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Rail union mulls action against Union Pacific over COVID-19 woes

Union Pacific has filed suit in federal court to prevent union from striking

BMWED leaders want Union Pacific to offer more COVID-19 measures (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)

The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division (BMWED) is threatening to take action against Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP), saying that the railroad hasn’t done enough to protect workers against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The union, which is affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said it would take action if Union Pacific (UP) didn’t respond to safety demands by Sunday. 

“Hundreds of Union Pacific employees have contracted COVID-19 at work,” with two members dying and “dozens” hospitalized, BMWED said on Friday. UP employed 32,000 workers total in mid-November, according to data submitted to the Surface Transportation Board, including over 8,000 maintenance of way employees. The union is asking for full quarantine pay and “common sense COVID-19 safeguards on the job.”

“Our union leadership has urged UP management to do more to ensure our safety since the start of the Pandemic. Management is clearly more interested in grinding profits out of us for the shareholders than investing in our safety. Management’s greed in this moment WILL NOT STAND,” BMWED said. 


“Federal law protects our right to withdraw from service if dangerous workplace conditions present an ‘imminent danger of death or serious injury,’” the union continued.

In a Thursday letter to UP President and CEO Lance Fritz, BMWED outlined several measures that the union would like UP to adopt. They include:

  • Continuation of pay, which would encourage employees to be tested for contracting the coronavirus since they would not feel compelled to go to work because of fear of losing their earnings.
  • Access to testing on the job site and on company time.
  • Temperature testing prior to work shifts.
  • Contact tracing following an exposure at work.
  • Daily access to personal protective equipment such as face masks and hand cleaners, as well as adequate sanitation supplies in group areas and for machines and locomotives.
  • Social distancing requirements in public-use areas.

Union Pacifc’s response

Although the union didn’t specifically say on Friday that it would strike, UP said Monday that it has filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska to stop BMWED from striking.

“Union Pacific had no choice but to take this threat seriously, and we were forced to seek court intervention to prevent the BMWED from acting on its threats. We have worked hard to ensure the safety of our employees, while continuing to move the goods and products that our country needs to support current freight demands and recover from the pandemic,” UP said.


The railroad continued, “We implemented a robust pandemic response to ensure that our employees remain safe and are compensated if required to be off of work because of a work-related exposure to the virus. We are unwilling to allow BMWED to unilaterally shut down Union Pacific’s 23-state operations — which are critical to the recovery of the American economy — based on concerns that have been, and will continue to be, addressed.”

UP has said previously that it provided union-affiliated “agreement employees” who have worked at least 30 days during the pandemic a one-time $1,000 gross bonus in December. The bonus applied to all current agreement employees, including those who have been furloughed, who have worked at least 30 days between March 1 and Nov. 30.

BMWED responded to UP’s comments by saying that UP’s COVID-19 protocols are “inadequate,” especially since the nature of the work of maintenance-of-way employees requires workers to be in close proximity with others. As a result, the union argues that continuing to work under those protocols creates an imminent threat of serious injury or death as defined under the Federal Railroad Safety Act.

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20 Comments

  1. Ml

    You were lucky if seen $400 from that $1000 bonus. The .oney helped but in turn was a slap in the face with everything they have done to families and the company employees.

  2. Michael A Varela

    Any body that believes the Union pacific has it’s employees best interests at heart is very mistaken ,they only care about profits and share value all else is expendible.

  3. Railroad Wife

    I’m the wife of a conductor who has lost 5 weeks of pay due to COVID. As a responsible human being, he got tested when he began to have symptoms, and it was positive. The ONLY place he had been for over a week was to work at Union Pacific. As the first to test positive in the yard, he was off without pay. When we had to quarantine again due to my case a few weeks later, again, off without pay. Now, this would not be so maddening if the efforts on the part of UP had not been so farcical. The first masks provided are made from what looks like the thinnest, translucent t-shirt material, one layer. They have now provided one-layer gaters. Instead of properly staffing each yard, they are calling in pieces of crews from yards over an hour away to all work together in tight conditions. As for sanitation practices, it’s on the men to find time themselves to sanitize equipment and engines. It’s also now on the men who work in these yards to also do the work of yardmasters and carmen, so basically there is no time for cleaning. Union Pacific talks a big talk of caring for employees, but this railroad wife knows differently and could fill a book with the reality of how UP regards its employees compared to its stockholders. No, our unions are not perfect, but it is the ability to organize collectively which stands between the way it is and much worse conditions for railroad employees who earn every penny they make in a very high-alert, high-energy line of work.

  4. Kevin

    Im work for a large midwest trucking company an they pay us if we contact covid 19 an i think the Railroad should pay there workers covid pay if they get it at work an put good safety measures in place,,you give mass an sanitizer take temperature checks an clean cockpits of the trains,, break areas to prevent the spread an you wouldn’t have to worrie to much about not making money,,its all about safety

  5. Rookie Banter

    Like a good human being I told the railroad I had a sore throat and my jaw hurt. They required me to take off 10 days from the time that my symptoms started. I had to lie so I could come back a day early on 12/17 and not burn my guarantee for both halves. My next paycheck is only $300… Merry Christmas. I haven’t heard back from the railroad retirement board to see if they are going to help supplement about $500 of the $2000 that I lost. It is a hard hit for sure. I’m not looking for pity. But I also know since I’m not a stockholder they don’t care. UPRR it’s just another greedy railroad that only cares about. PR. That’s around $4000 I have lost this year because the pandemic.

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Joanna Marsh

Joanna is a Washington, DC-based writer covering the freight railroad industry. She has worked for Argus Media as a contributing reporter for Argus Rail Business and as a market reporter for Argus Coal Daily.