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It is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Newsline, the esteemed newsletter of Local 701 has published Norm Abraham's poem, "Burger and I" in their Apr - May '96 edition.

Norman's poetry has been very popular with the readers of Meeting Point, he is perpetuating a long tradition of poem and song associated with the romance of the rails. Norm has become a much appreciated regular contributor and we hope he will continue to provide us with his lyric tales of railway life. His poems are proving to be railway legends in the making, read his latest, "Magic Show" inside.

While we're on the topic of regular contributors, how about hoistin' yer mug in honor of the enigmatic Junk Yard Dog, who has dispensed his special brand o' wisdom from the deck of the good ship Meeting Point since the day she was launched. Long may his flag wave. Thanks too to Bob, Steve, Brian, Rod and all the others who have made this newsletter into what it is today. Just remember your deadlines guys!

B C Rail has recently introduced a program encouraging employees to live a healthy life. We in the running trades appreciate the company's concern for our health and welfare but, due to our irregular lifestyles, find it difficult to participate in the activities needed to accumulate lifestyle points. So, for the benefit of the running trades, here is the Meeting Point version, where it is much easier to accumulate points if you are…

	In a 36 hour round trip the only exercise you get is walking to the Totem for the smorg. - 15 pts
	Night train - Same as above only you go to work between 2100 and 0400 - 20 pts
	Walked the bridges +10 pts
	Tear a muscle in your back trying to knock off hand brakes - 10 pts
	Gain ten pounds after going into engine service - 10 pts (score 1 bonus point for each additional pound)

	Wife complains you're gone too much - 10 pts
	Divorce - 20 pts
	Friends stop calling 'cause you never show up for functions -10 pts
	Turn down request to coach kids ball team or get involved in the community (always on call) - 10 pts
	Agree to become science project on sleep disorders +10 pts
	Wrote something published by Meeting Point +25 pts

(Bonus! Write something for Meeting Point and you will be healthy, wealthy, happy and live a very long time!)

	Bought retirement property nowhere near a railway + 20 pts
	Managed a budget on 60 hour guarantee + 20 pts

600-500 Congratulations! You're dead! We don't have to give you anything.

200-400 Average. Should collect about six pension checks.

0-200 Wow! How do you do it? You get a free smorgasbord at the Totem.

FORT WORTH, Texas, February 6, 1996 -- On February 6, 1996, in Crow Agency, Montana, a Crow Nation Tribal Court jury, composed entirely of enrolled members of the Crow Tribe, returned a verdict against Burlington Northern Railroad Company (BN), an indirect subsidiary of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation (BNSF), for $250 million in compensatory damages in a civil case arising out of a 1993 grade-crossing accident on the Crow Indian Reservation

The accident occurred on November 22, 1993, at approximately 10:15 a.m. at a public grade crossing, protected by crossbucks and advance warning signs, on a rural gravel road just south of Lodge Grass, Montana. The crossing had been accident free for its nearly fifty-year existence.

An automobile driven by 17-year-old Regina Bull Tail was struck by a BN train traveling 41 miles per hour -- well below the 60 miles-per-hour maximum track speed for the area. Bull Tail was fatally injured, as were her passengers -- Beverly Red Wolf, 54, Ms. Bull Tail's mother, and Chantina Red Horse, 15. Both the driver and her mother were very intoxicated (blood alcohol levels of .18 percent and .32 percent, respectively). The plaintiffs are five heirs of Bull Tail and Red Wolf.

Jeffrey R. Moreland, BNSF senior vice president-Law, said, "We are shocked and astounded by the verdict, which we firmly believe is wholly unjustified and the product of proceedings that lacked any semblance of fundamental fairness." Among other things, the Tribal Court judge refused to exclude from the jury panel numerous close friends and relatives of the plaintiffs and the deceased women and, ultimately, over BN's strenuous objection, permitted the jury to include a nephew of one of the plaintiffs.

Mr. Moreland stated that BN "intends to pursue vigorously an appeal to the Crow Tribal Appellate Court and, if unsuccessful there, to ask the federal district court in Billings, Montana, to set the verdict aside on the grounds that the Tribal Court lacked jurisdiction and that BN's fundamental due process rights were violated. BN believes that it has strong arguments available to it to eliminate altogether this adverse verdict."

Given the strength of BN's legal arguments, available insurance and existing reserves, BNSF does not expect that the ultimate outcome of this matter will have material impact on BNSF's results of operations or financial condition.

This BN Rail news release and others can be found at: BN News Releases at BN Rail

"The Junk Yard Dog is in the brig!", read the headlines. At least they should 'av, but hey, sometimes ye gets lucky.

"So pass the rum, swabby and let us swap some lies."

"Where is Mister Nightcrawler? He's always good for a couple. What's that? Ye say he's gone underground? Ahhrrr."

Well, let's chat 'bout the greatest buccaneer of them all, Father Time. Nothing can stop 'im. Time, marches on. The only thing that remains the same is change, and while technological change assures that things progress, our collective agreement is in danger of being lost in the wake. Time is of the essence, time is money, and we are getting ripped off!

One more pint, I mean point, before I sign off. Nothing goes by faster on this part of the planet, than summer, so enjoy the season.

OK, I gotta go, I'm runnin' late.

Hasta la vista.

-J Y D

Fatigue: The New Imperative

Effort to Raise National Awareness Is Under Way

By Jim McNamara
Staff Reporter, Transport Topics

The transportation and medical communities may have experienced a watershed event during a recent symposium on driver fatigue.

Fatigue is now seen as a major factor in transportation accidents, to the point that it should be suspected in all mishaps until it is positively ruled out, according to some investigators.

Interest in fatigue has been fanned by a series of highly publicized accidents in the past few years, including fatal plane, train and truck crashes, as well as maritime incidents such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

The symposium was co-sponsored by the National Transportation Safety Board and the NASA Ames Research Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Both organizations have been actively searching for ways to combat the danger that accompanies fatigue.

The nearly 600 attendees -- drawn from government, academia, medicine and all modes of transportation -- agreed that any effort to eliminate fatigue as a transportation hazard must go beyond tinkering with hours of service regulations to a basic change in modern society.

Government officials at the meeting said they would use the information generated there to guide their regulatory and research efforts into ways to detect, counter and prevent fatigue.

Changing hours of service regulations is considered by some to be necessary in many industries, including trucking. But researchers and safety officials argued that such change would be too limited to effectively attack the problem.

"You are trying to make these changes in a culture that doesn't see sleep and sleep deprivation as major issues," said Dr. Allan L. Pack, a sleep researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. "You need to change the culture.

"We want a significant cultural change, like what we did with drinking and driving," Dr. Pack said.

The need for widespread change is necessary because the problem is widespread, particularly for highway transportation.

"The trucking industry, for example, could very well develop useful fatigue countermeasures for its long-haul drivers," said NTSB Chairman Jim Hall. "But it is estimated that trucks account for just 4% of highway fatigue-related crashes. Imagine the impact of these countermeasures when they eventually spread to the general automobile-driving population, the source of the other 96% of fatigue-related highway crashes."

The war against drunk driving was repeatedly cited by attendees as an example of the public education campaign needed. The problem is many people don't understand just how serious a problem fatigue is and don't know how to structure their lives to avoid its dangers.

The trucking industry has a large stake in what happens, since any change to the decades-old hours of service regulations will mean potentially expensive and far-reaching modifications of industry practices. The Federal Highway Administration said it plans to release an advance notice of rulemaking in January to start the public comment process on altering the regulations.

More important than government regulation is personal responsibility, said Transportation Secretary Federico Pena, who addressed the conference.

"You can tell a person: 'this is the time for you to sleep,' but it doesn't do us any good unless he sleeps," Mr. Pena said. He compared it to the need for each person to buckle up when getting in a car.

"When it comes to fatigue, every person at every level of an organization -- each driver, each operator, each dispatcher, each manager -- must be personally responsible.

"It's important to understand that fatigue is not just a matter of rest. Lots of factors cause fatigue, such as pressures from the job and the operating environment, and whether it's light or dark. We need to look into those factors further."

The underlying concern, of course, is the safety of operators and the driving public.

"Even though commercial drivers are only a small fraction of the drivers involved in fatigue accidents, they are at a much greater risk, since they have a much higher exposure to fatigue-related accidents," said Ronald R. Knipling, a researcher with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Their greater exposure is a result of the high number of miles they drive each year and other factors, he said.

Much work is already being done on the subject. Medical researchers reported the great advances that have been made in the understanding of the nature of sleep, fatigue, sleep disorders and other topics. And during a session devoted to highway transportation, researchers and industry officials listed a number of the projects under way to detect or counter fatigue.

The trucking industry has several education programs under development, including adapting a highly-respected NASA fatigue education program for aviation to the trucking environment, said John J. Collins, senior vice president for government affairs for American Trucking Associations. The ATA Foundation has produced a draft version of the new education module, which NASA is currently reviewing. A final version should be available to the public in early 1996.

Another effort involves a "best practices" manual being compiled by ATA's Safety Management Council, he said.

"Companies are finding out the best asset they have is a trained and happy driver," Mr. Collins said.

The process will not be easy and technological solutions are not expected to be widely available for five to 10 years, according to Dr. Pack. So education will have to be the main effort for the short term.

"There is no magic bullet to fix fatigue in transportation," said Dr. Mark Rosekind of NASA Ames, and one of the organizers of the symposium.

"There is a fairly high level of frustration because there is no magic cure. It often takes some event to galvanize an industry to act. We hope that this is such an act."

Transport Topics, a trucking and transport industry electronic newsletter, is published by The American Trucking Associations, available on the Internet at http://www.ttnews.com/

Meeting Point is the official newsletter of the United Transportation Union Local 1778, published quarterly by volunteers. The Editors of Meeting Point support the concept of free speech and welcome any submissions of interest to our members, preferably in plain text format on 3.5in. floppy disk --although any and all forms are welcome: magazine and newspaper articles, or your own thoughts. Submissions can be made to any Union Officer or to David Moorhouse at N. Vancouver yard office, Fax # 984-0452, E-mail utu@telus.net or our Web page at http://unix.ultranet.ca/utu Submissions become the property of Meeting Point. We reserve the right to edit submissions for brevity and clarity. The opinions contained herein are not necessarily those of the Editors or the United Transportation Union. Deadline for submissions: 15 th of Jan., Apr., July, Oct.

Well it took about one minute after the tentative agreement was signed and the letters started sailing out to our members again with threats of discipline for booking too much rest. As far as I understand my collective agreement we are the judges of our own condition. I find it quite surprising that someone 150 miles away can arbitrarily tell us that we have had enough rest had better get to work or face discipline.

Things were just starting to calm down from previous harassments and this guy, let's call him "Don Knotts," starts fanning the flames and getting everyone pissed off again!

Some people can't leave well enough alone. They just have to try to make a name for themselves by intimidating people. It seems that what has been agreed to in a signed Collective Agreement doesn't mean squat. Don Knotts seems to think that this is his own personal fiefdom and we are his lackeys to do as his bidding. He has said to more than one person in our union, "There are certain things in your Collective Agreement that I don't agree with." So I guess that means that he figures he can do whatever he wants to, like using jackboot tactics to try and run this railway the way he seems fit and to hell with what our signed C.A. or, just as importantly, what the Operating Rules of this Railway state.

Just like in Mayberry RFD, every time Barney Fife tried to take control and push his weight around all hell broke loose. It always seemed to turn out that Mayberry ran a lot smoother under Sheriff Taylor who could relate to, and reason with, people without resorting to threats and trying to shove them around.

Now we have our very own Barney on the loose trying to be the hotshot sheriff and he doesn't even know the laws. Here he is blindly charging around not knowing what is going on with the attitude of "I'm in charge here and by my orders you will do as I say." Even when his orders are breaking the laws he is supposed to be protecting!

All we have to do is just sit back and watch as Barney Fief fumbles around looking for the bullet in his shirt pocket while his world crashes down around him.

Hopefully sooner or later some Sheriff Taylor in the Ivory Tower will show up and show Barney that there is an better way of achieving what he wants than loading his only bullet and firing it into his foot again--even if it means locking him in a cell for a while.

In the mean time all we can do is hope that Barney keeps shooting himself in the foot and doesn't manage to get his gun out of the holster and cause real damage.

Just my opinion.

-- RPC

Mail Rod and tell him what you think

Excerpt From Remarks of US Secretary Of Transportation Pena.

November 2, 1995

First, I'm convinced that changing human behavior has to be the next frontier to improving safety. Human factors cause a third of all railroad accidents and are the number one cause in aviation accidents. Operator error is probably the most important single factor in truck and bus accidents.

Second, if it's human behavior we must change, then we need to educate, and not just regulate. I know so much of our time is spent developing rules for dealing with fatigue. But there are several realities after you make the rules, such as how do you mandate rest? How do you monitor rest periods?

You can tell a person: "this is the time for you to sleep," but it doesn't do us any good unless he sleeps. It's really a matter of personal responsibility.

It's like having a seat belt in a car. The law says buckle up, but three out of 10 people still don't take the personal responsibility of buckling. And if we hadn't spent hundreds of millions of dollars educating the public far fewer would be buckling.

When it comes to fatigue, every person at every level of an organization -- each driver, each operator, each dispatcher, each manager must personally be responsible.

Third, it's important to understand fatigue is not just a matter of rest. Lots of factors cause fatigue, such as pressures from the job, and the operating environment, and whether it's dark or light. We need to look into those factors further.

Fourth, the traveling public has just as much right to expect transportation operators to be unimpaired by fatigue as they have the right to expect operators to be unimpaired by alcohol or drugs.

We now have the capability to test for alcohol or drugs. We don t have all the fatigue testing capability we would like -- yet. But we've been obtaining encouraging results with both fitness-for-duty testing devices and with unobtrusive, noninvasive techniques to detect the onset of performance deterioration in operators. I hope these countermeasures are used in the near future.

A few months ago, I was in Portland with the President at a regional economic conference. And the president of Freightliner told us about work they were doing on ventilation systems in cabs to alleviate fatigue.

Fifth, we should be focused on how tired workers perform, rather than how tired a worker feels at the end of the day.

The danger from fatigue is not just that someone will nod off to sleep at the controls of a plane, ship, train or motor vehicle, although I m sure all of those have happened.

The insidious danger is that the operator may become dulled enough to miss -- or misinterpret -- a critical danger signal, or be slow in responding to it.

Disability Management

I recently attended another seminar put on by the National Institute for Disability Management. One thing that is obvious is that if these programs are to be successful, they have to be joint Labor and Management programs. The Railway has a hard time accepting this, either because they have a hard time sharing control of the program or because a certain manager just likes to continuously play games with the Council.

The Council and the Railway had agreed in principle to a Disability Management program with the understanding that the program facilitator would be someone with a medical background, such as an Occupational Therapist (OT). The Railway then walked into a meeting and advised that Linda Forest was appointed as the Return to Work (RTW) Facilitator. Linda has been with the Railway for some time and has worked as a WCB claims officer and more recently as a Labor Relations Officer, both of these positions have been very adversarial positions, yet we are now to believe that Linda has changed her spots and only has the welfare of the worker in mind.

This program benefits the Railway greatly in reduced costs for their benefit plans and WCB ( Why else would they be involved), it benefits the Unions by having members returned to useful employment at the same wage rates if they are disabled.

The council was not at all happy with the appointment of Linda Forest, yet in spite of this will continue to try and make this program work. I would be very careful at this time dealing with the program and if you are in this unfortunate position make sure you have Union representation.

Its getting to the point now that every time I hear that there has been another derailment and there are no injuries, I laugh and hope that it has cost them a bundle this time. Maybe once they have had enough derailments they will start to maintain the track.

Rumor has it that last year with the bonus incentives for management that the bosses who were getting ready to retire decided that they would not do any maintenance for the year and greatly increase their bonuses.

It seems that the Railway does not care if anybody gets hurt, but let them lose some money and then we will get some action. In the meantime, hopefully it won't be a passenger train that derails next time.

Well, the last article I wrote was rather gloomy, so this time I'll include some issues not directly concerned with the Railway and Union.

I have just returned from my semi-annual trip to Ottawa to participate in the Board of Appeals hearings. For any of you who don't know what the Board of Appeals does, you can find this in your UTU Constitution under Articles 27 and 75. If you don't have a Constitution and would like a copy, please inform your secretary treasurer so he can compile a list and I will see that you get one.

Of more importance to most of you I know , are the collective agreements. I met with D. Cox about the new agreements and we are in the process of getting things ready to go to the printers. It is hoped that the new collective agreements for all council constituents will be ready by September. As soon as they are available we will get them out to you.

One of the interesting points in meeting with other union officers, whether its the UTU or any other union in Canada or the US, is finding out the problems we have are all very similar. Right now I am finding the focus of most unions is to hang on to what they have achieved over the years as the direction of management seems to be bigger profit with less employees.

Back to the subject of constitutions and collective agreements. The collective agreement ratification had a fairly good rate of return on ballots. To all of you who took the time to vote, thank you very much. To those of you who received a ballot and didn't vote, I would encourage you to vote in the future. I had quite a few ballots returned because of incorrect addresses, so if you have moved or move in the future, please make sure you inform your secretary treasurer of your new address and phone number.

I missed Local 1778's picnic while I was away. From all reports it sounds like those who attended had a good time. I would like to say thanks to the people involved in organizing this annual event. I hope it gets bigger and better as we need these types of social functions.

As I hinted in the last edition, I had the opportunity to visit my daughter Colleen, in March. She has been living in Osaka, Japan for the past two years teaching English. She has also become very active in the newly established union for teachers at the company she works for. I don't know where she gets that from! I had an excellent time while I was there. I don't think I culd have afforded to go though, if it weren't for having a place to stay as Japan is very expensive. Using a rail pass for travel really helped though. The railway system is fantastic; it doesn't take long to get from one place to another at 270 kph. I didn't ride a train in two weeks that wasn't on time. I met some officers from the Japan Railway Worker's Union, and guess what…. they were talking about going on strike. The railways are trying to go from two enginemen in the cab of the Shinkansen (their high-speed train) to one engineman. I had a chance to spend a day demonstrating with the unions there-it was quite an experience. (I'll save that for another article) All in all, it was a very enjoyable holiday. If you ever decide to go to Japan, don't bother looking for any bargains, there aren't any. A cheap item is a cup of coffee at $7.00 a cup (no refill) and everything goes up from there.

Well, enough of this "What I Did on My Vacation" report. I just hope you all have a good vacation with your families this year. With the schedules most of us have, these times are important. It's hard to find quality time to spend with family and friends.

I am hoping to have the General Committee of Adjustment make a trip across the property when the agreements are ready in September. We will be holding meetings at each terminal at that time. I hope to see you there.

I better end this and get it to Dave as he said he is waiting to exhale. I always seem to work better at this when Dave is under pressure.

Bob Sharpe

General Chairperson

GO 759

July 1996

Greetings. Well, we're into the summer vacation season and I wish everyone a safe and fun-filled vacation.

Last weekend we had our annual picnic and I feel it was a big success. I'd like to thank the committee members who contributed their time and effort.

One topic I think I need to talk about is filing runaround claims. When you submit a runaround to the Crew Supervisor be sure to copy your Local Chairman, this allows us to track and research the grievance in a more expedient manner. In the past few months the railway has changed the management team in the crew office, this has slowed down the time it usually takes to handle these grievances and to discover which boss we have to deal with.

SPORTS BREAK

This past weekend the UTU Badass Blues slowpitch team lead by coach and captain Kelly Burke

completed the season with a 10 - 8 record. We started the tournament on Friday night with a strong 16 -10 victory. Play resumed Saturday morning with a 5 - 9 upset, then a come back for a big 11 - 8 win to wrap up the day. Play on Sunday saw one of the most defensive battles we've seen this year resulting in a 3 - 4 upset and sending the Blues to the pool party.

All in all it's been a good year.

Oh yeah, the trophy we won in '93 when we were in the Weenie ball league must have sunk, I didn't see it floating in the pool.

We are still OK for Monday!

July 18, 1996