Teamster Canada Rail Conference Maintenance of Way Employees Division. Submission on Rail Safety to the Rail Safety Act Review Advisory Panel

Transcription

1 Teamster Canada Rail Conference Maintenance of Way Employees Division Submission on Rail Safety to the Rail Safety Act Review Advisory Panel Submission prepared by: August 30, 2007 David Scott TCRC-MWED Local Chairperson (Montreal, PQ) Rick Frenette TCRC-MWED Local Chairperson (Kenora, ON) Brian Black TCRC-MWED Health and Safety Representative (Revelstoke, BC) Louis Wilson Secretary Treasurer TCRC-MWED (National Headquarters Ottawa, ON) Contact Person: Mr. Louis G Wilson Secretary Treasurer TCRC-MWED Suite Lancaster Road Ottawa, Ontario K1B 4V8 Phone: lwilson@tcrcmwed.ca

2 Introduction The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference Maintenance of Way Employees Division (TCRC-MWED) represents men and women who build and maintain railway bridges and track structures on the majority of Railways in Canada. The TCRC-MWED represents Maintenance of Way Workers employed with CP rail, Ontario Northland Railway, Ottawa Valley Railway, CN rail (the former Mackenzie Northern Railway), Algoma Central Railway, Hudson's Bay Railway, Carlton Trail Railway, Okanagan Valley Railway, Ontario Central Railway, Via Rail, Southern Vancouver Railway, Chemin De Fer Chaleurs, Chemin De Fer Mutapedia & Golfe, Kelowna Pacific Railway, New Brunswick East Coast Railway, St Lawance & Atlantic Railway, Southern Ontario Railway and Goderich-Exeter Railway. TCRC-MWED members dedication, experience and knowledge provide a much needed service that attempts to ensure the safe operations of trains over the right of way. Public and employee safety is the most important function of their job. Representing approximately 4000 Maintenance of Way Workers, we believe our union is more than qualified to provide recommendations we believe should be contained in the Rail Safety Act. TCRC-MWED members ability to perform their duties and to ensure public and employee safety is limited or enhanced by the Rail Safety Act. As well, the Transport Canada Rail Safety Directorate and their inspectors provide a much needed service to the Canadian public. Likewise, their ability to ensure public safety is limited or enhanced by the Rail Safety Act. The TCRC-MWED s objective is not to provide wholesale criticism of the rail industry and Transport Canada, but rather to provide constructive criticism and offer alternative solutions as to how we believe rail safety can be improved in Canada. Consequently, the TCRC-MWED welcomes the opportunity to provide a submission to the Rail Safety Act Review Panel. Roles and Responsibilities The role and responsibilities of Transport Canada track inspectors should be modified. Our recommendation is to provide legislative change; whereby inspectors could obtain information from any railway employee about their concerns of any potential rail safety hazard. The legislative change would be similar to whistle blower legislation. Such legislative change would provide legal protection for those individuals who report incidents to Transport Canada inspectors and can do so without fear of retribution from their employer.

3 Additionally, the Directorate should provide written follow up to any individual(s) who has identified rail safety concerns. Presently, there is no requirement to provide any follows-up to someone who has identified a rail safety concern. Additionally, we believe that the numbers of Federal Government Track Inspectors should be increased significantly to improve Transport Canada s ability to effectively monitor rail safety in Canada. Safety Management Systems Presently, our opinion is Transport Canada has too few inspectors to properly address and oversee rail safety in Canada. Instead, the Rail Safety Directorate oversees an audit process of Safety Management Systems. The audit performed by the Directorate is a review of internal processes used by the railways, developed by the railways, and determined by the railways as a means to protect public and employee safety. Without any substantive input from employees or communities, the present legislation allows railways develop their own rules, regulations and standards to operate. The railways then apply to Transport Canada and are granted, for the most part, approval. The railways then apply and interpret the application of these rules, regulations and standards. If a railway s obligations cannot be met, the railway can apply for an exemption and more than often Transport Canada grants the exemption. An analogy to this scenario would be if an union could write its on collective agreement, submit the agreement to the government, the government then approves the agreement and the employer must abide by it. If the Union believes that any obligations set forth in the agreement cannot be met by the Union, an application for an exemption is made and subsequently granted by the government. In our view, SMS are corporate best practices and fall short of fully protecting public and employee safety. As a consequence of SMS and the limited number of inspectors in Transport Canada ranks, we believe this combination allows railway s the flexibility to trump safety issues for economic reasons. Our recommendation is for railway rules, regulations and standards to be jointly developed with the stakeholders. The consultative role for stakeholders should be improved to allow actual input from communities, employees, governments and railways. All of these stakeholders should have an equal role in the development of railway rules, regulations and standards.

4 Codify Railway Engineering Standards and Visual Inspections Railways have internal engineering standards, such as those found in the CP Rail s standard track practice circulars, but these standards are not the standards that railways are required to abide by. The standards for track structures are developed by railways and approved by Transport Canada. Know as the Track Safety Rules (TSR), these rules are the minimum standards that the Federal rail industry in Canada must abide by. However, railways are not always obligated to follow these minimum standards. As identified earlier, there are many instances where railways apply for and are granted exemptions from the minimum standards found in the Track Safety Rules. To find an example of how the failure to apply a railways internal engineering standard can have disastrous consequences, one has only to look at the CP derailment in Minot, North Dakota which occurred on January 18, 2002, killing one person and exposing an entire community to anhydrous ammonia,. Prior to the derailment, CP Rail did not apply its own standards on the subdivision which runs thru Minot. The derailment occurred at a rail joint in Continuous Welded Rail (CWR). Normally, CWR is rail that is installed in lengths of 1440 feet. CP Rail s Standard Track Practice Circulars defined standard is to apply rail anchors for approximately 200 feet every tie each side of a rail joint found on continuous welded rail (CWR). The reason for such a standard is to limit the movement of rail due to traffic and the expansion and contraction forces placed upon the rail the by changes in the climate. On the subdivision where the derailment occurred, rail anchors were applied to every second tie in the joint area. After the derailment, CP Rail spent considerable resources to bring the subdivision to CP Rail s standard and applied anchors to every tie on either side of joints found on continuous welded rail. Simply put, our recommendation is to have the internal engineering standards developed that developed by CN and CP to be codified. In other words, the track must be brought to the railways internal standards. If not, trains must be slowed to reflect the unsafe conditions or not allowed to run at all. We believe the Transportation Safety Board s (TSB) investigation of the December 4, 2002 derailment (Safety Issues Investigation Report SII R findings) lends credence to our recommendations.

5 3.3. Although railways recognize the accelerated rate of track degradation associated with bulk unit train tonnage on secondary main lines, the occurrence record indicates that an appropriate balance between increased track degradation and timely infrastructure maintenance and/or renewal has not been achieved Although railways are responsible for putting measures in place to keep the track safe and in compliance with the Railway Track Safety Rules (TSR), the TSR may be insufficient to ensure safety because they do not consider the adverse effects of overall increased traffic and specifically bulk unit train tonnage on secondary or feeder track systems over the long term. Once again, the Canadian Wheat Board submission to the panel lends credence to our recommendations: The Transport Canada report on the 2002 derailment indicates that the tracks are not receiving the attention they require. Maintenance and train service employees on both railways have indicated their concerns with the deteriorating safety of the rail lines caused by longer and heavier trains, fewer staff doing maintenance and inspection, and longer service hours for remaining staff. Technology and Performance Based Regulation In general, Canadian railways have on a promoted the use of technological advances to replace inspection roles of TCRC-MWED members. The use of recorder cars (a.k.a. Tech Cars ) is just one an example. Presently, railways are seeking to enhance the role of Tech Cars to reduce overall inspections made by TCRC-MWED members. Technology does not replace visual inspections. This is evidenced by an increase in railway derailments (as identified by the RSA review panel) while at the same time Railways are eliminating maintenance of way employees who perform visual inspections. Therefore, prescriptive rules should be developed for visual inspections and such rules should be codified. In order to eliminate the cost of visual inspections, railways are seeking performance-based rules. Rather than having prescriptive visual inspections with high rail equipment, and walking inspections, railway companies argue that the use of a Tech Car will eliminate the frequency of visual inspections made by maintenance of way employees. In fact, the

6 argument put forth one CN railway officer, at the Transport Canada Rail Track Safety Rules Symposium in 2006, was that with the use of a Tech Car the need of overall inspections would be reduced. The argument followed the line of thought that if frequencies of track defects declined on any one subdivision then the need for inspections would less frequent. The argument was based on the premise fewer defects means there is the need fewer inspections. However, with ever increasing tonnages running over Canadian Rail lines, this argument, if adopted, could lead to disastrous consequences. The TCRC-MWED advocates prescriptive rules developed in conjunction with stakeholders. However, railways are promoting the use of technological advancement and performance base rules as a panacea for the improvement of railway safety. There is little doubt that Tech Car inspections do find track defects. Regardless, the inspection frequency with which the cars are used is limited. In the interim, our members regularly perform visual inspections. Daily, our members find defects that cannot or are not identified by either a Tech Car or rail defect testing. Here are just a few examples: Rail Defects Surface and Line defects Drainage Problems Switch Defects Defective Ties Crossing Defects Culverts Defects Bridge Defects Ballast Conditions As a result of visual inspections, defects found are repaired or rail traffic over the area is slowed or stopped. It is our opinion, the attempt to use technology as a means to eliminate prescriptive rules and visual inspections is an attempt by the railways to eliminate costs and turn a blind eye towards employee and public safety. Fatigue Management Often, TCRC-MWED members are required to travel hundreds miles away from their homes. Their shifts and starting times change on a daily basis and they work in every climate. There ability to perform their duties safely and protect employee and public safety is directly related to their hours of service and the fatigue that comes with long hours of service, shift

7 work and exposure to the elements. Therefore, we believe the fatigue management is essential to ensure public and employee safety and that such system should be developed for maintenance of way employees. Simply stated, fatigue management is the maximum allowable time a human being can work without developing fatigue that will impair their ability to perform their work safely. The basic premise of such a management system is a 24 hour clock. When an employee starts his or her shift, the clock begins. The maximum allowable time is 14 hours of work and 10 hours of rest and this includes 8 hours of continuous bed rest. Transport Canada s November 2004 report submitted to the Standing Committee on Compliance and Regulatory Affairs supports our position: The Expert Panel strongly supports the preservation of the 24-hour day, which was a core, scientifically supported recommendation of both the Canadian and U.S. expert panels of Considerable evidence does exist to show that long shifts have an adverse effect on health, performance and safety (pp iv). We believe fatigue management systems must be reasonable and conclusive, but the science of what a human being can work without becoming fatigued is critical to the development, implementation and application of any fatigue management system. While respecting the science of the limits of what a human being can work without fatigue, other factors must be taken into account when developing a fatigue management system. Emergencies such as track outages due to derailments, landslides and other factors that impair railway operations significantly or effect either public or employee safety must be taken into account to allow flexibility in the system. Consequently, our recommendation is that the stakeholders (rail unions and rail management) must be mandated by law as equal partners to develop jointly fatigue management systems for the respective railway crafts. Labour Relations Issues that Effect Railway Safety On May 17, 2007, TCRC-MWED members began a legal strike at CP Rail. Prior to the TCRC-MWED giving strike notice, the Union wrote the Minister of Transport to identify what we felt to be a glaring safety concern in the event of our members leaving the workplace to exercise their lawful right to strike. The letter stated the following:

8 Hon. Lawrence Cannon April 23, 2007 Minister of Transport Minister s Office (Transport Canada) Place de Ville 330 Sparks Street Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0N5 URGENT re: possible labour dispute at CP Rail and the effects on public and employee safety. Dear Minister: We are the Union (TCRC-MWED) which represents approximately 3000 maintenance of way employees at CP Rail. Presently, the Union and CP Rail have completed the conciliation process and either party may issue a seventy-two hour notice that would result in a strike or a lock out. In the event of a strike or lock out at CP Rail, the company has clearly indicated trains will continue to operate. With a strike or lock out at CP Rail, approximately 1200 licensed track inspectors will no longer provide daily track inspections. Thru visual inspection, these inspectors find, on a continuing basis, unsafe defects that must be repaired. When such defects are found, the first priority of these inspectors is to protect public and employee safety with the placement of slow orders for trains and/or track closures. Inspectors ensure, thru continuing inspections, that these restrictions (slow orders and track closures) remain in place until such a time the track is repaired up to standard. In the event of the strike or lockout CP Rail has a contingency plan to continue train operations, we allege that such a contingency plan is done without due consideration for the safe operation of trains, as well as without due consideration for the protection of public and employee safety. CP Rail requires at least one year of on-track working experience before any individual is allowed to test for track inspector certification. We believe this requirement must be made of any replacement worker that CP will bring into the workplace and such a requirement should not be waived for expediency. Based on the records we have available, we allege that CP Rail will be replacing approximately 1200 unionized track inspectors with approximately 160 non-union licensed track inspectors (approximately eighty (80) full time Track Maintenance Supervisors and approximately eighty (80) Track Program Supervisors). We believe that public and employee safety should be paramount in the operation of any railway. We firmly believe that CP Rail cannot continue operate safely without a qualified track

9 inspectors. With approximately 160 track inspectors replacing nearly 1200, we believe the endangerment to public safety and employee is imminent. With our absence, CP Rail replaced approximately 3000 TCRC- MWED members with approximately 1300 management employees. Furthermore, CP Rail replaced approximately 1200 TCRC-MWED members who are licensed track inspectors with approximately 160 non-union licensed track inspectors. For the most, replacement workers had little or no ON TRACK experience. CP Rail claimed the company could continue safe operations in our absence. However, on a daily basis TCRC-MWED members contacted the Union s national headquarters to report hazards they believed effected public and employee safety. In turn, the TCRC-MWED reported immediately all such notifications to the rail safety directorate. Our division office was inundated with reports of failing track conditions and derailments at CP Rail from Vancouver to Montreal. Yet, CP Rail claimed they were operating safely. While being on strike, TCRC-MWED members could not identify all safety violations that would effect public and employee safety. However, one incident reported to us stands out and typifies what we believe was the norm in the workplace during the strike: On May 31, 2007 at 10:00 at Fort Steele on the Windermere Subdivision. A MARVIN report was submitted to CP Rail. The report concerned rendering Main Line Track at Fort Steel milepost 0.4 impassable and without any track protection. This is a very serious violation CROR rules and is an endangerment of employee and public safety. The report reads as follows: "Arrived at Fort Steele by taxi and observed employees working on track in cautionary limits between signal No 02 and North Wye switch Fort Steele Windermere sub.. Observed them using a rail cutting device and seen that track was impassable. RTC Cranbrook sub did not know they were there. No protection under rule 42 or 40.2 was provided. Heard Tim Marshall on Radio saying they were just tightening bolts but when we went by taxi rail was impassable." The Windermere Subdivision is a subdivision where trains can reach speeds of 50 mph. Regardless of this fact, it has been reported replacement workers choose to remove rail from the mainline without any sort of protection that would allow for trains to stop prior. Clearly, this is evidence of an attempt by a railway to trump safety for economic reasons. Therefore, we recommend that Rail Safety Directorate be empowered to impose significant fines upon any railway

10 who attempts to accrue profit at the cost of public and employee safety. Summary of Recommendations 1. Incorporate whistle blower protection into the RSA. 2. Rail Safety Directorate to provide follow-up writing to individual(s) reporting a concern. The written follow-up will provide information about the actions the Directorate and the railway(s) took to rectify the concern. 3. Develop prescriptive rules, regulations, and standards in conjunctions with stakeholders. 4. Codify internal railway engineering standards. 5. Terminate exemptions to the TSR. 6. Increase Visual inspections have such inspections codified. 7. Significantly increase Rail Safety Directorate Inspectors. 8. Stakeholders (rail unions and rail management) must be mandated by law as equal partners to develop fatigue management systems for the respective railway crafts. 9. Significant fines imposed upon a where it has been shown a railway has placed accruing profit at the cost of public and employee safety.