the recent attendance day policy issue introduced by the railroad over the past couple months. It is our position that this policy goes outside of the IDPAP policy agreed to by the BRS and CSX. Furthermore it is compensation that is negotiated outside the Railway Labor Act, leaving out the BRS and our General Chairman, which is a violation of the Act itself. Our objection to the implementation of this policy has been presented to Labor Relations as an exception because it is outside the Railway labor Act and IDPAP. Gus read a reply from the railroad regarding the complaint. This issue is ongoing, but Brother Demott denounced the railroad’s actions and encouraged members not to accept or participate with the Attendance Days. The company is not giving you anything when you have to trade a day, by using a vacation day or other day, in order not to lose an “Attendance Day”. In essence, you are trading a day for a day, that’s a hell of a deal for the company. If you know about negative numbers then you know -1 + 1 = ZERO.

Gus opened discussion about the railroad’s pursuit of System Agreement Coordination. The railroad served a letter to all CSX General Chairmen just before Christmas calling for agreement consolidation. CSX has 11 working agreements across the entire system and CSX would like to reduce the number of agreements. On some former roads, the BRS has part time General Chairmen with a small number of members. The desired effect is to combine some of the smaller properties into the major committees, as well as, combining those separate agreements. There are currently 4 of those small properties within CSX. Our goal is to make agreements that have similar rules. Obviously, there are specialty rules that apply to former properties, as well as pay rates, and those will be important to retain. Some of the difficulty facing these talks is getting the different General Chairmen to agree with each other on the rule changes, then reaching a satisfactory agreement with the railroad, and then restructuring and consolidating the committees. Not only do we have negotiations to traverse, but we must change the structure of many committees. By-laws that govern general committees and locals will have to be changed, seniority districts will probably be combined, and treasuries will be dissolved and transferred. It is daunting and difficult, but we are making progress from our side. Our position, as far as Local 16 goes, is we are one third of the CSX system. Our agreement is current and up to date and our local only has one seniority district. This is a large part of what CSX wants and for this and we may not realize the changes that the rest of the system will have to make. Everything is still very preliminary so there’s been no big development to report other than this is what the railroad would like to accomplish. Discussions are moving very slow and that is good at this point. A question was asked about merging communication workers with the signal craft going into the future. Brother Demott remarked that any proposals, and there are none right now, between the communication workers and signalmen being combined by agreement would not, in his opinion, come via the current merger talks with the BRS. Meetings are scheduled through October.

Another issue that has arisen is the notification by TriRail that they would be moving to Phase B. Phase B is notification that TriRail would be fully taking over their Operations & Maintenance in south Florida. Back when TriRail was created an agreement provision, under 13c of the FTA gave workers railroad retirement benefits and union representation. Since TriRail has made a decision to be independent from CSX, the workers in south Florida would have a decision to make, work for TriRail, or use displacement rights on CSX. The 13c provisions would provide certain rights and protections to signalmen remaining on the TriRail property. Brother Floyd Mason, our VP from Grand Lodge, Brother Demott, Brother Soto and Brother Gaige are working on the issue and we will update you when we know more.

Members reported off due to illness: Brother Anthony Adams, Brother RH Carey, Brother CS Smith, Brother Eddie Ray, Brother Dan Bailey, Brother Mike Tyre, and Brother Buck Williamson.

The next regular meeting of Local 16 will be in Pineville, N.C. on Saturday, May 20, 2013 (near Charlotte). The meeting will be held at the Holiday Inn Express located at Pineville, N.C. The address is 9825 Leitner Dr. Pineville, NC, the phone number at this facility is 704 341 1190. (Exit off of I-485 outer loop to exit on Hwy 51 at Pineville)

Our meeting will begin at 9 AM. Please make every effort to attend.

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