BROTHERHOOD OF RAILROAD SIGNALMEN LOCAL 20

The next regular meeting of Brotherhood Of Railroad Signalmen Local 20 will be Saturday, November 1, 2014 at 8:30a.m. at Country Inn & Suites Naperville, located at 1837 Centre Point Circle, Naperville, IL.

Here are brief minutes from our last meeting held September 14, 2013 in Lacrosse, WI. The meeting opened at 8:30 a.m. with 7 officers, 5 regular members, and 2 retirees present. A treasury balance of $ 81,051.20 in checking and C.D.’s in the amount of $21,663.53 was reported. Thirteen new members were unanimously voted in.

Joe Baker reported: A backing incident resulting in a formal reprimand, which seems pretty standard with the exception of the Chicago signal manager. Activation failures are on the top of the company hit list, please be vigilant when working with crossing equipment. One of our members received 15 days unpaid time off for an incident. Supervisor Mike Clark has moved on to the call desk. Joe also reported on an issue that Manager Sweet out west has with a maintainer.

Nate Estes reported: We are on our last chance to keep the Flexible Spending Account we got in our last contract. Sign up is from September 28 to November 1. More information is available at www.yourtracktohealth.com or (888)298-9754. A link is on our local’s website as well. Nate also reported on the following: be sure to follow OSHA rules when trenching and excavating, a DOT medical card issue and investigation in the Chicago area, and his work on a claim for overtime for travel to and from safety meetings, as well as attending these outside our normal working hours.

Jerry Moore reported on the following: An issue with a track and time following a train, the carrier is watching us closely. Stealth teams are catching members throughout the system on fake trouble calls just to see how guys respond to these, as well as monitor the following of the rules while men are on these calls. Watch your backs at all times. Jerry is waiting on a clarification from the company on an issue concerning joint overlapping working limits and the use of flags. He also reported on the new FRA adjacent track rule, and the basic confusion that comes along with it. Jerry also reported briefly on our national convention held in July. There are 10,500 active signalmen nationwide which is encouraging.

Joe Lokken reported on the following: It would be wise to keep a daily log of what we do while on duty, as well as keeping a record of when supervision tells us to go home early to save on our hours of service. Comprehensive Health Services made a mistake resulting in an investigation for a member that he got dropped; if a new hire gets close to his 90 day probationary period without getting a CDL, Joe or any local chairman needs to know asap so the member can get some practice. We’ve had some guys canned over this already. New hires get paid for travel to school per new side letter #93; our men from grand lodge working on the claims in arbitration have been doing a great job, we are winning more cases than we ever have in the past; members need to always get copies of anything they sign, and always contact a local chairman; lock out-tag out issues are still of serious concern to the carrier, we need to follow these rules to the letter. Joe closed with mentioning the special meetings like we did in Sandwich, IL. should be continued next year, with one in Burlington, IA possibly being added as well, and we are going to look into getting some t-shirts made with our local on them.

Craig McLaren reported on the following: There is zero tolerance from the company on the CDL issue, we have to make sure the new guys are getting drive time so they aren’t waiting until the last minute to try to pass their test. There are changes on rule 7.2, crossing disabling coming in the middle of October that everyone should be aware of by now. A member was busted by a stealth team for failure to display flags when he had a joint track and time when working with a production gang. The questionnaire sent out by Grand Lodge concerning our upcoming negotiations received a ridiculous 30% response nationwide from members.

New business: A proposal was approved in LaCrosse to amend Article II of our by-laws, “Meetings”, Section 1. It is proposed to make the Quincy, IL meeting a yearly meeting on the 3rd Saturday in April, and rotate meetings between Galesburg, Fort Madison, and Ottumwa, Iowa on the 2nd Saturday of June, starting with Ottumwa in 2015. We will vote on this proposal at the Naperville meeting. I will have a complete copy of this section at the meeting for reading and discussion before the vote.

I hope to see a lot of you at the Naperville meeting, and would once again ask that anyone who would like to receive this letter by e-mail please let me know. If you have any type of status change, (address change, work status, e-mail or phone etc.) please let me know at 309-202-1260 or brslocal20@comcast.net. I also would encourage all members to check out our Local 20 website, brslocal20.org. Contact me or Nate Estes about getting full access to it.

Fraternally,

Ed Leeson
Recording Financial Secretary, BRS Local 20
309-202-1260 brslocal20@comcast.net or eleeson@hotmail.com