Brotherhood Of Railroad Signalmen Local 20
The next regular meeting of BRS Local 20 will be held Saturday February 22, 2014 at 8:30 a.m. at the Chillicothe Comfort Inn & Suites, located at 250 Business Hwy. 36, Chillicothe, MO. Reservations may be made at 660-646-9900.
Following are brief minutes from our last meeting held in Naperville, IL. November 2, 2013. The meeting opened at 8:30 a.m. with 18 members and 1 guest present. Assets of $113,634.08 in checking and c.d.’s in the amount of $21,611.77 were reported.
Joe Lokken reported on the following: An investigation over a cable locating issue in North Dakota, resulting in a formal reprimand with a 1 year review. These locating issues are becoming much more frequent. Joe had another issue over the drive cameras, a member was on his phone, backing up and got recorded. Joe also made a motion to get Don Levell a jacket for a retirement gift that passed unanimously. Joe also mentioned the knife policy. The agreement does state we can have knives, some areas are supposedly no knife zones.
Joe Baker reported on the following: An investigation resulting in the dismissal of a member, stressing the importance of getting union help when being questioned by company officials. Joe is also working on motel complaints, with Mike Dake involved as well. CLC is not responding to the complaints. Joe stressed the need to gather and document evidence of these bad motel conditions.
Jerry Moore reported: An issue with a maintainer and inspector being denied pay code 81 after the supervisor bought them lunch, resulting in an excellent discussion on side letter # 14, (pay code 81). He also discussed keeping up on our correct contact numbers through the call desk and remedy.
Craig McLaren reported: On an investigation that was dropped over a member not up to date on a CDL and DOT qualifications, an investigation notice for a backing incident during a cut over, an injury in Missouri that the member was at first apprehensive about turning it in. Craig had a good discussion on filling out injury reports and statements. Craig had another cable hit, but didn’t get any discipline out of it. Craig also talked about not talking about medical issues and procedures incurred on our own time. He also discussed talking to the signal trainers about discussing crossing disabling procedures at our next training class. He closed by touching on hours of service issues, especially following large track gangs.
Nate Estes talked about the following: A crew getting personal belongings stolen from company property. Nate is still waiting for a decent response from company officials over cable locating policies. He closed by talking about the need to follow the rules and not taking any short cuts.
Jerry Boles from Grand Lodge discussed participation in state level AFL-CIO. We are due for a 3.8% raise July 1, with a 3% increase on January 1, 2015. There are some changes in health care effective the first of this year, basically deductible and out of pocket amounts. Our monthly amount we pay for insurance is locked in until 2016. He also discussed the flex-spending health account that was offered. A job responsibility study is still a work in progress, grand lodge has met with the U.P. and CSX already. We are hoping these studies will help in future contract negotiations, especially if we go to a presidential emergency board.
New business: It was passed unanimously to join state level AFL-CIO federations. I will be in touch with the Illinois representative before our meeting and hopefully have more information. Jerry Boles stated we have approximately 10,500 dues paying members nationwide, with roughly another 1100 dues paying officials. It was also mentioned there will probably be an extension on the PTC rollout, there has been no further word on FRA certification for signalmen, and the FRA is looking at stepping up personal penalties for violations. The meeting adjourned at 1:05 p.m.
In closing I would like to again ask everyone who is not on our mailing list to consider doing so. It really does save our local money and time. I would also like to encourage everyone to get on our general committee mailing list as well You can send your information to Ken Strickland at brskes@att.net. If any of you have any changes in residence, e-mail, employment status etc. or know of someone off work, please notify me. It helps with keeping up on the per capita taxes we pay grand lodge and general committee. Hope to see you in Chillicothe February 22.
Fraternally,
Ed Leeson
Recording Financial Secretary, BRS Local 20
309-202-1260
brslocal20@comcast.net
