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BNSF Railway Co. and the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division (BMWED) recently agreed to enhance their 1997 safety agreement by establishing an alternative handling (AH) disciplinary process and formal risk and behavior modification procedure.

A non-punitive alternative to traditional discipline, AH guarantees investigative proceedings will be tracked through a separate database and won’t appear on an employee’s record. To qualify, an MOW worker must acknowledge accountability for a rule violation. The employee then works with a management and labor representative to develop an AH plan that includes training or other corrective actions.

If the employee withdraws or fails to complete an AH plan, discipline would revert back to traditional processes. Violations not eligible for AH include late reporting of a personal injury, abandoning a job for five or more days, and acts that break drug and alcohol policies/rules or conduct rules, or result in personal injury or property damage over $100,000.

Under a formal risk and behavior modification process, BMWED and BNSF officials will jointly identify workplace risks — including work environments, tools and equipment — and develop a method to collect, record and publish information derived from workers’ observations. Data will be collected from voluntary “risk and behavior” observers.

“This safety agreement continues our progress in establishing a new safety culture where employees, the BMWED and BNSF leadership work together as a team to eliminate injuries and incidents,” said Vice President of Engineering Greg Fox in a prepared statement.