Feb. 19th, 2003

HISTORY LEAVES NO DOUBT ABOUT IT, EITHER UNITED WE STAND, OR DIVIDED WE FALL.

It is time for the UTU members of Houston and Galveston to unite. As we have seen the changes in recent months in the Houston and Galveston area, we now have no choice but to unite as one.

It would be easy to divide the new Galveston and Houston area UTU members. We have former Santa Fe trainmen, HB&T trainmen, pre-1985 trainmen, Burlington Northern trainmen, and the now BNSF trainmen(NH99). With so many different backgrounds, it is easy to have conflicting ideas and goals. However, it is time to put aside our own individual conflicts and stand together as fellow UTU trainmen.

If you have questions or concerns about any trainmen topics, please email me, I will try to find answers and post them as well as email you.

There is some questions regarding the HB&T contract on the issue of the Pearland switch mans extraboard. It seems that we need an ATSF prior right trainmen to hold the Pearland switchman's extraboard for an unknown amount of time during a 6 month period or the company has the right to move this board and combine it with the Houston switchman's extraboard. This seems to be a safety issue to me. Why take trainmen who work this yard regularly and send them to Houston and take guys that work Houston and send them to Pearland? We had a serious accident at the Pearland yard in December. We should keep a switchman's extra board at Pearland. Makes sense to have regular guys working in one yard so that they will learn the yard. We need to contact UP local and Daryl Ness to express these these serious safety concerns.

The Galveston/Houston hub now has several trainmen cut off. With guys using their system wide seniority, it may be a while before the local guys get back to work.

This web site is just under way. There will be many updates in the near future. I will update the page at least once a week. As I have limited time to work on this project, I am interested in anyone who might be able to help either with information or writing HTML for this web site. If interested email me.