Members of Congress                                                                                    Jay L Schollmeyer
Washington, DC 20515                                                                                 Portland, OR 97215


I am a Conductor on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (formerly the Burlington Northern) and have been for over 25 years. I am also an officer in the United Transportation Union. Unfortunately during that time I have seen coworkers severely injured and die from senseless accidents.

Recently Matthew K. Rose President and Chief Operating Officer sent a letter to all members of Congress (attached). Mr. Rose makes assurances that great progress has been made in addressing fatigue. Mr. Rose also states that HR3091 is nothing more than labor attempting to disrupt operations because of Attendance Guidelines.

1.    Mr. Rose states that the Attendance Guidelines will NOT affect an employee to secure sufficient rest. An employee was disciplined for non-compliance of the Attendance Guidelines. The BNSF Superintendent issued this response to the employees appea (attached)l.

"You point out in your appeal that Mr. xxxxxxxxxx worked an average of 60 hours per week during the test period. This is clearly above the workforce average, but misses the point entirely. The attendance guidelines are not, nor have they ever been, intended to set a quota on the total number of hour worked."

2.    Mr. Rose goes on to boast that we can make advanced mark off requests up to 90-days in advance. However at a Town Hall meeting in Vancouver, WA he told the employees. "We are not required to maintain manpower to guarantee your lay-off time".

3.    Mr. Rose talks about being an industry leader in the area of work rest by establishing assigned rest days. Mr. Rose fails to mention the flaws in the assigned days off.
An employee may be called for train that can take up to 40-hours to get back home just 2 hours before assigned rest days.

4.    On fatigue, in my terminal it takes approximately 30-40 hours to make a run. Returning crews can be called back on duty in as little as 8 hours. When an employee attempts to mark off fatigued the trainmaster will only grant an additional 12 hours off.

In closing, I want to quote Michael W. Babcock Ph.D., a Professor of Economics. In a 24-year career at KSU, who received the Burlington Northern Railroad Award from the Transportation Research Forum for outstanding research in agricultural transportation.

"The explosive growth of railroad worker productivity is one of the meet remarkable achievements in U.S. labor history. Between 1970 and 1990, the number of railroad workers declined by 5%. Yet during the same period, railroad workers through hard work and adaptability achieved a 29 percent increase in output and a 225 percent gain in productivity."


Yours Truly,
/s/JLSchollmeyer

Dear Member of Congress:

Last December I wrote to you explaining why BNSF Railway was reviewing its planned availability policy. That review resulted in replacement of the availability policy with attendance guidelines effective March 1, 2000. Recently, a lot of misinformation has been circulated about these train, yard and engine ("TY&E') crew attendance guidelines. Therefore, I want set the record straight on this important issue.

The attached "white paper' does this by describing BNSF's efforts to ensure that sufficient train, yard and engine employees are available every day to move our nation's commerce without delay and to enable BNSF to continue to provide its customers with the best service in the industry. I'm happy to report that less than two percent of employees covered by our attendance guidelines have been called to a formal investigation for violating the guidelines during the first three-month period since they took effect.

Employee availability is a significant issue. Fatigue is a serious though separate issue.
And it should be noted that BNSF is the railroad industry's pioneer in developing fatigue countermeasures for railroad workers, and in studying fatigue issues in general

We are pleased that the leadership and membership of the unions representing our crews, most notably the United Transportation Union (UTU) and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (BLE), have been active in our fatigue countermeasures program. Our discussions have resulted in such rail industry innovations as a comprehensive fatigue education program, a system-wide napping policy and a variety of assigned days-off arrangements. All were implemented with the active involvement and support of labor.

Unfortunately, one of those labor organizations is now confusing the effort to ensure that adequate employees are available to provide efficient rail transportation with the fatigue Issue. That confusion has led to a number of misrepresentations of our attendance guidelines, some of them repeated in a letter dated June 27 from Charles L Little, International President of the UTU, to many of you.

Our attendance guidelines have been misrepresented as changing BNSF's crew-calling policies. The guidelines' only effect on our crew ceiling policies is beneficial to employees, who may now arrange layoffs up to days in advanced. Otherwise our crew calling policies remain entirely consistent with those in the industry and with our practices of the last 20 years.


The June 27 letter describes the attendance guidelines as evidence of 'BNSF's desire for further force reduction." BNSF management is at a loss to understand what information has been used to arrive at that conclusion. In fact, since June 1, BNSF has been calling furloughed 1Y&E employees back to work at locations throughout its system. As of June 27, BNSF bad 699 TY&.E employees in furloughed status and 214 on paid 'reserve boards," not the "well over 1,000" cited in the letter. The number continues to decline; as of July 10, there were 442 employees on furlough and 139 on reserve boards. The reason we have anyone furloughed or in reserve is due to fluctuations in shipper demand for rail service. Our furloughs and reserve board levels this year are just about what we had last summer and have nothing to do with the attendance guidelines. Our total TY&E employment stands ax about 17,000.

Perhaps the most serious misrepresentation of our attendance guidelines is that they affect our employees' ability to secure sufficient rest to operate our trains safely. The essence of the Guidelines is merely a reminder to our TY&E people of their longstanding responsibility to maintain a full-time employment relationship with us and share weekend work equitably, as Is necessary in our twenty-four hours a day, seven day a week business. During discussions with labor organizations last December and January, which led to the attendance guidelines. all BLE general chairmen and most UTIJ general chairmen at BNSF recognized this responsibility and did not confuse it with fatigue management Three UTU general chairmen, however, refused to join these extensive talks and have simply resisted every initiative in this area. I should emphasize, however, that, along with their BLE counterparts. Most UTU general chairmen at BNSF accepted their responsibility to participate in discussions of these attendance issues and provided constructive input which we have followed.

However, apparently because of the efforts of a few UTU general chairmen, the UTU international has felt compelled to continue a misplaced attack on our attendance guidelines, and attempt to punish us through introduction of H.R. 3091. which would allow TY&E employees who had been available for duty for seven days to voluntarily take three days off.

In the course of BNSF's fatigue countermeasure program, we have carefully studied the science on fatigue. Based on this research, it's clear that making the three days off optional would not effectively combat fatigue. That's especially evident in view of the established
scientific fact that a fatigued individual is unlikely to be able to accurately estimate the degree of his or her fatigue and therefore. the necessity for rest.

As the industry leader in the area of work/rest initiatives. BNSF has seventy-three TY&E employee work groups with assigned rest days. We are moving forward with trial agreements which would give certain employees seven days on and three "scheduled" days off. These agreements closely resemble H.R. 3091 with the addition of the "essential" scheduling of days off, staggering them, and coordinating these periods with the railroads needs to assure proper rest and adequate family time for our TY&E employees.

We will continue to work with all labor organizations on meaningful fatigue countermeasures. We will not allow that focus to be diffused by certain detractors' preoccupation with issues, such as our attendance guidelines, which are completely separate from those influencing fatigue among railroad workers.

We recognize and value the contributions BNSF employees and their labor organizations make to meeting and exceeding our customers' expectations. We have a good relationship with our employees which is certainly reflected in the quality of our current service levels, plainly the best in our industry. We also enjoy, and work hard to maintain, good working relationships with the unions which represent BNSF people. For example BNSP reached all major implementing agreements with UTU and BLE for its 1995 merger without ever resorting to arbitration. It's unfortunate that just a part of one union now appears bent on undermining that relationship.

Please take the time to study the attached white paper, which accurately describes our efforts to ensure that we can keep the nation's commerce moving without compromising safety. Thank you for your consideration, and please let me know if you have any questions or would
like to discuss the issue further.

Very truly yours,
/s/ Matthew K. Rose