Interview w/ SMART-TD & BLE-T National President's

what's going on guys and girls today we got a great video for you guys we got an interview with the two national presidents of two big unions here for us uh train guys we got jeremy ferguson president of smart td union and we got dennis pierce president of the blet so guys we're gonna kick this thing off we got a lot of great information on the way so hang tight and here we go [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] welcome back everyone here we go today we got jeremy ferguson and dennis pierce uh that's kind of a big deal because this is a first time ever as far as i know two national union presidents on at the same time to basically do a public town hall for the members jeremy and dennis welcome aboard thanks for coming guys hey so jeremy real quick tell us uh what you do who you're with and how long you've been doing this well john uh jeremy ferguson i'm the president of the transportation division of the smart union smart being sheet metal air rail and transportation and of course the transportation division side handles uh everything air bus and rail and uh you know it's a pleasure to be uh on this show i think this is a i know it's my first time on a podcast and uh i'm sure it's the first time a president of our union's been on a podcast for the transportation division that is and uh i'm really looking forward to getting out here and chatting with you guys tonight so uh thanks yeah i i am too and i'm glad you guys both made time to make this happen i know a lot of stuff's been going on dennis pierce same thing man who are you with how long you've been doing this and welcome aboard man thank you john dennis pierce president of the brotherhood of locomotive engineers and trainmen also president of the teamsters rel conference the conference includes the blet and our brothers and sisters over at the maintenance of way division start got my start in the union as a local chairman lincoln nebraska our local division shout out to local division 98 and uh that was 1991 so it's been a few years yeah i have been uh working for my brotherhood and the membership for almost 30 years in some capacity as a union officer and i still love what i do outstanding outstanding so i gotta say national president that that honestly sounds like a uh honestly that sounds like a pretty hard job uh because you're at top of the food chain i heard i heard a key thing from both of y'all both of y'all aren't just you know one one specific aspect like jeremy i heard you say bus air and rail and dennis i heard you say teamsters as well so you it sounds like you guys are covering quite a few bases here that's crack john we got a lot of bus operators transit operators uh you know um you get into amtrak you also have a lot of short line uh members brothers and sisters that we represent so it is a pleasure to be in this seat and representing all of them because uh they're all wonderful members and out there every day doing a great job oh yeah and dennis teamsters i'm you know i'm a fairly new conductor man i'm not i'm not an engineer here so what are what are where's the teamsters coming to play here well it's a good question john in 2004 the the brotherhood of locomotive engineers merged with the teamsters and they were the first first rail group to go in the teamsters the teamsters has a railway labor direct uh membership in both the airline and the rail a year after the ble joined the maintenance away brothers and sisters joined and they have been the two divisions of the teamster rail contract ever since so we're we're roughly 70 000 members out of about 1.4 million within the teamster organization that's that's a lot of members jeremy how many members would you estimate you got kind of under your umbrella right here we're right at about 50 000. that's a whole lot of people i mean we're talking about around 120 000 or so between the two y'all i mean that's that's a lot of people that's a lot of responsibility following one person you know a person's lap like that so look i guess you know let's let's just kind of get right on into it here um there's i know both of you guys have been extremely busy and have essentially been in the hot seat ever since this high vis thing came along um now we don't need to hash out what hives is it's just plain and simple because i've covered that for almost two months now what would you say has been this this the hardest thing to navigate around this whole process that has been going on uh we'll start with you jeremy well exactly what do you mean by navigate around by that john clarified it for me real quick well hi viz has come along and it it really motivated a lot of people to get out there and start asking questions and to get out there and say what can i do what what's going to happen to us you know what does all this mean i guess so um there's been i know my emails have been blown up since i've started doing this podcast and you know there's there's a lot of information out there i feel like there's a lot of misinformation and i'm sure a lot of that has been directed to both of y'all in a very large capacity and so with that being said what what has how has this kind of brought information to y'all what kind of unique challenges has it prevented or presented well first and foremost you know this high vis was rolled out and became you know evident to dennis and i as we were headed into our last round of national negotiations we have a lot of things on the table at national negotiations concerning the quality of life time off uh you know and a high vis policy comes out and it's a slap in the face to everybody on the bnsf and the running trades and uh every other railroader out there uh because it tramples on what we feel is a lot of our rights uh under both collective bargaining agreement and uh you know the right to time off yeah you know that's why we live in america haven't have a life right so we're headed into negotiations and the bnsf drops this baby 48 hours before we get to the table for our next round and we didn't take that sitting down that wasn't going to happen and that started uh everything at that round of negotiations on the wrong foot and then the carrier stepped up not the carrier the the um nrlc came into the room with a wage increase that was an insult to all the working class including all the other crafts that were sitting there in our coalition with us so that being said it was off to the races we weren't going to take it sitting down and we put our collective heads together got all our attorneys here and you know we started taking the steps to try to stop this rather we know the railway labor act and and how difficult it can be and you know we're not done yet but uh the judge in the northern district of texas he may have turned us down on our strike authority but we're not done yet we're still home okay well i want you to hang on to that thought jeremy because i want to come back to it here in a second i want to get dennis's thoughts you know same question to you i mean this this has brought out of the woodwork to get involved and thanks to the whole tro and the gag order and all that stuff you know it a lot of people felt like they just kind of got curb stomped on you know and i know a lot of stuff has probably been sent your way as well dennis how how has this been something that you know kind of describe your experience with all this so far up to this point okay uh i think there's there's a lot of comparables with what we've been enjoying on bnsf from bns happen i think that's a critical point uh probably the biggest challenge is to make sure that that the employees the members realize who it is that's actually abusing them and that is bnsf in this case uh two years ago we were confronted with a similar situation on union pacific uh class one carriers often mimic each other when one of them does something the other might do it next right when it comes to as jeremy said that meeting went to hell in the handbasket we were there to try to do some meaningful contract negotiations they did that on purpose there's no doubt in my mind that that was to to just throw something across the table to see if we would take the bait or turn on each other which is one of the things i think they've been trying to do with our two unions since we got together last round and continued bargaining together this town this round when we realized how serious this was and our general chairman reached out to us and and brought the case that is when as jeremy said our our qualified attorneys uh the railway labor act's a very unique discipline in law and i think that's something we really have to remember it's not like other uh types of disciplines it's not the run-of-the-mill uh legal work there's very very few early qualified attorneys left in the country i am convinced that both of the two unions together have the best and the brightest available once everything was reviewed that's when we decided it was this was worthy of the memberships consideration when it comes to polling the membership for a strike though that's not something we take lightly job actions need to be legal because the illegal job actions harm the members and that's the part i think that if anything can be taken away tonight yeah breaking the law does not help your employment relationship if you really want a job here and that's why our job is to make sure we don't allow people to be put in that situation by the railroads but once the strike pull was in um similar to the union pacific situation it was a pathway to the courthouse as we found out and that's fairly consistent okay if unions pull their members and the railroad finds out uh as a matter of fact the our letter is authorizing a strike poll we're in labor relations hands in less than 18 hours as internal documents they didn't waste any time getting that again they have they have people and eyes and ears everywhere and that should be uh well known too but with the pathway to the courthouse being uh that the major minor disputes are as subject of of litigation and have been for uh decades right and when you go to present those cases i think there's a lot of misunderstanding as to what goes into the judge's review as to what he can legally look at the issue of major minor actually went to the supreme court several decades ago so once the high court of the land issues a decision it becomes referable in the district courts where we end up uh but it's been the ride since then uh obviously we were under the tro and and for the group out there the unions made no effort to gag its members the federal district uh a court judge was the one who issued the decision that during the tro period we had to stand down that was i think also bait uh and some people took it and there are a few people that came pretty close to getting charged for conduct because of the judge's order and that shouldn't be confused with the union order okay we are now under a preliminary injunction the tro has expired and the preliminary injunction does not have the same language as the tro which is a relief in my time even as a general chairman or a president i've worked under about six temporary restraining orders i had never seen one this bad uh when it came to the restrictions on the union and the union's membership which are one in the same to me so it's been frustrating to try i appreciate this opportunity because while we're in the middle of a court action before the pi before the tro we don't really have the liberty to advertise our strategies on social media right and i think we caught hell for that what are they going to do what's the plan as i said our strike authorization was in the company's hands in 18 hours our strategy would be there even quicker so we keep our council close and that's for a reason uh but i think it's nice to have this opportunity now to kind of talk about how all this went down and you know that's one reason i'm so thankful that you guys decided to go ahead and take up this time and this offer to come over here to you know experience this and to try to get information out there to people because i mean anybody in their right mind would understand that hey we're not going to show our cards because it's going to end up you know end up in the hands of the opponent i mean you didn't see the two coaches at the super bowl walk across the field and trade playbooks with each other i mean that that's just dumb you know you're you're not gonna do that um but you know this this is my first tro you know that i got to experience any of this is all brand new to me but even i looked at that tro and was like man this is kind of hardcore i mean it it really is and so like i said i could only assume with a tro such as that presented both of y'all with very unique communication challenges during this period and you know i i appreciate what you guys try to do even though i may not have understood all of it at the same time because this thing was nuts i mean it's just absolutely nuts so jeremy you you said something a minute ago that i want to get back to you said and we're not done yet right now i want to hear this man tell me what you can don't give us the playbook but i know what i mean i want to know myself are you are you guys about to go try to break a foot off in somebody's ass of course john absolutely um and and that's what we've always done you know we're here to fight but how we're going to do it we're going to do it you know in a wise way uh the members on the bn and the members on the other uh properties that are dealing with attendance policies want justice we've had a lot of uh a lot of victories when you're dealing with attendance policies as far as discipline goes we've got a lot of great awards put a lot in our newspaper and i'm sure dennis has on their side um up csx we've done a lot of good and knocking those piles down um but this being sf1 went farther than anyone we'd seen before and that's why they took the position it was a major dispute so now we're at a crossroads uh it's going to be um between council uh if we're going to look um to appealing pittman's decision or if we're going to look at going uh and and arbitrating the issues that uh our general chairman may feel that uh that are being violated uh by this high-vis policy so you know we've got a little bit of time yet to make all those decisions and and uh that's what the the the legal headshot we'll we'll be working on here and uh and and our general chairman will be deciding so that's uh democratic uh decision you know right would you be able to or is it even possible to maybe give a rough time frame on when we might hear a decision on which like how's that process play out how long does it take is it months is it weeks uh is it kind of dynamic and it could be either or no we'll be you're looking at as far as as uh i'm gonna just speak for my guys but it'll be you know a week at the earliest two weeks at the most somewhere right in that time frame uh as as to which which path we're going to go and how how we're going to go down and so this thing's going to move with a purpose absolutely absolutely awesome dennis kind of same question to you um and i i apologize because i'm you know i'm i don't know much about the blet or if y'all's processes are any different um kind of same thing to you you know the blet members you know you know are you guys having to go through kind of the same process um are you guys looking at some kind of a similar time frame to hopefully have a decision on your next move kind of kind of fill me in on that okay well i think it's important to understand how the the legal process actually works um there are actually three components of the legal activities we're through the first two the first one obviously being when we threaten strike the railroads filed for a temporary restraining order now jeremy and i personally attended personally attended that hearing uh the judge asked the specific question if they implement are you going to strike and we both emphatically said yes that's why they filed for a tro was because of that threat tiara is easier to get than any of the other functions in this legal process the judges will grant those if there is an imminent threat and he did and that's where the gag order and all the other unpleasantries came from the next phase of the process was with both parties filed for a preliminary injunction against the other the railroads sued us to enjoin us from a job action we sued them to enjoin them from implementing the policy that was the decision that came out most recently i think about the 14th through the 15th yeah and that was the preliminary injunction there are two still pending legal cases for permanent injunction relief from both parties okay so those are still there they are still there okay i didn't know that yes uh whether we appeal whether we arbitrate there are still legal steps to be taken in the matter uh and those are the kind of assessments both unions have to do is what is the best way to get this thing resolved as quick as possible in the best way possible okay and there there are pitfalls both ways uh the the appellate process that one's probably slow if we appealed the decision in in the up case when those guys were under a preliminary injunction it took almost a year to get a decision in the appellate case that was a chicago hearing in the seventh circuit we're in the northern district of texas our appeal would go to the fifth circuit and i do have to dispel this notion that these circuits are somehow magically different major minor disputes have been resolved in in just the time i've been here in almost every circuit or every district court in the country each district belongs to a circuit for appeals this is not about who the judge is it's not about who appointed the judge it is the basis of what is the dispute and it comes down to contract language not dramatics or not flair so the cases get heard we then have the right to move towards arbitration we also have the option to appeal this decision we also have the option to continue with the remaining legal issues that are outstanding again our goal is to get relief of the policy but i do have to comment one more thing on than the pi we may not have won in our effort to get a preliminary injunction but here's what people have to understand an arbitrator has the same authority to change this policy as the judge does that that is what the argument people bash the rla the railway labor act a lot yeah that arbitration is is provided to us through the rla if it is deemed minor which it is so far with the preliminary junction and that arbitration can be just as effective as a court decision okay so this isn't what i would call a loss it's a next step to jeremy's point and fight whichever route we go just as hard as we can well let me ask you this and i'm following my own thought process here so the appellate route can take quite a bit of time you you mentioned a year right and that's going back through the courts however would an arbitrator is arbitration since they have the same power to strike down this high viz as the judge does is it typically quicker to go through an arbitrator it it it those are these the decisions we're assessing now okay i was at bnsf when they turned on their first policy in 99. right and we went that we were in joined uh they won on the preliminary injunction so we sat then like we do now the decision was made to go immediately to uh arbitration over the policy itself okay our two unions worked together on that both of the national presidents participated in the arbitration the challenge then was the arbitrator said you know they're telling me they're not going to make it so bad and they haven't done anything yet so i'm not going to touch it that is one possible outcome when you take the question of the policy will that martial arbitrator touch it uh referee casher back in 2000 did not that is when the fallback was to take the case-by-case application to arbitration because we own that right too and a lot of those cases were overturned on the union pacific right now with their policy two years in my understanding is that we have won almost every dismissal case and the two unions collectively have collected over 10 million dollars in back pay because of the way that railroad policy was turned on the railroad has since made slight modifications to the policy to try to avoid those victories in the future so that's that's one way that you also change policy is by winning these cases case by case so it's hard to really say which route will go to jeremy's comment those are the discussions and we're having them together we started this together my goal is to keep our two unions working together as we go forward that's awesome i learned something new every day and you know jeremy i've been talking to you and you you've been gracious enough to let me kind of pick your brain and learn about a bunch of these things over the last several weeks man and though it seems the more you know just from talking to you dennis and talking to jeremy there's a much bigger will at play here in the background that i don't think a lot of people get to see um what you know jeremy i'll start with you on this one what would you say a large aspect of your job that goes unnoticed um just because you know i i don't know everybody that's a general chairman and things like that i mean there's so many people especially at the national level you know it's like you're always seeing somebody's new face or new title what would you say is one of the biggest things that you do on a daily basis big part of your job that doesn't get noticed well it's all that goes on behind the scenes coordinating the efforts uh between our vice presidents that are international officers that will be assigned to assist uh our general chairman um some of our general chairmen are well seasoned and know their way through the railway labor act in the process others are newer and we're trying to help everybody and we've got two vice presidents as does the ble that are assigned at the division national railroad adjustment board um so we have a big process that goes on with arbitration every day uh we've got i've got three attorneys here in cleveland that are on staff that are assisting those vice presidents those general chairman i'm trying to coordinate the circus and keep everybody where they got to be including all the finances that's got to go along with that and uh you know so it never stops plus we have to talk with the railroad officials at our level versus uh what they do at with the vice president's labor relations um we've got the nrlc because we're in negotiations we've got national mediation board because now we're in mediation board it's constant i i i cannot believe how much time i i spend on a phone or zoom call now it's uh it's it's amazing you know and what i enjoy most about my job i don't get enough time to do and that's being out in the field holding town hall meetings and uh you know i got to lincoln nebraska that was the last uh town hall meeting i did right right before christmas there so you know i look to get out there more and talk to the members make sure they're educated on all the issues that are current that are going on so they understand that we're fighting for them every day day in day out no matter what craft no matter what their seniority is or or any issue what railroad they're on so jeremy kind of i'm squirreling here for a second were you military absolutely us army okay as a sailor uh i've been listening to you talk this whole deal and i'm like that guy's gotta be military something so you were too you were too smart to be a marine i'm kidding i'm kidding guys navy versus marines we gotta do it don't don't crucify me just i had to take my shot there love i love my devil dogs man dennis same thing for you man what would you say you know being in your position in behind the scenes that you would like people to know that you know they probably don't get to know regarding your job or what you do i think it's a lot of same things that jeremy said i think the structure of each of our unions is very similar take for example the grievance process to get a case to arbitration like jeremy talked about the local chairman the local chairman does the representation that takes training we we run a a national training program for all of our new reps whether whether it's our treasures our representatives our legislative reps we put them through as much training as we have to where you don't send a guy into a gunfight with a knife you train him with the tools he needs uh those local chairmen then they go in and they create the on property record as it's called the interesting thing about our arbitration process is once the general committees refine that through the appellate process and get it prepared to take to arbitration that kills the record we don't do arbitration where we come in and pound on the table and put on witnesses the record under the railway labor act the record is what the arbitrator considers so the national plays a role in that and much like jeremy we assign national vice presidents to assist the general chairman as they lift those cases up to the arbitration process uh much like jeremy my job is to assign those folks i'm a former general chairman and i like the view that i do my job as a general chairman's president of sorts because i know what those guys do every day i i i firmly believe that it's much more possible to be successful assisting others if you actually walked a mile in their shoes right well i walked a mile in that local chairman's shoe that general chairman shoe and every chair between the first one and this one so i know what those guys do and i know how hard the work is and i think it sometimes they get overlooked they're the unsung heroes but coordinating that whole effort uh jeremy and i are also employers uh we we play the or where the employer hat we hire we we set salaries we set benefits we manage a small business and that is a large part administratively of what we do when you then bring in the efforts we've got say at the national bargaining table jeremy and i are collectively part of the largest bargaining coalition ever put together in modern history with the railway labour act national negotiations eleven unions eighty percent of the nation's railworkers are in one coalition that's never happened yeah and a lot of that i think piggybacked off of the efforts of blet and smart td for the first time ever in the last bargaining round we work together and that's that is a turnaround from my time at the railroad it wasn't always like this and i think this is a much more productive way to do business my members are in the cab with jeremy's members uh they're our members these are operating employees on most of the nations railroads and they all have a common interest and they deserve to have us working together to help them and i think that's been a large part of what why some of this stuff has worked better than it used to yeah okay awesome so guys look we're down to our last few minutes here and like i said i honestly think this conversation with the three of us we could have many of these conversations i think there's a lot of information to get out there there's i want to ask you guys if you're okay with i have a couple of questions that have been sent in to me by people and there's one topic i wanted to ask both of you all myself are you guys game for it sure absolutely okay so i've said in my podcast i don't know if you guys have had a chance to watch them is that when it comes down to communications between the unions and the members it could be better needs to be better should be done better and i'm not saying that take a jab at anybody or take a cheap shot but given today's age of technology in the ease in which information can be spread and connected with hundreds if not thousands of people how is this kind of today's day and age you know changing how you look at using technology to communicate with your members and if it is um what kind of avenues are you guys looking at i've seen both of y'all completely re redesigned your websites which i thought was my that made my nerd my nerd heart i happy um and you know i just kind of like to hear y'all's thoughts on that and see if that's uh kind of changing up how you guys are approaching things um jeremy we'll start with you well um i'm doing everything i can do and i have to learn it is a bit a bit of a learning curve for me i'm more of a gear head than i am of a geek uh as far as electronics goes and that so um i want i ran on transparency okay so apps and and whatnot that we can get so we can push information out to our members is one of the first things i wanted when i got into office here in october of 2019. if you've seen our smart td app you can see a member can go on there and uh he can he can tell exactly what his dues are where every dollar is going how it's separated you know the local chairman uh lca is getting this much the gc is getting this much and so on and so on right how it's separated how much we're getting at the international they got job insurance and short term disability i want everybody to know everything they got further more awesome you're on that app you can push a button to either hit email or hit phone call for your local treasure your local chairman your local president your legislative rep your state director and general chairman i want you to know that you can reach out to somebody by our app as quick as you can we have the technology coming that that app will allow us to push information out to our members as needed too so as we get closer to hopefully having a tentative agreement whether it's in mediation or a presidential emergency board whatever it is i want to better push that information out to the members i want to do these podcasts john you put me at ease that's why you and i talked a lot on the phone before i got on the show because doing these was a little unnerving to me i'm not a political junkie you know i don't i i hate hearing my own voice and seeing my own face on a recording it drives me nuts but uh i want the members to know what we're doing for them and that we believe in them and uh we're doing our best well and you know i i've said from the get-go i'm not a political junkie i'm not a sports caster this is just the way our little full-time rving channel with railroading took off if you would ask me is this where i would have envisioned all this going hell no i mean my wife's sick of all this stuff right now she could throw my laptop in the trash you probably would dennis same thing for you man you know you've been doing this a long time man you know you you've been out here you know at the national level doing a lot of work you know how how is this changing how you do things are you you know just kind of give some insight there okay that's a great question the uh and things have changed a lot in the time i've been doing this that that's that's one of the things we try to evolve we try to get better uh we try to use new methods to reach people uh some of our our internal rules require us to follow certain protocols that we just can't avoid that doesn't mean we can't grow on it expand it and make it better and and much like what jeremy's talking about with the new technology we both just turned on our our new web portal allows our members to get in and they can find everything they need to find too they can find out who their local officers are all they got to do is get their name in there and the rest of it will just populate we're also adding a feature here in about another week that'll give them the tools they need to be able to talk to any of the political people that affect their lives to where if there is a push to go reach out to dc on a federal piece of legislation a state legislation it's a tool that's going to be made available to our state chairman our legislative group and our d.c office to be able to reach out to the members and say we need you here's what you can do for your union get involved hit this button so the technology is a good tool we're also introducing the the push text world text has still got a lot of weird rules because you can't just automatically text people because if they get a 400 bill for the text it's just not doesn't work good if they don't set up to get the text so our new process is encouraging our folks to check the box that says i want to get a text message from my union we will start those texts uh those texts as many that we can to try to reach out to those folks and let them know what we're doing and what they can do because here's the thing about union membership it's not a spectator sport i'm a locomotive engineer i got interested i got involved and and became an officer in my union because i felt that it was important thing to do and that's what we also encourage uh to the one last thing i'll throw in there to jeremy's point about town halls covet has changed a lot it basically shut down in-person meetings for a very long time i did my first town hall meeting out in tucson last week in a very long time we probably had 70 of our members and i got to tell you i got my ass tour uh they're pissed off and if anybody sf thinks that they're more pissed off than up members they're not everybody's pissed off i got it i heard it loud and clear they also told me that they wanted us to improve our communications process and to that end we started interviewing pr firms today to try to come up with a better way to reach these people and it was an interesting conversation they said you have to hit a media market and i said well is that a newspaper well no nobody gets a newspaper anymore and nobody wants to pay for a newspaper there we've got to find the best ways to actually reach people where they are and and we have a diverse media market uh some of our larger divisions are way far away from big cities uh so the tools of reaching the people we're doing everything we can to find the best ways to get that that improved before we can get that message out there and share as much information as we can to all the membership absolutely and i i personally think that that's important you know and communication's always been a big deal for me whether it was in the military when i was on the fire department you know working jobs where if you don't have communication some cases you're just flat dead yeah i mean there's it's you know it's just one of those things that was always ingrained into me is communications everything so i appreciate that input and honestly with what both of y'all said i'm looking again my little making my little nerd heart happy here is i'm i'm looking forward to those and i do got the the new smart app uh our president here at 1313 made sure i got set up on it so i'm pretty stoked about that so i got one question here and this actually um this is also a little shout out dennis i know you know who this lady is her name's kathleen and i asked her questions she is the national president of the blet auxiliary and i tell you what the women's groups the smart tdr auxiliary the blet auxiliary and then we got a uh just a kind of a uh mixing pot of wives in another railroad wives group these ladies have been awesome and here's a question they brought up with me that they want to ask both of y'all what can fan the families do to support the railroaders who are affected by carriers who are implementing policies that take away any type of quality of life we'll start with you dennis that's a great one the uh the challenge we have is to find a an audience that will listen and when it comes to how we overturn these policies obviously we've talked about the collective bargaining process that's how you handle the grievances if it's minor dispute you either go to arbitration you handle the cases as you do it that's something the union officers manage uh jeremy and i have also started outreach to the federal government we have a new administration whether folks voted for him or not doesn't matter i think we have an opportunity with a more labor-friendly government to try to get some assistance there and that's where i think the family voice becomes so important jeremy and i personally met with the new director of the fra about the fatigue-related issues tied to to attendance policies across the nation and if it takes a rule making if it takes legislation if it takes an emergency order we've told them we want them all and we want to know what they will do and we will put the support behind those efforts and that's where those family efforts come in and become so important congressmen need to hear from their constituents when it's time to change laws and those are the kind of programs that i think become critical to the family involvement all right i like that jeremy your thoughts sir well i'll go one step further even uh you know bnsf just announced last year record profits warren buffett is so proud of his railroad number three profit maker for him you know send the wives after warren buffett i go go make some noise out out in front of his headquarters up there in omaha or one of his other companies uh write some letters and do whatever we can do and we're going to start some grassroots efforts on our own that are going to do the same thing but like dennis said i think it's most important that congressmen and senators here how the employees are getting treated and the fact that when employees are getting getting treated this bad by attendance policies that the bnsf and warren buffett are compromising our supply chain you know a lot of people are liable to be resigning wives are going to say the husband's not going to work or vice versa if it's the wife working out there we're done with this you know under the 75-25 attendance policy we had a had a decent life we could make make it work now can't take any time off but two days a month if you're lucky absolutely not families aren't going to put up with that and we're not putting up to that but i'd go make noise about that to my uh elected officials you know tell them you need help at the uh if you're a congressman and you know make some noise at the tni subcommittee and and uh say get get the bnsf under control um whatever you can do whoever you can talk to make some noise about it well you know it's funny you say that because i heard a rumor and you guys don't have to confirm or deny any of this but i heard a rumor that the individuals outside of the unions had rece had how was it patoomi received so many emails that it was mind-blowing so i'm i have a hunch that if we need to start writing emails to our congressmen and senators we can get the volume we need out to those particular people to make to to get some attention and you know it's not just going to be the attendance policy i mean yeah you you look at what we went through and it was a attack directly on a smart td but it was an attack on the on the blet also i have stuck together uh through it um since october of 2019 when i took office day two they attacked our crew conscious you know we were in the northern district of texas we had a victory at the fifth uh circuit court of appeals conductors are still on trains and the railroads have yet to divide us our two unions like they thought they were going to do on this issue they're still trying like hell but we made a lot of noise then also with congressmen and senators and we may have to do that again for that issue we may have to do that for a presidential emergency board issue that's going to concern pay raises and quality of life in our contract coming up later this year so yeah this is good that we can we can start exercising how to put a grassroots effort together with our auxiliaries with our with our kids that can call and write any family member that can call and write talk talk to anybody that'll want to help it on our cause well you know what kathleen katherine megan you you ladies at the top of these women groups you just heard it from the big dogs themselves man i mean we need to start getting information and you know start talking to these senators and congressmen i think that's a great start well guys we're going to close this out real quick in just a short closing jeremy tell us what's on your mind man what's on my mind you wanted to close us out quickly though right yeah get you're fired up man i i have a feeling something's right there on your heart you want to let out buddy well it is but uh you know i'll be quick though um i just want every member to know that uh as president i take it to heart uh you know attack on one's attack on us all and uh we're going to be in there and the trench is fighting we're putting all the resources we can put whether it's money whether it's lawyers whether it's boots on the ground our vice president's in there at arbitration if that's a route we go whatever it takes and we're in this together and don't lose sight of that don't let the railroads try to divide us and pit us against each other um we're in this together no matter what our titles are and every time every title in both of these unions and every member are equally important all right outstanding thanks john i appreciate jeremy dennis what's on your mind man i'm i'm going to bring it all home bring it on home man here's what i think everybody needs to know whether it's the delay in the contract that's not because we can't bargain that's because they won't bargain and everybody needs to know who the in this this picture is i'm going to be blunt when the union tries to defend you and it's the railroad that abuses you blame the railroad don't blame each other don't blame the unions don't turn on each other and don't expect the unions to turn on each other the the real core of both attendance and the bargaining round this is what the battle for two-person cruise looks like we're in it we're up to our eyeballs in it and if anybody is waiting to say are we going to fight the two-person battle we're fighting it today there are there would be a contract if not for the railroads push for a two-person crew they're trying to leverage every union out there in the real industry to see if somebody will cut and run and so far our coalitions have stuck together and we're doing everything in our power to keep our two unions together this is the fight for crew consist if anybody thinks they're not hoping you quit or they're not going to try to fire you with these policies that's just to have fewer of us so i think we got to call this for what it is we are in the middle of the fight for two-person crews and now is not the time to turn on each other we got to stick together absolutely man well guys thanks for both of you all coming on here i'm going to let both of y'all go i'm going to reach out to both y'all because we need to do this again we need to do some one-on-ones i think there's so much information that we can elaborate even further on um and so i hope to have you guys back i really appreciate it man appreciate the opportunity thanks john all right so guys there you got it we had dennis pierce we had jeremy ferguson and getting some of the hot information that you've been asking for and the questions you've been wanting answered so guys we're gonna see what we can get to happen going into the future like i said there's a lot of information to cover but for now thanks for watching subscribe hit the notification bell give us a thumbs up leave us a comment it helps us out you all have a good one [Music] [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Rails Tails & Trails

Views: 7,100

Keywords: smart-td, smart union, blet, blet union, jeremy ferguson, dennis pierce, bnsf, bnsf conductor, bnsf trains, conductor, conductor job, conductor trainee, csx, norfolk southern, railroad careers, railroad conductor, railroad conductor life, railroad employment, railroad hiring process, railroad life, railroad new hire, railroad talk, railroad workers, santa fe, train conductor, train conductor job, train crew, union pacific

Id: 6N9r6QIGqA8

Length: 47min 6sec (2826 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 04 2022