OSHA News Release: [03/17/2015]
Contact Name: Scott Allen or Rhonda Burke
Phone Number: (312) 353-6976
Email: Allen.Scott@dol.gov or Burke.Rhonda@dol.gov
Release Number: 15-0263-KAN
More than 200 whistleblower complaints against railroad since 2001
NORTH PLATTE, Neb. — For the third time since 2011, the Union Pacific Railroad has violated the Federal Railroad Safety Act at its yard in North Platte by disciplining employees who reported workplace injuries and sought medical attention, the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has found. Since 2001, the company has faced more than 200 whistleblower complaints nationwide.
In the most recent case, OSHA investigators determined that Union Pacific disciplined a 35-year-employee after the locomotive freight engineer reported injuries sustained in a Dec. 22, 2013 collision and received medical attention. The company has been ordered to pay the engineer $350,000 in punitive and compensatory damages and reasonable attorney's fees, remove disciplinary information from the employee's personnel record and provide information about whistleblower rights to all its employees. Prior to this incident, the employee had never been disciplined.
"It is disheartening that this employee, a loyal railroad worker for 35 years, faced disciplinary action because he sought needed medical attention for a work-related injury. Union Pacific's actions and the repeated complaints filed by their employees are indicative of a culture that doesn't show that same loyalty to their workers or concern for their safety," said Marcia P. Drumm, OSHA's regional administrator in Kansas City, Mo. "Whistleblower protections play an important role in keeping workplaces safe. It is not only illegal to discipline an employee for reporting an injury and seeking medical attention, it puts everyone at risk."
Any of the parties in this case can file an appeal with the department's Office of Administrative Law Judges.
Based in Omaha, Union Pacific Corporation is one of