News Flash!

The Occupational Disability Issue & Chronology:

Rail Labor's Position

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 8 -- This is to update BLE members on recent actions taken by two members of the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) on our occupational disability standards. In addition, we present here the background of chronological events leading up to this action:

In recognition of the severe safety and health threats in the rail workplace, Congress amended the 1946 Railroad Retirement Act to specifically provide occupational disability protections for sick or injured rail employees. These annuities are paid to railroad employees who become physically or mentally unable to perform their regular railroad operations. This is a very important benefit, because an individual does not have to be totally disabled for all work to receive this benefit. An individual need show only the lack of capacity to perform his or her regular railroad job to qualify.

Section 2(a)(2) of the Act specifically states that the RRB "with the cooperation of employers and employees" shall secure the establishment of standards determining what conditions would disable individuals for the various rail occupations. Further, the statute states that "the Board, employers, and employees shall cooperate" in the promotion of uniform standards.

The RRB has never officially adopted occupational disability standards. For more than 50 years, the RRB has used 1946 "provisional" standards to determine occupational disability. In 1988, the RRB's technical staff did develop a set of standards. Rail labor approved these standards, the carriers did not. As a result, these standards were not adopted.

In 1995, the RRB Management Member Jerome Kever presented the RRB with a set of standards designed to the Association of American Railroad's specifications and for which the AAR paid a private contractor $500,000. After much pressure from rail labor, management agreed to join a task force with rail labor and RRB employees to test both the AAR standards and the neutral 1988 RRB staff standards, and to jointly select appropriate standards after testing is completed. Testing began in early 1996 and it became apparent that the tests could not be completed by Sept. 1, 1996 and that several more months would be necessary to complete all the tests that the task force agreed to be performed.

Despite the fact that the testing was not completed, the RRB Chairman Glen Bower and Management Member Kever, passed a motion 2-to-1, with Labor Member V. M "Butch" Speakman dissenting at a November 20 meeting, to release any available preliminary test results on Dec. 6, 1996, if the Labor/Management/Board task force had not met by then to determine standards (even though final test results would not be available on that date). Furthermore, the majority motion would then give the parties six (6) days (Dec. 12, 1996) to make their final comments regarding establishment of standards. It was clear that the RRB majority intended to adopt the complete set of AAR occupational disability standards without the task force's input.

Following the November 20 meeting, rail labor vigorously protested to the AAR and to the National Railway Labor Conference that the agreement establishing the task force was being violated. However, the AAR and the NRLC clearly and openly reneged on its task force agreement with labor. On December 3, those carrier organizations notified rail labor that they would not wait for tests to be completed or for the joint rail Labor/Management task force to act, but would ask the RRB to vote at the Dec. 18, 1996 meeting to implement the AAR standards.

Rail labor strenuously objected. BLE International President Clarence Monin along with the chief executives of the other rail labor unions, wrote a joint letter to the three RRB members on December 4, requesting a 90-day delay so that the tests could be completed and that the task force could make some joint recommendations. The RRB not only did not honor labor's request for a delay, the RRB did not even honor rail labor with a response until forced to do so by Labor Member Speakman at the December 18 meeting. The request was denied.

In support of rail labor efforts to stop the RRB's expected action on December 18, the AFL-CIO Executive Council passed a resolution condemning the action of the rail industry's assault on the rail employee pension system.

That same afternoon, President Monin and International Vice-President & U.S. National Legislative Representative Leroy Jones, along with other rail labor representatives, met with Vice-President Al Gore, to inform him of the RRB's intended actions to attack rail workers' pensions and occupational disability standards and how their actions will have dire consequences for both rail employees and the entire Railroad Retirement System.

On the morning of December 18, rail labor executives, railroad employees, and other union members, demonstrated in front of the RRB's headquarters in downtown Chicago and entered the offices to demand that the agency suspend any further consideration of the industry proposal. Over the objections of Labor Member Speakman, the RRB voted 2-0, to slash disability pensions benefits. Under the industry proposal, the RRB will:

1. Immediately stop using the 1946 provisional occupational disability standards.

2. Begin rulemaking procedures to adopt AAR standards which are called
"Presumptive Occupational Disability Standards (PRODS)".

3. Immediately put into effect a process to "re-engineer" the occupational
disability process to change the sources and uses of medical evidence used by
the RRB in making occupational disability determinations, and adopt as
many of the process "enhancements" as possible from the AAR's Disability
Claims Manual. This part of Kever's proposal, in effect, calls for
immediate adoption of as many of the AAR changes as are not inconsistent
with current RRB regulations.

Even though the RRB has to go through normal rulemaking procedures to adopt the AAR standards, it has already put into place, parts 1 and 3 of the proposal. The RRB's general counsel advises that the major and most damaging parts of these recommendations can be put into effect immediately because the changes do not require regulatory changes and would not be inconsistent with the Board's current regulations.

We wish to convey to our members that the BLE, along with rail labor, is committed to the establishment of occupational disability annuity standards under provisions of the Act, as it agreed to do in its agreement with the railroads in establishing the task force on this issue. In addition, rail labor insists that the standards can be adopted only by a joint effort, as the statute clearly requires. We stand ready to work with the carriers on this issue and ask the carriers to honor their original task force agreement p; the breach of which by the carriers is unprecedented in the entire history of rail labor relations.

Furthermore, the BLE along with six other rail labor unions, filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on December 23. The complaint seeks a declaration that the RRB's December 18 action violates the Administrative Procedure Act and is invalid because it exceeds the RRB's jurisdiction and authority under the Railroad Retirement Act.

We will continue to keep you informed on this matter. Also see the "Call for Action" also posted today with BLE News Flashes.