Transport Committee on Feb. 10th, 2011

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

The Teamsters have mentioned that they'd like an amendment that would allow them to report corporate safety concerns and safety violations directly to Transport Canada. How do you envision such a system working?

[Phil Benson]

Actually, it works now.

From Mr. Bourdon's testimony, you know that when somebody goes to the safety board, they call Rail Safety. Our members don't call the company; they call us. We call Rail Safety.

Right now, Rail Safety is, in fact, doing it. So let's not pretend that they're not. I'll give Mr. Bourdon at Rail Safety real credit. And I'll give the road people in transport real credit too. For the number of people they have for the work they do, it's truly amazing. I can't think of a better group of people to do it. I'll put in a pitch to get both groups more funding. We could take some people away from the aviation world and give them to rail and road. They're the people who do it now, so let's just cut through the malarkey and give it right to them, because they do it for us already.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

The Teamsters have indicated that they believe that rail traffic control of all Canadian rail operations should be located in Canada. Is this based on safety concerns about current systems?

[Phil Benson]

No. I think the RTCs are all Teamsters, and we have no concern at all about the RTC jobs.

As a matter of security, and I think as a matter of sovereignty for Canada, we simply can't allow American companies to do what Canadian companies cannot do in the United States. The reason they've given is security. No Canadian RTC may go past 10 miles if not grandfathered before 1998 or 1999. They may not do it. CP Rail tried to move RTC jobs from, I believe, Vermont to Canada, and the answer was no, for security purposes. We kind of feel that when we trade with people.... It's not a tit-for-tat, but it's fair all around.

Also, procedurally, if we move towards this perimeter security system and security protocol.... I think, as Canadians, we've always championed that security be done in Canada by Canadians. I really think we should have a Canadian doing it. It should be someone who is secured by Canadians and who is responsible to this committee and to Canada, not to a foreign country, no matter how great a friend it is. And it is a great friend.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

You referred to this when you talked about scheduling, but fatigue is often an issue for front-line workers. Can you outline the current regime for fatigue management and explain how you might improve it?

[Phil Benson]

I can pass it to Rob, but I'll answer quickly.

The best line I heard on this was when a department official went to examine a fatigue management program for a company. The company's response was that it was in the filing cabinet. He asked if it was implemented. The company said they were told they had to have one; they weren't told they had to implement it.

The truth of the matter is fatigue in a railway is recognized. Mr. Harrison Hunter previously stated to his shareholders that fatigue is the greatest cause of accidents. When he said that, we were in the middle of negotiations where they were saying we're not going to deal with scheduling rules.

We've almost had two national strikes, not over money, not over conditions, not over pensions, not over anything except scheduling rules. People are falling asleep.

We know this from medical science—people die younger when they're fatigued. It's a medical issue. It's an issue for our health care system that we have to pay for. It's something that should be dealt with.

This is our way of doing it—I hope not in an aggressive, regulatory manner. This may not be the right place, but if a clause like this is in the bill, it will make companies aware that they have to deal with it.

We'll deal with it tomorrow. We'll do a memorandum of understanding. We'd do anything to have proper scheduling rules.

I'll tell you how silly it gets. Half of their employees have scheduling rules, I think maybe two-thirds, and maybe a half or a third don't. It depends on what part of the country you're in. It depends on what craft you belong to. It's not even that they're not doing it. It's just a matter of obstinance—they don't want to do it.

But they came before this committee, I believe, in 2007--at least I was informed--and said they were going to deal with it because it was a fatigue issue. It's 2011. Let's move forward.

All we want is your help. This clause we're talking about is just to help us get what we should have.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Do you feel the amendments in this bill, particularly those regarding SMS, are sufficient to stimulate the development of a safety culture in the rail companies?

[Phil Benson]

Safety management systems are something the Teamsters and I have railed against for probably the better part of ten years. In fact, I think rail has safety management systems. They were a total failure. That's why the bill is here.

According to the air people, they're going to safety management systems, but they're not going to make the mistakes that rail made.

I think in a perfect world you don't need SMS in legislation. I'll be honest with you. I'm going to support it, but I'll tell you why you don't need it. It's best practices. No company needs anybody to tell them to put in best practices. Safety management systems are best practices.

Here's the problem. The original SMS model was sold as deregulation. In other words, under a safety management system, you tell us we're going to be safe and we'll believe you. This bill makes sure they're audited and inspected.

That's why previously in the air act, which I really want the government to bring back, we were successful in getting amendments that stated they would be inspected.

I very much thank you for the advisory council model. I believe over time the SMS, this entire process we have, will develop. It isn't today. It isn't going to be tomorrow. I'll be honest with you, it's not going to be over the next three, four, or five years. But maybe before I retire, whenever, 10, 15, or 20 years from now, I'll be able to come and smile and say it's a great thing.

It's a good model, but you didn't have to regulate it. It should have just been done. Companies should have done it by themselves. That's the pity.

So we support it, with those caveats.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Dhaliwal.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, again.

Mr. Brehl, I was very disturbed to hear about the issues you raised, when you said train companies will fire employees for doing small things like taking photos or tying up a boot. Another issue...Mr. Tweed, as the chair of the committee, goes from Manitoba all the way to Coquitlam to talk to people, and the second they know, they question why this fellow came all the way from Manitoba to talk to them. This is very disturbing to me.

You say there is no such mechanism in place, through mutual agreement or bargaining or whatever processes you have, that gives those workers security so that they can fearlessly work in that organization.

What is it that members of this committee, where you are sitting today, can do to deal with those situations? What other situations besides these that you mentioned are there that we should be aware of and find a solution for?

[Phil Benson]

Thank you for your kind comments to me, Mr. Dhaliwal. I enjoy doing my job as a Teamster, but I do appreciate the kind comments. Also, I recognize that you're one of the few members I've actually seen on a rail job site, so I do appreciate that.

I think you should pass this bill. I think you should give us our amendments. I'm quite serious; pass it in the next 35 to 40 days. Get it through the House; get it through the Senate. Why? The air bill died during the last election. It was a really good bill. It would have really helped us in the air world--in my opinion. That's not shared by all unions and all of the parties, but we thought it was a good bill.

I want to suggest here that it's not a good news story, because the news isn't here. This is the one committee on Parliament Hill that seems to work together to get amendments, to get bills through, without controversy, without all the complaints we hear from everywhere else.

If you could move this bill forward, that's what you could do to help us. Just move the bill forward as quickly as possible.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

I do appreciate that, and on behalf of my other friends on this committee, the Honourable Gerry Byrne from Newfoundland, and Mr. Russell, who's filling in for Mr. McCallum...and I'm sure that Mr. McCallum is on board with these. These are good amendments that will give peace of mind to the workers and will improve the bill. I do support that.

But on another note, on this issue of the department saying that it's a legal opinion that the rail traffic control centres in Canada would not be in compliance with the GATT, how can we do this in a GATT-compliant way?

[Phil Benson]

The answer is very easy; it's exactly as the Americans did: security trumps GATT. It's a security issue. And good work on the dangerous goods act that you passed, and we included the transport security clearances. But these people are going to be caught by the transport security clearances. It's a clear security issue, period.

As in America, we can rely upon their decision for our decision. They've made their decision; we can use the same decision. I do not see a trade issue at all.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

You don't see a trade issue?

[Phil Benson]

None.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

If that is the case, Mr. Chair, I'm pretty well satisfied. I would like to thank you for giving me an opportunity.

Thank you all again.

[Phil Benson]

Thank you, Mr. Dhaliwal, and thank you to your colleagues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Monsieur Gaudet.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Benson, you spoke a few times about non-punitive reports. Could you explain a little what you mean by that and give me more examples?

[Phil Benson]

In other areas, “non-punitive” basically means that I can tell you, my boss, whatever I want under that particular circumstance and you will not take any kind of retribution against me.

I'm going to pass this to Mr. Brehl, and he'll explain it more.

[William Brehl]

I have a fairly good example of what this would be.

If someone has a rules violation, say an engineer or one of the maintenance employees who has track protection, and he violates the CROR, the Canadian rail operating rules, and nobody knows--he doesn't tell anybody--how do you correct what caused him to break it? How do you correct where the downfall was, where the miscommunication was, and where the problem was? He won't report it, because even though it had no effect, he caught it. Say he backed up over the signal or re-railed his truck back onto the track. Nobody ever knows and he can get away with it, but he may not report it for fear that he's going to get disciplined.

I will tell you, they will discipline you right up. We have a Brown system of discipline. It's a quantum discipline system where it's progressive, and if you hit 60 Brown points, “Brownies” we call them, you're dismissed. So they'll get people sitting at 45 or 50 Brownies and basically they'll have to do whatever they're told to do, because 10 more Brownies and you're gone. It's very scary out there for our guys. They could lose their jobs in an instant, so they don't report these things.

If we have non-punitive reporting...if they blow by a signal, say, and back up—it wouldn't happen in a train because the RCT would see it. But if they did it in a high-rail vehicle and backed up again, and they reported it, then they can come out and inspect it. They can look for a root cause. They can find out why they did what they did. They can look for trends, and we'll prevent the ones where people get killed. People get killed out there, lots of them--our members, CP's employees, CN's employees, and contractors. That's why having it non-punitive is important.

Anonymous reporting directly to Transport Canada is important. Let's say you see something on the railway that you think is a systemic failure. We had one with angle bars, where wheels were hitting the angle bars that held the track together. They're not meant for that. We found that this was becoming more and more common. We realized that the railways were going right to the extremes of the wear on their wheels and on the track, and it was causing these angle bars to get hit by the wheels. We reported it to Luc Bourdon. He looked into it, and, yes, they found that they have to move down the sill of the angle bar and they have to be a little more careful with their clearances. But what happened first—and I don't mean to go on here—was that our membership saw it because they are on the ground and they brought it to their supervisor. He said, “No problem. Take a grinder out there and grind off the mark where the wheel hit it.” That was his solution.

They came to us and said, “This has to be wrong, a wheel flange hitting pig iron at 60 miles an hour has to be causing some damage”, and they started finding pieces of wheel across the system. They'd find little pieces of wheel flange. Wheels were breaking down. The latest derailment in Buckskin they say was because of a wheel bearing.

We took it on from there, like I said to Luc, but if our guys had been able to report it right away to Transport Canada rather than to their supervisor, we might have found this problem a long sooner. That's why we need it.

In our opinion, you cannot tell a company that holds your livelihood in its hands that it's making mistakes again and again, and you can't just go to Transport Canada and report them, with your name out, if it's going to cost them a lot of money. You just can't do it. That fear is in your head that they're going to get you.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

I now understand why you had 6,000 grievances toward the railway companies.

[William Brehl]

That's against one rail company. Double it for CP.

[Phil Benson]

No, CP is not as bad.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

I'll go to Mr. Watson for the final round.