Thank you.
My name is Robert McDiarmid. I'm with the United Transportation Union. Incredibly, that represents, still, 2,800 members in Canada, primarily at CN Rail and also at the various short-line railways.
We're speaking today towards the recommendations of the panel on the formulation and adoption of rules. The Railway Association of Canada has the resources to use in developing their submissions on rule changes; however, the unions are left with very little time to respond. A 60-day timeframe is unrealistic. Unions do not have the resources and manpower available that the RAC has.
We suggest there should be opportunities for unions to provide full and meaningful input before and during the rule process, and a 120-day response time, as well as the ability for unions to recover their costs from the railways due to the significant injection of resources on the part of the unions.
As regards delegative power, we're concerned that this would have the effect of enshrining an agent such as the RAC under the Railway Safety Act, when clearly the responsibility lies with the railway companies to develop rules. There exists at this time an unlevel playing field, particularly between the unions and the RAC, and occasionally changes sought by the agent are not in the interests of safety or the employee.
Under the administrative monetary penalty, we'd like point to the McBride, B.C., accident in May 2003, where two CN employees were killed when a bridge collapsed. A penalty of $75,000 was imposed by the Transportation Safety Board, which amounted to one half-day's pay for the CEO of the company involved.
I'd point out that the first administrative monetary penalty ever applied was $3,125.
Therefore, we request that the fines levied be significant and meaningful to act as a deterrent to a railway company, and we further suggest that these fines should be applied to individual officers, as contemplated by the “Westray Act”.
As to safety management systems, some carriers' management of safety must evolve to the health and safety culture, and we believe this culture is widely interpreted by different railway companies. We have reservations that unless the safety culture of various railways is drastically improved, these recommendations will do little to improve the SMS. We suggest that these elements cannot exist in the current atmosphere of fear and discipline. Members are afraid to report injuries, as they will be investigated and in most cases disciplined for being injured on the job. Our members know that even with an excellent work record of over 30 years, they're just one accident or derailment away from possible termination. So this cannot be a just system.
A first step in changing the safety culture would be for the railway companies to embrace paragraph 135(7)(e) of part II of the Canada Labour Code, which allows health and safety joint workplace committees to participate in “all of the inquiries, investigations, studies and inspections pertaining to the health and safety of employees.”
As to fatigue management, the CANALERT '95 study is mentioned in the review, and it is important to note that these fatigue countermeasures recommended by the working group are not being utilized by all carriers.
In recent years CN has aggressively attempted to diminish collective agreement rest provisions. More recently, in the collective bargaining between the UTU and CN in late 2006-07, CN sought to have our collective agreement rest provisions eliminated completely and to have our members rely solely on the regulatory requirements. We suggest that the strike at CN in 2007 was in part due to the railway company attempting to bargain away these terms and conditions of employment.
The CN company policy change in 2005 regarding booking unfit has seriously compromised our members' ability to address key issues such as work schedules, alertness strategies, rest, lifestyle issues, and unusual circumstances. CN views employees only as an asset similar to a locomotive or a boxcar.
As to voice recorders, we suggest that there are serious privacy concerns regarding voice recorders, and the union also suspects that this voice data will most certainly be used by unscrupulous railway companies to identify undesirable employees. Therefore, we are requesting that only government regulators be responsible for voice recorder data collection to ensure that this information is used for accident investigation only.
On training for operating crews, we have significant reservations at this time and concerns specifically surrounding the training of new conductors, yard forepersons, and helpers, and the fast-track system of training at CN Rail. Because of the hiring practices, training practices, and lack of real experience, our employees and our country are at risk. We have new conductors working with limited training, working with locomotive engineers with little experience, working with rail traffic controllers who have only recently been hired with very little experience. This situation could result in an accident of significant proportions.
We request that the regulations and legislation be enacted that give Transport Canada, in consultation with the railways and unions, the authority to set course structure, qualifications, and minimum standards, including the minimum number of qualifying tours for operating employees.
We also request that new regulations for training employees on the beltpack be implemented. Currently, you are okay to operate a beltpack on the first day you qualify on your rules.
On drug and alcohol testing, it was recognized by the panel that there is an absence of correlation between testing positive for drugs and having been impaired while on duty. Our members in Canada are not subject to random testing. However, company policy of some carriers allows for the company to apply drug and alcohol tests in certain situations, such as post-accident situations or use of poor judgment. Some of our members have tested positive post-accident in a drug test, and they were automatically terminated. Therefore, we are recommending that legislation and/or regulations be enacted that require a railway that is performing drug testing, mandatory or not, on an employee to have an impairment test administered to the worker, which would measure the level of impairment.
Thank you.