In September 2016, this committee entered into an Agreement with BNSF to perform the maintenance and inspection on numerous types of Mechanical Department detectors. In total, the Agreement included approximately 20 types of detector systems.  We did the work on all the listed detector types for no additional compensation. The original Agreement additionally stipulated the work would not fall under the BRS agreement and inhibited our future opportunity to make such exclusivity claims.

As previously reported, the Committee made multiple attempts throughout 2022 to either secure this work into our Scope rule or, barring that, to secure additional payment for those with such detectors on their territories – the Carrier refused our offers, thus leading to our cancellation of the agreement effective January 1, 2023.  As of that date, our members no longer perform maintenance and inspections on the various mechanical detectors. Well, what a difference a couple months can make.

As expected, though much sooner than anticipated, the Carrier realized it is not very expedient, and quite costly, to fly a contractor in from parts unknown every time a detector needs repaired. Even utilizing our brothers and sisters from IBEW, who are more sparsely located, proved unreliable. The Carrier realized it is much more efficient to have our local professional BRS members perform the work.

There was a certain type of detector system that proved most problematic for the Carrier in that regard — the cold wheel detector.  As a result, the Carrier approached the Committee, and an agreement was reached to perform the maintenance and repair once again on cold wheel detectors only.  And, the agreed upon monthly payment for those with a cold wheel detector on their territory is in line with the amount we originally requested to perform the work on all of the previously maintained mechanical detectors.