About the safety situation, I know the shop crafts and carmen issues are quite a bit different than the operating crafts. We have been begging for overtime because of our low wages. So time off and lack of sleep are not issues for us.
Our working conditions issues are focused around the conditions of the yards and inspecting and repairing cars in dangerous locations. The downsizing of the work force, which has at least doubled the amount of walking we have to do has made wear and tear injuries more frequent.
The other main issue is the safety of the railroad itself. More than any other craft, carmen are aware of the unsafe conditions of the cars. Since I've been on the railroad, standards for inspecting have drastically declined. We used to go by the AAR safety standards for inspecting in the yard and repair track. But now, management is so bold that they put out public notices forbidding us to bad order any cars except the worst FRA defects. The FRA is weak and in the company's pocket. No one dares give bad orders to the FRA that the company is letting go. Just as in the rest of the "safety" plan of management, the main strategy is to attack the employee. The couple of times I have given information to the FRA they have run right to the boss. They come on the property and follow the employee around to make sure they can bust them for safety violations. People like me that send in a lot of bad orders are targets of the FRA and management. The shortage of forces, has led many carmen to take shortcuts around the blue flag violation of regulations. At one of our yards, hardly anyone bothers locking anything up. At this same yard,in the last couple of years the only one who was ever given a discipline for improper locking of the track was myself. A first offense- 30 days off and 30 over my head. I went to our big yard Markham, and the FRA attempted for an hour and a half to find me committing a rule violation including following me all around the yard and into the locker room to make sure I have a card as a utility employee.
Our general car foreman ordered a carman to cut a handbrake chain with the torch and let a car go in broad daylight, rather than to take a car out of service. It is truly scandalous

Broader issues like evacuation plans, hazardous materials, etc. are not dealt with. At the BNSF, I represented my a union at the SACP joint union - company safety committees in the mid-90s. At that time, when issues were raised they would worry and tried to make it look like something was being done. The BNSF at certain yards produced books of safety regulations, evacuation plans etc. I went to the CN in 2003 At one of the first meetings I went to, the "Safety Officer" from the Canadian National set the tone. When asked what the safety evacuation plan for this yard was was he laughed and said, look at the wind socks, see which way the wind is blowing and run the other way! He said this out loud in front of a shift of employees in broad daylight. Nothing ever happened. They have no evacuation plan which of course is completely illegal.

There are no real formal safety structures at the CN. There have been two or three versions of safety committees , all picked by management. The safety committee that was set up at Markham Yard with some union people and some management people from various departments published no minutes or information whatsoever. The general car foreman refused to allow anybody from our department to attend the meetings even as a management representative for months, and nobody said anything about it. I was unable to get the union even to complain at all. When a trainman had his arm torn off between couplers, the terminal superintendent came into this fake safety meeting and dissolved it on the spot. He then put out a notice saying anybody who wanted to be on the safety committee would be appointed by the superintendent himself personally. Nothing has been heard from this since in over four months. People are discussing the possibility of another union committee off the property. In my yard, safety job briefings have been completely dispensed with.
As far as a remote control situation goes, it is not being put into practice in either Glenn or more Markham Yard. There was some training done, but it was suspended. The operating department is really suffering because they signed a contract based on hourly wage and almost unlimited mandatory hours. Even though they are exhausted, there is no movement to vote the tentative utu agreement down.

one issue definitely must be on the top burner of safety issues. CN has a policy of investigating and disciplining every single worker who reports a safety injury.The chief mechanical officer of the entire CN told the first shift repair track shift that if they dared to file a injury report, he would fire them. "Yes, you will probably get your job back in a couple years, but by then you would have lost your house, be divorced and have no car." Amazingly this guy is working for the company today!
I am currently fired for reporting an injury after I found out I was injured.the fact that I only missed two days was not relevant.Harassment and intimidation are the order of the day and must be fought!

This is one case where the immediate necessity for cross craft organizing is clear.Where management and union reps have joint committees, we should attempt to get the union people to meet separately bringing proposals to these meetings and bringing the responses back to the rank-and-file to organize a fight. Most people know that there are no joint interests in safety between us and the bosses. We have to fight for union controlled rank-and-file safety committees with the legal protection supposedly given to a local chairman. We have to have joint resolutions of all unions filed as grievances and claims signed by every member of all the unions backed up by public campaigns, leaflets, demonstrations and use of the media. Each yard needs to have evacuation plans, training and education devised and controlled by the unions. We need a combined strategy of both legal fights and job actions. When I was in the United Auto Workers, we had the legal right to strike over safety. It was spelled out right in the contract. They struck too! We should propose programs of education to the neighborhoods around the railroads exposing the danger of the unsafe conditions. Town meetings in these communities etc.would be a very effective way to organize. I was told that the BLE bought billboard space around some yards, warning the community of he danger posed by remote controlled engines.
These are just some thoughts for discussion, Hopefully further comments will help us devise a comprehensive organizing plan.

I am especially interested to find out if it is as bad with other companies, locationsd and crafts.

Steve Desavouret BRC/TCU/IAM 6608 Canadian national Chicago