Here’s an open secret: retaliation is the hallmark of an insecure manager who has no clue how to lead workers and who knows in his heart he is not qualified to be in a position of power.

Insecure rail managers perceive reports of safety concerns or injuries as a personal affront to their authority and react by striking back against the employee. Enlightened managers welcome reports of safety problems as an opportunity to improve conditions and take steps to avoid future injuries. Their response is: “Thank you for bringing that to my attention, we will look into it right away and make the necessary corrections to ensure something like that never happens again.” But instead of treating a safety or injury report as an opportunity to correct an underlying problem, insecure managers “shoot the messenger” by automatically retaliating against the employee.

The problem is, reporting safety concerns and injuries are now “protected activities” under the Federal Rail Safety Act and cannot be subject to any adverse consequences such as discipline or discrimination. And any such retaliation against employees who report injuries or safety concerns is illegal under the FRSA and will result in punitive damages awards.

So here’s how railroads can inoculate themselves against expensive FRSA retaliation claims: treat employee injuries and safety complaints as neutral events. That means changing your management culture so that safety complaints and injury reports are viewed as neutral events that do not provoke adverse consequences.

A corollary of this means changing the financial incentives for railroad managers. The Federal Rail Administration has noted that the annual compensation of managers is affected by the number of injuries reported by employees under their supervision.  Is it any wonder then that rail managers react to the report of an injury as if the employee is taking money out of the manager’s pocket? Is it any surprise managers find ways to discourage and chill the reporting of injuries? Instead, why not base the financial compensation of rail managers on how they correct the underlying problems that lead to an injury? So that instead of focusing on disciplining the injured employee, managers focus on eliminating the risk of future injuries?

So that’s the secret that will put attorneys like me out of the FRSA enforcement business.  See, e.g., $300,000 in punitives against Metro North Railroad.  All it takes is a change in the culture of rail management from one of retaliation to one of risk remediation. Railroads can do it the easy way (voluntarily) or the hard way (getting hammered by FRSA damages), but one way or the other, the culture of rail management will change. And for that, we can thank the FRSA.

The railroads obviously have gotten together and agreed to push the bogus argument that any involvement by an employee in the Railway Labor Act CBA grievance-discipline process automatically constitutes an "election of remedies" under Federal Rail Safety Act subsection (f) that precludes any FRSA complaint. It is a bogus argument because it completely ignores the effect of subsection (g) entitled No Preemption and subsection (h) entitled Rights Retained by Employee, which must be read together and harmonized with subsection (f).

As railroad lawyers representing employees, it is critical that we give any OSHA investigators and Administrative Law Judges presented with that bogus "election of remedies" argument the means to reject it out of hand. Back in January I laid out my detailed argument for the holistic analysis of FRSA subsections (f), (g), and (h). "The Real Meaning of Election of Remedies Under the FRSA" And last month, in a well-reasoned and persuasive decision, Administrative Law Judge Daniel L. Leland confirmed that subsection (f) cannot be read in isolation but must be read together and reconciled with (g) and (h). And when that is done, the conclusion that the FRSA is not precluded by the RLA grievance-arbitration process is inescapable. Click here for the full Mercier v. Union Pacific Railroad opinion.

The Mercier decision was just certified to the Administrative Review Board for an interlocutory appeal, and has been assigned docket number ARB #09121. It currently is in the hands of General Counsel Janet Dunlap, who presumably will be issuing an Order regarding a briefing schedule. An ALJ decision that completely ignores the effect of subsections (g) and (h), Koger v. Norfolk Southern Railway Company, ARB # 09101, is currently in the briefing stage. Given what is at stake (unlike ALJ decisions, ARB decisions are binding on OSHA nationwide) amicus briefs in support of the ALJ’s analysis in Mercier are definitely in order.

Rail union rep Joe Coleman from Seattle has a question about the FELA liability of railroads who contract out work. His General Foreman recently hired subcontractors to band freight car loads that had shifted due to broken banding, and when challenged tried to justify it by arguing that since the subcontractors are self-insured, the railroad will save on FELA liability.

It ain’t necessarily so. Federal Employers Liability Act liability cannot be contractually waived, 45 U.S.C. 55, and the Supreme Court holds that "non-railroad" employees are nevertheless covered by the FELA if they are (1) a borrowed servant of the railroad, (2) a servant acting for two masters simultaneously, or (3) a subservant of a company that was in turn a servant of the railroad. Kelly v Southern Pacific Co 419 US 318, 324 (1974). When determining whether a person is a borrowed servant or dual servant under the FELA, courts look at several factors: (1) who exercised significant supervisory control over the worker at the time of the injury; (2) who selected the worker; and (3) who paid his or her wages. The overriding consideration is whether the railroad had control of (or the right to control) the worker in the performance of his duties, and where evidence of control of the employee’s activities is in dispute, the case must go to a jury. Vanskike v ACF Indus. Inc., 665 F.2d 188, 198 (8th Cir, 1981).

So don’t let managers bluff you with such lame justifications for violating your contracting out rules—-railroad laws such as the FELA do not disappear merely because a railroad says so. Employees of railroad subcontractors can still sue the railroad under the FELA. And by the way, railroad contractors also are covered by the anti-retaliation provisions of the Federal Rail Safety Act. Under the FRSA, a railroad subcontractor cannot retaliate against its own employees who report safety violations or personal injuries.

Talk about sending a message! OSHA has blown the whistle on Metro North Railroad’s culture of retaliation. Big time. No longer do railroad workers have to fear reporting an injury or a safety violation. The days when railroad managers could retaliate with impunity are officially over. Every railroad in the country is now on notice that retaliation by managers will lead to punitive damages.

Under the new Federal Rail Safety Act (FRSA), railroad workers are protected from retaliation when they report any injuries or safety violations. These four workers turned to me for help when Metro North retaliated against them for reporting their railroad injuries: Ralph Tagliatela of West Haven, CT (station custodian), Larry Ellis of the Bronx, NY (car cleaner in GCT) Andy Barati of Waterbury, CT (trackman), and Anthony Santiago of Hopewell Junction, NY (shop electrician). We filed FRSA complaints that have resulted in the following remedies: $75,000 in punitive damages to each employee (total of $300,000); up to $10,000 in compensatory damages (total of $40,000); all lost wages with 6% interest; expungement of discipline records; barring Metro North from using injury sick days or injury reports to bar transfers or promotions; forcing Metro North to give each of its employees a copy of the OSHA Whistleblower Fact Sheet explaining their rights under the FRSA; and attorney’s fees.

In the first wave of FRSA whistleblower complaints, this group stands out both for the variety of the management retaliation and the strength of OSHA’s response. As the railroad lawyer for all four employees, I can attest to the savvy of the OSHA investigator, who promptly launched her investigations and didn’t let up until she had a thorough grasp of Metro North’s culture of retaliation against employees who report injuries and safety concerns.

OSHA issued a press release that included this statement: “Railroad employees have the right to report occupational injuries and illnesses without fear that doing so will negatively affect their jobs, their health or their income,” said Jordan Barab, acting U.S. assistant secretary of labor for safety and health. “Retaliating against employees for exercising this basic, legally protected workplace right is unacceptable.”

On Metro North, OSHA’s whistleblower investigators quickly ran into the stonewall of an entrenched management culture in which retaliation against employees is expected and rewarded. And Metro North’s own conduct in response to the FRSA complaints was the ultimate proof of that problem: Metro North flatly refused to cooperate with OSHA’s reasonable demands for documents while asserting ridiculous interpretations of the FRSA’s broad remedial language. See this earlier blog entry where I predicted that such stonewalling will result in punitive damages.  These cases prove my point: the shortest distance between a FRSA complaint and a punitive damages award is for railroads to tell OSHA to go pound sand. The only thing that will get pounded is the railroad.

So for railroads across the country, the days of care-free retaliation are over. Refusing to change your ways is not an option. This action by OSHA proves the FRSA has sharp teeth that will shred recalcitrant railroads to pieces, while costing them real money. The message is clear: stop retaliating against employees, or get out your check book.

For more information on how the FRSA protects railroad workers, go to the free Rail Whistleblower Library.

 

The opportunities for railroad supervisors to harass injured workers just keeps getting smaller and smaller. The Federal Railroad Administration has now put a stop to the practice of railroad supervisors accompanying injured employees into medical exam rooms. The FRA issued a Notice of Interpretation declaring it to be a violation of federal regulations for a supervisor to be in a medical exam room with an injured employee (the only exception being if the worker is unconscious or has freely invited the supervisor in). FRA Notice

The FRA requires every railroad to adopt an Internal Control Plan confirming that any harassment or intimidation which discourages employees from reporting injuries will not be tolerated. 49 CFR 225.33(a).  Despite that requirement, the FRA Guide for Preparing Accident Reports acknowledges that many railroad supervisors engage in practices that circumvent the reporting of injuries, including harassing and disciplining employees who report injuries. Go to FRA Guide p.8

One of the ways supervisors try to make an injury non-reportable is to go into the medical exam room where they can pressure the employee or influence the extent of medical treatment. Those days are over. Now, it is a patent violation of FRA anti-harassment regulations “when a railroad supervisor accompanies an injured employee into an examination room.” And that is on top of the protection given by the Federal Railroad Safety Act, which prohibits supervisors from interfering with the medical treatment of injured employees. 49 USC 20109

So employees and union reps, now hear this: when supervisors want to go into the examining room, bar the door! And if a supervisor barges in anyway, file a complaint with the FRA for a violation of 49 CFR 225.33(a) and then file a complaint with OSHA’s Whistleblower Office for violation of the FRSA, 49 UCS 20109(a)(4) and (c). Under these new railroad laws, the fines, penalties, attorney’s fees, and even punitive damages that result will put a stop to that particular form of railroad intimidation.

 

After a week long trial, a federal court jury in Hartford, Connecticut, has issued a verdict finding that Metro North Commuter Railroad violated the Family Medical Leave Act when it denied its employee his right to take FMLA absences protected from discipline. The worker is a Gulf War veteran with combat related PTSD who has the right to take intermittent leave to deal with the unforeseeable effects of that serious medical condition. His supervisor’s repeated attempts to discourage him from taking FMLA absences escalated into a loud confrontation when the supervisor shouted, "Bid out now or I will find a way to fire you!" This precipitated a major panic attack in the employee, requiring him to take FMLA leave for the rest of that day and the next. The supervisor recorded those leaves as FMLA, but then two weeks later filed disciplinary charges after altering the attendance payroll records to change those days into unprotected non-FMLA absences.

By declaring Metro North violated the FMLA, the jury’s verdict exposes Metro North to paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorneys fees and costs generated by the lawyers on both sides during two and a half years of federal court litigation. This is the first FMLA case to go to trial against Metro North, and if Metro North’s hostility toward the FMLA continues it certainly will not be the last.

 

Need more proof that retaliation doesn’t pay? Check out this scenario. Workers raise safety concerns with their carrier and OSHA. Carrier files a defamation lawsuit against the workers. Workers file Whistleblower complaint with OSHA. OSHA investigation finds lawsuit was in retaliation for the workers’ protected activity, and PRESTO! the carrier has to pay $7.8 million in compensation and attorneys fees.

And to top it off, OSHA orders the carrier to withdraw the lawsuit and give all its employees notice of their Whistleblower rights. Read about it here. The carrier this time happened to be an airline, but the same scenario would apply to a railroad carrier arrogant enough to do the same to its workers. And we all know there is no dearth of arrogant railroad managers out there who think they have a license to retaliate against employees who dare to raise safety and injury concerns. So get ready for a flurry of tough orders against rail carriers, now that the first wave of OSHA investigations under the relatively new Federal Railroad Safety Act are coming to a head.

Q: What is the quickest way for a railroad to end up with a punitive damages Order against it?

A: Refuse to cooperate with an OSHA Federal Railroad Safety Act investigation.

Some railroads have decided to play cute with OSHA by refusing to produce documents on the ground that the FRSA does not give OSHA subpoena power. Sure, OSHA may lack explicit subpoena power under the FRSA, but railroads who think they can refuse to provide OSHA with documents as a result better think again. Why? Because OSHA has the ultimate power of "drawing an adverse inference."

Case in point. Metro-North Railroad has a dozen FRSA complaints against it. When OSHA met with the representatives of all the unions on Metro North, they told OSHA that virtually all employees who report an injury to Metro-North are subjected to some form of discipline. If true, this would indicate a systemic violation of the FRSA, with punitive damage implications.

So naturally OSHA wanted to investigate. OSHA sent a letter to Metro-North Deputy General Counsel Carol Sue Barnett with a list of the 297 injuries reported by Metro-North employees from July 2007 to July 2008, and asked "how many of these incidents resulted in charges being filed against the injured employee by Metro-North"? OSHA also asked for a copy of any disciplinary notices.

Here is Metro-North’s response: "after carefully reviewing the statutory scheme, we have concluded that OSHA lacks authority to require the production of specific documents and/or the compilation of information." Translation: "Go pound sand OSHA, you don’t have any subpoena power over us and you can’t force us to help you establish a basis for punitive damages against us."

Big mistake. On March 23, 2009, Region I Regional Administrator Marthe Kent and Region II Regional Administrator Robert D. Kulick jointly sent a letter to Metro-North, and it didn’t pull any punches: 

Because you have refused to respond to OSHA’s request, we intend to proceed with our investigation. Without documents from Metro-North, our determinations in these cases will be made on the basis of evidence obtained from the complainants. Thus, your refusal to supply the requested information and failure to cooperate with this investigation may lead OSHA to draw an adverse inference against Metro-North. Moreover, OSHA has authority to impose punitive damages in cases where it finds reckless or callous disregard for federally protected rights, or intentional violations of federal law.

So OSHA now has put railroads on notice: refuse to cooperate, and OSHA will draw an adverse inference that will be fatal to any FRSA defense. Reliance on OSHA’s lack of subpoena power will result in OSHA accepting all the complainant’s allegations as true and applying every possible adverse inference against the railroad. This almost certainly will lead to a finding of systemic violations and an Order for punitive damages against the railroad.

So, OSHA has no FRSA subpoena power? No problem! OSHA simply will unleash the devastating power of adverse inferences against recalcitrant railroads. And as a result, railroad managers will have their heads handed to them on a punitive damages platter of their own making.

Looks like the Federal Railroad Safety Act  is just the beginning of a new wave of whistleblower protection statutes. The combination of a whistleblower friendly Obama Administration and the worst breakdown of financial regulation in decades is sure to result in a major expansion of whistleblower protection laws, and the legal press is taking notice.

In this session Congress is considering additional protections for federal employees , and another bill (the Private Sector Whistleblower Protection Streamlining Act) would establish a coherent system for protecting private-sector employees from retaliation when they report violations of law or threats to health and safety. A common element in these new whistleblower laws is that they give employees the right to go into federal district court to litigate their retaliation claims before a jury.

Sound familiar? So it does indeed look like the Federal Railroad Safety Act is forcing the railroad industry to blaze the trail that other private industries soon will be following.

 

 

 

Here’s stark confirmation that the cost of retaliation is punitive damages and broken management careers.

A jury in Newark, New Jersey, just found that the top manager in the NJ Transit Police Department, Chief Joseph Bober, retaliated against female officer Theresa Frizalone after she complained about discrimination. The jury awarded her $1.5 million in damages (with another $500,000 in attorney fees to come). $1 million of that is for punitive damages to send a message to the Railroad that such retaliation is totally unacceptable in our society and will not be tolerated by juries.

And what happened to Chief Bober? The day after the verdict, Bober was no longer working for NJ Transit. He had been Chief since 2002 and had been earning $159,000 a year. All that gone with a jury’s finding of retaliation. So here’s my question to managers like Bober: Is it worth it? Is whatever twisted satisfaction you gain from retaliating against your employees worth destroying your career while forcing your railroad to pay millions in punitive damages?

Unless railroad managers start getting it, such verdicts are only going to increase. The Federal Railroad Safety Act, 49 USC 20109, prohibits retaliation against employees who report injuries or complain about safety or security issues, and juries are free to award punitive damages against managers who violate that new law. So railroad managers are now on notice, and the choice is theirs to make. They can put their careers at risk by retaliating, or they can respect the rights of their employees to engage in activities protected under the FRSA.