Norfolk Southern, SMART-TD end ground-based conductor talks

Norfolk Southern Railway is discontinuing negotiations with the nation’s largest rail union over a "conductor redeployment" plan that could have reduced the Class I's train crews to one person.

In a joint announcement with the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers–Transportation Division (SMART-TD), NS and union officials yesterday said they’re ending the conductor redeployment negotiations to focus on other quality-of-life improvements for employees.

"Over the next year, SMART-TD and Norfolk Southern have the opportunity to work together to implement important predictability improvements for our conductor workforce," said SMART-TD President Jeremy Ferguson in the press release. "These scheduling enhancements, which were part of last year's national agreements, have the potential to make an immediate positive impact for our conductors by giving them fixed days off and greater certainty about their weekly assignments."

The willingness of NS to drop plans for a ground-based conductor model "is a welcome show of good faith in the negotiation process," Ferguson said. A description of the ground-based model is available here.

Under terms of the national labor agreements, NS and SMART-TD have until mid-June to negotiate the details of the scheduling enhancements. Given the short time frame, NS withdrew its bargaining notice on conductor redeployment to focus on quality-of-life priorities, company officials said.

"While redeployment of conductors to ground-based shift-work will provide more predictable jobs and minimize time away from home, there are a number of other priorities that our labor partners would like to address, and we are committed to working together to make immediate progress,” said NS Vice President of Labor Relations Wai Wong.

Withdrawing the bargaining notice removes the mandatory requirement for the parties to bargain over the issue, though voluntary discussions remain an option.

Yesterday’s announcement follows NS President and CEO Alan Shaw’s appearance Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, where he declined to say whether he supported the mandatory two-person crew provision in the proposed Railway Safety Act of 2023.