Preventing In-Plant/In-Mill Railroad Fatalities, Injuries, & Making Safer Rail Operations

There have been 87 railroad-related incidents resulting in 89 fatalities reported to the USW at our represented workplaces from January 1, 1980 to the printing of this publication involving in-plant / in-mill rail operations. The term “USW” includes the current USW and all its predecessor unions. However, the records are limited for pre-merger unions other than the USWA, so some fatalities may not be listed. The USW remains willing to add railroad-related fatalities to our records from local unions, staff representatives, and employers.

The fatalities include USW members, contractors, and a member of another labor union. Their ages ranged from 20 to 66, and they were employed across the United States and Canada. The most common hazards involved:

• Caught in-between; couplers, rail cars, and close clearances (horizontal and vertical) pinch points,
• Derailing rail cars; thrown from and trying to dismount
• Doors falling off rail cars
• Dragged by a rail car that later caused fatal internal injuries
• Falls; from height and same level
• Hot liquid spilled out of a rail car causing fatal burns
• Molten metal explosions causing fatal burns
• Struck-by/run over by rail cars and the engine (including remote controlled engines); falling material; a steel cable that snapped, and a failed hydraulic jack while working inside a gondola rail car

All of the incident descriptions are different, but they share a common theme or trend – the rail safety systems were insufficient, and their deaths were all preventable.

The USW’s railroad safety project is a vital first step to eliminate repeating and uncontrolled hazards by applying the hierarchy of controls (a risk management principle based on ranking hazard controls from most effective to least effective) to prevent future tragedies. Rail operations rely heavily on administrative controls, such as training, rules and procedures. Rules and procedures are not enough, but all too often, rules and procedures are how safety and health are managed. Rules and procedures are necessary, but they are never enough. Nor do the rules cover, nor compensate for every possibility. Rules can even lead to trouble. Some rail safety programs are based on a set of simple “cardinal rules” or “golden rules,” and the USW has learned, rail safety programs that focus on administrative controls are overlooking the hazards that the rules do not cover, and the impediments that get in the way of following the rules and procedures. Workers are fearful of reporting accidents and injuries if they think they will be disciplined. Compliance with rules and procedures are critical, but it is not enough. An effective rail safety system may begin with compliance, but it cannot end there. It must have a workable way to find and fix workplace hazards whether they are covered by the rules and procedures, and it must address the impediments that make it hard to do a job safely.

Rail crews have been downsized and jobs combined, even contracted-out. The way work has been reorganized by understaffing has created “green-on-green” hazards, or new employees working with new-employees, and new employees training new employees.

New employees are progressing too fast through the levels of progression (six-months and one-year), which leaves rail crews less experienced and less knowledgeable about the rail operations and hazards. Meanwhile, workers are under production demands and their work processes have been sped-up. Locomotives have even transitioned or converted to remote-controlled, crews have been downsized, and crews have even incorrectly been operating as a single-person crew, which creates additional hazards.

OSHA, MSHA and other regulatory agencies do not have comprehensive rail regulations, and the rulemaking process takes far too long – which means workers will not have any regulatory protections in the near future to adequately address the hazards. Additionally, the Federal Railroad Administration defers to these agencies since they have jurisdiction with in-plant and in-mill rail operations.

Our infrastructure, such as railcars, locomotives, buildings, etc., have become older, even worn out, and the rail systems were poorly designed to keep up with today’s demands. Rail operations need capital investments with workers and their representatives being part of that process. Some of our members’ workplaces have approximately one hundred miles of track to inspect and maintain. Rail operations cannot afford to have poor maintenance and inspection systems, or run-to-failure, as this leads to injuries and deaths. Rail operations are the arteries and veins to keeping all other production operations running smoothly and they must have adequate resources.

The recognized union-management work group listed above has done outstanding work on this publication, sharing their location’s rail safety systems/practices, and the hard lessons learned from rail incidents, as well as recommending strong countermeasures for improving in-plant / in-mill rail operations.

This call to action is to prevent future tragedies within this very small job classification. It will take leadership across the USW, and from employers, who have in-plant / in-mill rail operations to find and fix hazards to make safer rail operations.

We cannot continue to learn fatality-by-fatality. The USW has seen how these uncontrolled hazards continue to kill workers, alter lives, and the impacts it has on workplaces, coworkers, and families. Rail hazards are too often normalized, and not fixed until an incident occurs. All rail safety systems must be proactive, not reactive. This is about learning and improving from past rail incidents to prevent the recurrence of the immediate and underlying causes, making workplaces safer, and to stop these recurring tragedies. Workplaces cannot continue to tolerate the serious risks faced by workers. Safety systems must be improved, and this publication can help along with continued commitment and collaboration between the USW and management through the collective bargaining process.

David McCall – International President, United Steelworkers