Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen on the Union Pacific Merger Threat

Brandon Elvey, Secretary-Treasurer of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast to discuss three developments shaping the railroad industry and the workers who keep it safe.

Elvey addressed Union Pacific's application to acquire Norfolk Southern — a deal that would give a single carrier 40 percent of the railroad market that Elvey said rarely delivers on its promises to workers. He also outlined the Surface Transportation Board review process and the coalition of rail unions and customer associations pushing back. He described an active deregulatory push to reduce railroad highway grade crossing inspections from monthly to quarterly, arguing that the regulations in place since the 1990s have demonstrably reduced accidents and deaths and should not be weakened.

Finally, Elvey also discussed the Long Island Rail Road strike that ended with a coalition of six rail unions winning a fourth-year wage increase, which the two presidential emergency boards had already recommended — a rare rail strike that worked.

• Union Pacific's application to acquire Norfolk Southern — its third attempt at filing — would give a single carrier approximately 40 percent of the U.S. railroad market. The Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen has already seen roughly a 20 percent reduction in membership with Union Pacific alone. Elvey said the carrier's history of supply chain embargoes after COVID and longstanding safety culture concerns make it a problematic candidate to absorb Norfolk Southern, which has at least made credible efforts to improve safety since the East Palestine derailment in 2023.
• The Association of American Railroads is pushing to reduce mandatory testing of railroad highway grade crossing warning devices from monthly to quarterly, arguing that emerging technology can substitute for human inspection. The Brotherhood opposes the change, pointing to a correlation between the current monthly inspection requirement — in place since the 1990s — and a sustained decline in grade crossing accidents, incidents and deaths. Additional technology should supplement human inspection, not replace it, Elvey said.
• A coalition of six rail unions, including the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, went on strike against the MTA on the Long Island Rail Road after three years of bargaining, two presidential emergency boards that both sided with the unions on key wage proposals and a final bargaining session in which the MTA continued introducing late demands. The strike secured a fourth-year general wage increase of 4.5 percent that the MTA had refused, consistent with what both emergency boards had recommended. Elvey credited coalition bargaining among the six unions as the critical factor in the outcome.

A Busy Union in a Deregulatory Moment

Brandon Elvey is the secretary-treasurer of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, a union of approximately 10,000 members affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Signal maintainers keep the systems running that prevent trains from colliding with each other, with people and with the traveling public. This includes railroad-highway grade crossing warning devices, signal systems and automation infrastructure.

Elvey came to the conversation with three active fronts to discuss and described the union's current environment as one of constant motion: open bargaining, a convention year, a deregulatory agenda requiring sustained attention and a major merger application working its way through the Surface Transportation Board.

Union Pacific Wants Norfolk Southern — and the BRS Has Concerns

Union Pacific has filed an application — for the third time — with the Surface Transportation Board to acquire Norfolk Southern. If approved, the deal would give a single carrier approximately 40 percent of the U.S. railroad freight market. Elvey said the BRS is opposed, and the reasons extend well beyond worker protections.

According to Elvey, Union Pacific was among the most significant contributors to post-COVID supply chain disruptions, using embargoes that backed up freight movement across the country at a moment when supply chain reliability was already under maximum stress. Its safety culture has been a persistent concern within the industry. And on the membership side, the Brotherhood has already seen a roughly 20 percent reduction in its ranks on Union Pacific, which Elvey said speaks for itself about what a Union Pacific-controlled railroad looks like for workers.

The BRS is part of a merger opposition coalition that includes the Teamsters' rail division, the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes (BMWED) and associations representing chemical and fertilizer customers — industries with direct stakes in the reliability of east-west freight movement. The Surface Transportation Board (STB), an independent agency, will ultimately make the decision, under a framework that now requires any applicant to demonstrate the merger serves the public interest — a standard that was not applied to the recent CPKC merger. Elvey said the STB has given Union Pacific multiple opportunities to refile its application, and he expects a decision before the end of the year.

He also raised Norfolk Southern's recent safety efforts. Since the East Palestine derailment in February 2023, the railroad has worked with the BRS to develop new safety programs and has made some credible early progress. Elvey said one of the coalition's core concerns is that those improvements would likely be abandoned under Union Pacific ownership.

Grade Crossings: Monthly Inspections Under Threat

The Association of American Railroads — the primary lobbying arm for the major freight carriers — is pushing regulators to reduce the mandatory inspection frequency for railroad highway grade crossing warning devices from monthly to quarterly. The railroads argue that emerging technology can perform the monitoring functions currently handled by signal maintainers during monthly visits.

Elvey disagreed. The monthly inspection requirement has been in place since the 1990s. Since its implementation, Federal Railroad Administration data tracks a sustained correlation between those inspections and a reduction in grade crossing accidents, incidents and deaths. The regulation is working, he said. The proposed change would reduce human oversight of safety-critical equipment by 67 percent based on the premise that technology can substitute for trained signal maintainers, which the BRS does not accept. If additional technology can add value, it should do so alongside human inspection, not instead of it, Elvey said.

The decision rests with the Federal Railroad Administration, which operates under executive branch authority. Elvey noted that the current administration's deregulatory agenda — pursued through executive orders instructing agencies to identify and reduce regulations — creates real risk that a 30-year-old safety standard could be weakened. The BRS is working on legislative approaches to codify the inspection requirement into law, making it harder to roll back through executive action alone.

Long Island Rail Road: A Strike That Worked

Rail strikes are rare. The Railway Labor Act creates an extended process — voluntary bargaining, National Mediation Board mediation, presidential emergency boards and cooling-off periods — all specifically designed to make a strike difficult. The process also means that when a strike does happen, it has usually been years in the making and every alternative has been exhausted.

The Long Island Rail Road strike fit that description. Six rail unions, including the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, bargained together for three years. Two separate presidential emergency boards reviewed the dispute, and both sided with the unions on the central wage question: a fourth-year general wage increase of 4.5 percent to keep up with inflation. The MTA, which had access to congestion pricing revenue, refused to agree to it and continued introducing new demands late in the final bargaining session.

The unions went on strike. The trains stopped running. New York noticed.

The strike produced the agreement the unions had been seeking — the 4.5 percent fourth-year increase both emergency boards had recommended, consistent with what another union on the property already received. Elvey credited the six-union coalition as the decisive factor. Working together, presenting a unified front and refusing to be divided is what made the outcome possible. A single union fighting the same fight alone, he said, would have faced much longer odds.

He also acknowledged the structural frustration of the Railway Labor Act — noting that bargaining periods of 10 years are not unheard of when mediation drags on, and the National Mediation Board controls when a union can be released to take action. Three years, in that context, was actually a relatively compressed timeline.

More information on the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen is available at brs.org.

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