Latest news with #BrotherhoodofLocomotiveEngineersandTrainmen
Los Angeles Times
01-08-2025
- Los Angeles Times
Citing lives at risk, train workers urge Union Pacific to allow trail to stunning waterfall
About ten times each day, giant freight trains pass along a narrow section of track along the Sacramento River in far northern California where engineers on the locomotives regularly tense up with stress. 'Every single time, it's a near miss' of a train hitting a person, said Ryan Snow, the California State Chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. 'Multiple near misses, every single run. My nightmare is that a family that isn't paying attention gets hit.' This particular stretch of track, which wends north from the town of Dunsmuir, is a renegade route for hikers to one of northern California's most enchanting natural sights, Mossbrae Falls. Fed from glaciers on Mount Shasta, the water pours out of lava tubes and down mossy cliffs, forming a verdant and ethereal cascade into a calm, shaded swimming hole. It appears magical. It is also inaccessible —unless visitors trespass more than a mile on on the tracks or wade across the river. Accidents have happened. Two people have been struck by trains in the last few years (although both survived.) In May a Southern California woman drowned after trying to reach the falls via the river. But the tourists keep coming. Drawn by Instagram and Tiktok, increasing numbers of people have taken to visiting the falls — nearly 30,000 according to a city study, the majority of them by trespassing up the train tracks. For years, outdoor enthusiasts in and around Dunsmuir have pushed Union Pacific Railroad, which owns the tracks, to work with the city to create a safe, accessible, legal path. But the effort has been dogged by delays. This week, the train workers union decided to enter the fray, issuing a press release decrying the slow progress and calling on Union Pacific to do more to make the long-held dream of a trail a reality. 'Each month that goes by without a real construction timeline, lives are put at risk,' Snow said in a statement. The statement also accused Union Pacific of 'slow-walking' the project, saying railroad officials have called for meeting after meeting, but has never produced a right-of-way commitment or a clear construction timeline. Many engineers, Snow said, are frustrated and feel the delay 'unfairly endangers both railroad personnel and the public.' In a statement, Union Pacific said that the railroad had 'approved the concept of a trail into Mossbrae Falls years ago, and we have been working with the City of Dunsmuir and the Mount Shasta Trail Association to find solutions that address everyone's safety concerns.' Earlier this summer, Dunsmuir city officials held a 'summit' with Union Pacific officials to tour the falls and talk about the proposed trail connection. City officials said the summit, which included representatives from local elected officials offices as well as railroad officials from Omaha and Denver, marked 'a new milestone in the slow but steady process.' A city press release noted that 'key Union Pacific officials had the opportunity to see the falls for the first time, recognizing the importance of building public access to this beautiful natural resource.' But some longtime trail advocates said they were not convinced that the dream is any closer. John Harch, a retired surgeon with the Mount Shasta Trail Assn. and has been working with others for years on public access, said he still didn't see evidence of concrete progress. 'Here we sit, as before, while people risk their lives to see the falls,' he wrote in an email. Snow said he hopes the public can put pressure on the parties to make concrete progress. 'We've been lucky that we haven't had any fatalities caused by a trespasser strike,' he said. 'The worst thing an engineer can do is hit somebody. It's stressful.' Meanwhile, he said, the route is only becoming more popular. 'It's in hiking magazines, and on the internet everywhere. It's attracting more and more people.' He added: 'I can't blame them. It's beautiful.'
Yahoo
23-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Union Pacific, BLET agree to interim pay raise
Union Pacific has agreed to an interim pay raise for 6,000 members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen while full contract talks continue. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP) have reached tentative agreement on an interim 3% raise for union members while bargaining for a full contract continues. The union said in a press release that if ratified, the interim agreement would be effective Sept. 1 and provide a raise to approximately 6,000 BLET members. It would eventually be replaced by wage increases agreed to in the final contract settlement, and would not figure in any retroactive pay agreement that might be included as part of a final deal. Ballots for the interim agreement are being distributed by mail and are due by Friday, Aug. 8. Subscribe to FreightWaves' Rail e-newsletter and get the latest insights on rail freight right in your What a Union Pacific – Norfolk Southern merger would look like BNSF aims to grow carload traffic with rail service upgrades Report: Goldman Sachs advising BNSF on potential merger Analysis: UP-NS rail merger spotlights individual legacies in a legacy business The post Union Pacific, BLET agree to interim pay raise appeared first on FreightWaves. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
BLET union members vote to ratify 5-year deal with CSX
(Reuters) -Railroad operator CSX said on Wednesday that employees represented by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) have voted to ratify the five-year collective bargaining agreement. The contract, covering approximately 3,400 locomotive engineers, aligns with general wage increases, health and welfare improvements included in CSX's agreements with 13 other unions, the company said. The union said in a social media post that the agreement was ratified by a 53.6% vote in favor by locomotive engineers, that, according to CSX, represent approximately 20% of its frontline workforce. Jacksonville, Florida-based CSX said it now has ratified agreements covering nearly 75% of its unionized workforce to date.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
5 things to know for May 19: Biden, Russia-Ukraine, Severe weather, Brooklyn Bridge, Escaped inmates
Good news, New Jersey! It appears the transit strike may soon be over, and you'll once again have access to the nation's third-largest commuter railroad. Negotiators for New Jersey Transit and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen reached a tentative labor agreement over the weekend and the engineers are expected to be back at work today. However, the railroad will need one more day before resuming full operations. Here's what else you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On with Your Day. Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an 'aggressive form' of prostate cancer, one that has spread to his bones. Biden, 82, and his family are reviewing treatment options with his medical team. In response to the news, well-wishes came from across the political world. 'We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery,' President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social. Former President Barack Obama, who tapped Biden, his then-vice president, to lead the White House task force aimed at curing cancer, shared his thoughts on X as well: 'Nobody has done more to find breakthrough treatments for cancer in all its forms than Joe, and I am certain he will fight this challenge with his trademark resolve and grace.' President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to speak by phone today about ending Russia's war in Ukraine. Yet over the weekend, instead of ceasing hostilities, Russia battered Ukraine with its largest drone attack since the invasion began in 2023. Russia launched 273 drones in one night, the Ukrainian Air Force said, predominantly targeting the central Kyiv region. More strikes hit overnight, killing at least two people and injuring 13 others, local authorities said earlier today. 'I think Ukraine has done a lot to demonstrate that they are interested in ending this war and ending it however it needs to be ended,' US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said in a Fox News interview on Sunday. He also said Russia needs to show it is serious about peace. A violent storm system cut a path of destruction through several states and left dozens dead over the weekend. At least 18 fatalities were reported in Kentucky after a 'large, extremely dangerous' tornado swept east. 'I've now been governor for at least 14 federally declared disasters, 13 of them weather. And this is one of the worst,' Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said at a news conference. 'It's one of the worst in terms of the loss of human life. It's one of the worst in terms of damage.' Significant destruction was reported in Grinnell, Kansas, where homes were flattened, roads blocked and vehicles overturned. Houses and buildings in three counties were also damaged or lost in storms that produced at least two tornadoes in Colorado. Residents of St. Louis experienced an EF3 tornado, which had winds up to 152 mph. At times stretching a mile wide, the twister traveled at least 8 miles, claimed at least seven lives and damaged about 5,000 buildings. A Mexican training ship called the Cuauhtémoc crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday night. Two people died after falling from its masts and 19 others were injured. Known as the 'Ambassador and Knight of the Seas,' the ship had just spent five days docked at the South Street Seaport Museum. It was on a global goodwill tour and en route to Iceland at the time of the incident. According to the NYPD, a preliminary investigation has determined that the ship 'experienced a mechanical malfunction.' Although the bridge was temporarily closed after the collision, it sustained no visible damage and appeared to be left structurally intact. The collision of the Cuauhtémoc with the Brooklyn Bridge comes just 16 months after a massive cargo ship plowed into Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge. A massive manhunt is underway for a group of inmates who escaped from a New Orleans jail on Friday. Ten men fled after breaching a wall behind a toilet, and so far, only three have been recaptured. Now, authorities are asking for the public's help in tracking down the remaining seven escapees. Both the governor of Louisiana and the FBI are offering rewards for information leading to their apprehension. 'Unfortunately, they have friends and family members who are helping them and concealing them and helping them move, which makes law enforcement's job more challenging. We end up getting there just a little too late,' Louisiana State Police Superintendent Colonel Robert Hodges said. The inmates, who range in age from 19 to 42 years old, face a wide array of charges, including aggravated assault, false imprisonment, armed robbery, domestic abuse and murder. Man who stabbed bestselling author sentencedThe 27-year-old man who attempted to assassinate author Salman Rushdie has been sentenced to 25 years in prison. Rushdie suffered more than a dozen knife wounds and lost his vision in one eye during the 2022 attack. 'New era' of Alzheimer's researchThe FDA has given clearance to a new test to help doctors with the early detection of Alzheimer's disease. The blood test was approved for adults 55 and older who were already showing signs and symptoms of the illness. The biggest win of her careerWhen Jasmine Paolini defeated Coco Gauff 6-4, 6-2 in the Italian Open women's singles final on Saturday, she became the first Italian player to win the tournament in 40 years. A year of extremes for Scottie SchefflerOne year after his arrest for allegedly trying to drive around the scene of a fatal crash ahead of his tee time, Scheffler won his first PGA Championship. He finished Sunday's final round at 11-under par, five strokes ahead of Bryson DeChambeau, Davis Riley and Harris English. Ain't no mountain high enoughA British mountaineer broke his own record for the most ascents of the world's highest mountain by a non-Sherpa guide when he scaled Mount Everest on Sunday for the 19th time. Kenton Cool, 51, first scaled the 29,032-foot peak in 2004 and has been doing it almost every year since. 274,000That's about how many sharks are killed globally each day, a rate of 100 million every year. 'Between Walmart and China they should, as is said, 'EAT THE TARIFFS,' and not charge valued customers ANYTHING. I'll be watching, and so will your customers!!!' — President Trump, in a post on social media, after the retail giant announced its products would become more expensive as a result of his tariffs being 'too high.' Check your local forecast here>>> Finding a sense of freedom on 4 wheelsDespite the constant hunger, one young girl in Gaza says skateboarding 'helps us forget the bombings, the death, the war.'
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
NJ Transit strike continues as negotiations may resume this weekend
The traveling calculus for New Jersey's straphangers has made difficult commuting on a normal day even more challenging without the option of NJ Transit train service, which came to a halt in the wee morning hours of Friday, May 16 as locomotive engineers walked off the job to protest stalled negotiations over a five-year-old expired contract. Tom Haas, general chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, said agency officials 'chose to walk away' from the negotiating table in the hours before the strike deadline, while Gov. Phil Murphy and NJ Transit President and CEO Kris Kolluri have said that a deal is 'imminently achievable.' Yet both sides spent much of the first day of the strike cheerleading their positions with press conferences and picket lines. Negotiations to end the strike appeared to be set to occur over the weekend. 'It's a mess of their own making," Murphy said, referring to the locomotive engineers, from the Aberdeen-Matawan train station May 16. "It's a slap in the face of every commuter and worker who relies on transit." Mark Wallace, the national president for the BLET who authorized the strike for his members, said, 'our members remain united and solidified,' and they are awaiting a call from NJ Transit to return to the negotiating table. 'We exercised our right under the Railway Labor Act to self-help and we're out there on the picket line essentially voicing the message that we're underpaid and NJ Transit to pay us a fair wage, but they refuse,' Wallace said. NJ Transit has about 172,000 daily weekday rail commuters, but the effects of the strike will be felt by the roughly 350,000 NJ Transit riders across the system as buses are squeezed with more commuters, light rail trains get packed, and as people seek alternatives on private buses, ferries, PATH or Amtrak. This is the second rail strike in the 42 years that NJ Transit has provided rail service. The first one came in 1983, the year the agency took over a variety of once-bankrupt railroads, and lasted 34 days. NJ Transit's contingency plan to address the strike goes into effect Monday, May 19, and includes beefing up existing bus routes along rail routes and adding four new park-and-ride bus service at Hamilton Train Station, Secaucus Junction, PNC Bank Arts Center and Woodbridge Center — but only on weekdays. Newark Light Rail service will also be expanded. LIVE: Complete coverage as New Jersey commuters sound off on start of NJ Transit strike Straphangers had to weigh a variety of factors — like increased costs, transfers and the extra time traveling — as they figured out how to navigate a new commute sans rail. Cynthia Battle gazed at the screen of schedules at Newark Penn Station as she considered travel adjustments. "This is the first day so I'm trying to figure it out," Battle said. "I travel to Plainfield and the city a lot," Battle continued. "I'm having to call a Lyft which is costing me $50, whereas the train would cost $10. As for the New York trip, I have to cancel that.' Daniel, who did not provide his last name, was frazzled by the options he had at Newark Penn — none of them great. 'I don't know what's going on, it's crazy," he said. "I have to change multiple buses and it's an hour extra. I'm late for work.' Laura Kounev of Summit usually took NJ Transit to work in the city but switched to PATH. It typically takes her an hour and 15 minutes door-to-door but May 16 will be over two hours as her husband got stuck in traffic on the way to pick her up, she said. Live Schmidt, who works at Google and typically takes the train from Montclair to New York City, had to go into the office May 16 for an event but ended up missing it. Schmidt intended to take an Uber but several drivers canceled on him causing him to miss the event and decided to just head back home. Still, he said he can adapt to the lack of trains. "It's gonna be OK for the foreseeable future for me," Schmidt said. "But I can imagine others probably are feeling this stress a lot more." NJ Transit and the engineers appear to be waiting for Sunday, May 18 to get back to the negotiating table. Bargaining effectively ended about two hours before the strike began, which Kolluri said was a mutual decision after they reached an impasse despite some progress made in the 11-hour negotiating session Thursday, May 15. The BLET 'put forward a proposal that seems fair to (them) but it doesn't solve our fundamental issue of fiscal responsiveness,' Kolluri said. 'I said, 'Why don't we do this, you take time to think about it, we'll take time to think about it, and then we'll continue talking to meet a solution.'' He added: 'We are making progress and we'll get there.' The National Mediation Board — an independent Washington D.C.-based agency that handles labor negotiations in the railroad and airline industries — has been involved in recent bargaining sessions with NJ Transit and the BLET since the two sides were summoned by the board for a status meeting May 12. A member of the NMB suggested gathering Sunday. The NMB, Congress or the president could intervene at any time with a wide range of tools to bring the parties together, impose a contract or force the engineers back to work, but so far those options haven't been tapped. Bill Dwyer, a former head of labor relations at PSE&G and professor at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, said 'it's going to take a lot of creativity' to get to a deal. 'Mediators can do some pretty great things, given a chance. On the other hand, they've been involved with the mediation board now for a long time and they've not made a deal yet,' Dwyer said. Editorial: NJ Transit officials and BLET must resume negotiations to end the strike — now Need to get to the city?: A strike halts NJ Transit trains. Here are other ways to get to NYC The main dispute in negotiations between NJ Transit and BLET has been over wages. NJ Transit offered the engineers wage increases consistent with what it has offered the 14 other unions the agency bargains with, a concept known as pattern bargaining. But the engineers say they should make more to make them competitive with locomotive engineers at other nearby railroads, or else some will leave for those outfits, as they already have this year. Kolluri said if the agency met the union's latest wage demands, it would have to offer more pay to its other unions because of 'me too' clauses, which could force drastic fare hikes, the need for a significant increase in the corporate transit fee or draconian levels of cuts in service to cover the costs. Haas said the union offered changes to healthcare plans or work rules to lower costs in their proposal and work around those clauses, but NJ Transit "chose to ignore that opportunity.' NJ Transit engineers are currently paid a starting base hourly rate of $39.78. Here is how other nearby railroads are compensated: Amtrak: $55.44 per hour. Long Island Rail Road: $49.92 per hour. Metro-North: $57.20 per hour. SEPTA: $42.17 per hour. PATH: $50.01 per hour. A tentative agreement from March, which was voted down by 87% of the union's voting members, would have brought the starting base pay rate to $40.58 per hour, and here's how it would have increased in the contract when accounting for additional pay in the contract. The agreement included two contract periods (July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2024, and July 1, 2024, through July 1, 2027): July 1, 2020: a 2% increase to $40.58 per hour. July 1, 2021: a 2.25% increase to $42.31 per hour. Jan. 1, 2022: a 2.25% increase to $43.26 per hour. July 1, 2022: a 2.50% increase to $44.34 per hour. July 1, 2023: a 3% increase to $45.67 per hour. July 1, 2024: a 3% increase to $47.03 per hour. July 1, 2025: a 3% increase to $49.82 per hour. July 1, 2026: a 3% increase to $51.32 per hour. July 1, 2027: a 4% increase to $54.86 per hour. These negotiations are 'not only historic, but it's also very unusual,' Dwyer said, because 'it's almost unheard of' to sign a tentative contract only to have it overwhelmingly rejected. 'That tells me something is really amiss here in terms of the union leadership and the membership,' Dwyer said. Asked about this, Haas emphasized their union is a democratic organization that allows members to make their voices head via voting. 'We felt it was a deal worth putting to the membership,' Haas said, but 'that agreement simply did not meet the needs of engineers.' Many state elected officials called on both sides to get back to the table and reach an agreement as soon as possible. 'So many residents are scrambling to find ways to get to work and back home to pick up their kids. This is a mess,' U.S. Sen. Andy Kim said. 'I have made clear to NJ Transit and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen that they need urgent negotiations to continue immediately.' State Senate Majority Leader Teresa Ruiz is "severely concerned about the consequences of this strike on our residents and our businesses." "Workers, students and seniors who cannot afford a ride-share or taxi will bear the brunt of this system breakdown and miss a day's pay, a medical appointment, or valuable time in the classroom," she said. "The longer this strike continues, the more it will harm our economy and deepen the very inequities public transit is meant to address." Assemblywoman Nancy Munoz, a Republican from Summit, blamed the governor for what she called a 'full-blown train wreck' that is punishing riders for policy decisions of his administration. That includes a 15% fare hike last year, annual 3% fare increases starting this July, and the controversial decision to move the agency's headquarters to an expensive new space despite cheaper options, including renovating a building the agency owns. 'Time and again, when NJ Transit fails, it's the riders who pay the price,' Munoz said. 'This contract dispute should have been taken care of his first term. Once again it's the commuters who are suffering.' This article originally appeared on NJ Transit strike continues as negotiations may resume this weekend
