Tim Tarrant, National Vice President of Commuter and Passenger Rail for the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast as part of the Labor 132 series presented by the Blue Cross Blue Shield National Labor Office.
Tarrant opened with his personal story. It included a terminal cancer diagnosis in 2007 that gave him two to four weeks to live, treatment at a union hospital made possible by a union-negotiated health plan and a recovery that changed what he wanted to do with his working life. He discussed the BRS’s 125th anniversary, the Ludlow Massacre of April 19, 1914 and the Battle of Blair Mountain, including the origin of the word redneck as a labor term used by striking World War I veteran miners in West Virginia in 1921.
Tarrant then addressed current railroad safety fights in Chicago and New Jersey, the May 2026 Long Island Rail Road strike that shut down New York commuter service east of Manhattan for three days and what AI and technology mean for railroad workers going forward. His message: technology should be a worker’s tool, not a worker's enemy, and it must be used responsibly.
- Tarrant's path to national union leadership began with a terminal cancer diagnosis in 2007. He was given two to four weeks to live and was treated at the University of Chicago, a union hospital. He credits his union-negotiated healthcare plan with saving his life. After nearly a year of recovery, he returned to his job as a signal maintainer and quickly applied for a national position with the BRS. He moved his family from Chicago to Virginia and worked his way from the bottom of the organization to National Vice President of Commuter and Passenger Rail.
- The Ludlow Massacre of April 19, 1914, involved approximately 10,000 miners who, in September 1913, went on strike in Colorado over dangerous working conditions, including one to two worker deaths per month in the mines. After being evicted from company housing and living in tent cities through a Colorado winter, striking miners and their families were attacked on Easter Sunday morning by the National Guard and the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, which set up a machine gun overlooking the camp. Union leader Louis Tikas and two lieutenants were summoned to negotiate a truce and were murdered. The camp was doused in kerosene and burned, killing approximately 75 people, including 11 children and 2 women who burned to death in a tent. Tarrant also discussed the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921, the largest insurrection in U.S. history after the Civil War, in which 10,000 to 15,000 striking miners, many of them World War I veterans, tied red bandanas around their necks to identify themselves against strikebreakers wearing white armbands, originating the term redneck as a labor word.
- Current BRS fights include a safety campaign at Metra in Chicago for fall protection and electrical hazard mitigation on the Metra Electric line, a fight for clean air in the Port Authority of New Jersey tunnels and a recently won battle to eliminate clearance places in tunnels where workers were expected to shelter in wall notches while trains passed at 40 mph, with inches to spare. The May 2026 Long Island Rail Road strike, the first LIRR strike in 42 years, involved BRS alongside the BLET, IAM, IBEW and TCU. It shut down New York commuter service east of Manhattan for three days to secure a contract that kept pace with the cost of living in New York.
Terminal Cancer, a Union Hospital and a New Direction
Tim Tarrant spent years as a signal maintainer on the railroad and loved the work. He never planned to leave it. Then in 2007, at a point in his career when he was fully engaged in the job, he was diagnosed with a rare and terminal form of cancer. The doctors gave him two to four weeks to live.
He was treated at the University of Chicago, which he described as a great union hospital. His union-negotiated healthcare plan covered his treatment. He said, without hedging, that it saved his life. After nearly a year away from work, he came back a different person. He had spent that time thinking about what he wanted to do with whatever time he had. He briefly considered something in religion. He is Irish, he noted, and quickly concluded that was not the right path.
He had always hated bullies and had always been involved in his local union. A couple of years after returning to work, he applied for a national position with the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen. This required him to move his whole family from the Chicago area to Virginia, where he started at the bottom, making coffee, changing light bulbs and working on arbitration. He worked his way up to the position of National Vice President of Commuter and Passenger Rail. His oldest son now works on the railroad doing the same job he did. His middle son is a firefighter in Alexandria, Va., and his daughter is studying government at the University of William and Mary. He believes she will end up fighting for working people.
125 Years of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen
The BRS is marking its 125th anniversary this year, and celebrated the milestone during its national convention. Tarrant noted that the union has maintained a continuous presence in American railroad labor for that entire time.
The Ludlow Massacre: Easter Sunday, 1914
When Tarrant talks to Local Union members about why any of this matters, he starts with history. He starts with the Ludlow Massacre.
In September 1913, approximately 10,000 coal miners in Colorado went on strike over working conditions that were killing one to two of them every month underground. The mines were owned by the Rockefeller interests. The workers were evicted from company-owned housing and set up tent cities in the surrounding hills. One of the largest tent settlements was home to approximately 1,200 Greek workers. They stayed through a Colorado winter, in tents, fighting for an eight-hour workday and a safe workplace.
Tarrant said his wife is Greek. The Greek Easter celebration is the most important holiday on the Greek calendar, the equivalent of Christmas, the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving combined into one day, he said.
On Easter Sunday, April 19, 1914, the Colorado National Guard and the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency set up a machine gun on high ground overlooking the Ludlow tent colony and opened fire. Union leader Louis Tikas and two of his top lieutenants were summoned from the camp under the pretense of negotiating a truce for the day. They were murdered on the spot. The machine gun kept firing until the miners fled into the hills. The strikebreakers came down into the camp, doused the tents in kerosene and set them on fire. Approximately 75 people died. One tent contained 11 children and two women. They were burned to death on Easter Sunday morning because the workers wanted an eight-hour workday and a safer place to work.
When he tells the story at Local meetings, Tarrant said you can hear a pin drop. People do not know this happened. They do not know that workers and their families sacrificed their lives so future generations could sit in a union meeting, vote on a contract and go home to their families. When Labor Day comes around, instead of just eating a hamburger on a day off, Tarrant thinks about what those families gave.
He also raised the Italian Hall Tragedy, where 73 children were killed on Christmas Eve during a strike. It’s another example of the price workers and their families paid for the labor movement that exists today, he said.
The Battle of Blair Mountain and the Origin of Redneck
Tarrant also discussed the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain in West Virginia, which he described as the largest armed insurrection in American history after the Civil War. Between 10,000 and 15,000 striking miners took up arms against the National Guard, federal troops and strikebreakers. Many of the miners were World War I veterans. They understood command structure, logistics and the importance of identifying friend from foe.
The strikebreakers wore white armbands to distinguish themselves. The miners, who had no uniforms, tied red bandanas around their necks to identify themselves to each other.
They called themselves rednecks.
Tarrant said most people have no idea about the origin of that word. It is not a reference to sunburned farm laborers. It is a labor word. It was the self-identification of striking miners in 1921 who were fighting the National Guard and private detective agencies for the right to organize. He said he makes a point of sharing that history every time Labor Day approaches. That word belongs to the labor movement.
The same Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency that murdered Louis Tikas and his lieutenants at Ludlow was also present at Blair Mountain. Matewan, W.V. Police Chief Sid Hatfield, who was pro-union, was murdered on courthouse steps by Baldwin-Felts operatives. The same forces, Tarrant said, kept appearing wherever workers tried to organize.
The Current Fights: Chicago, New Jersey and New York
Tarrant turned from history to the present, discussing recent union activity.
At Metra in Chicago, BRS members are currently fighting for fall protection and mitigation of electrical hazards on the Metra Electric line. He described this as basic worker safety equipment that most industries take for granted. Regulations in this area have gaps that prevent federal enforcement. The BRS is also fighting for highway-rail grade crossing safety tools that virtually every other railroad in the country already uses. This would protect not just workers but the public, he said.
At the Port Authority of New Jersey, BRS recently won a fight to eliminate what management called clearance places of safety inside tunnels. These are narrow wall notches where workers were expected to shelter while trains passed at 40 mph with inches between the worker and the train. Tarrant said if you eat well, you might get hit by a train in one of these spaces. The BRS also fought for clean air for workers in those tunnels, a fight he said should not be necessary in 2026.
In May, BRS joined the BLET, the IAM Union, the IBEW and the Transportation Communications Union/IAM to shut down Long Island Rail Road commuter service east of Manhattan for three days. It was the first LIRR strike in 42 years. The sole goal was a contract that kept pace with the cost of living in New York. Tarrant said the five unions kept their message unified throughout, talked to every media outlet that would listen and were met on the picket lines with coffee, water, Gatorade, pizza and, on one very hot day, chili and cornbread. Public support, he said, is what pushed the resolution. The message was simple, and they stuck to it: They are just workers who wanted a fair wage.
Technology Is a Worker's Tool, Not a Worker's Enemy
Tarrant also addressed AI and automation on the railroad from the perspective of someone who has spent 30 years watching technology transform the signal maintainer's job. When he started, signals ran on basic electronics, batteries and relays. Today, they run on microprocessor-based systems. The BRS, he said, is technology. It always has been.
But technology cannot replace the trained eye of an experienced worker. It can point in the right direction. It cannot fix the problem. It cannot detect a loose bolt on a crossing gate or a failing battery in a signal housing, he said. The East Palestine derailment was a consequence of exactly that gap, Tarrant said. Equipment was available that could have prevented the accident, but no one monitored it because no one prioritized it.
Tarrant believes technology should be a worker's tool, and it must be used responsibly. The fight is not against AI. The fight should be to ensure that AI is used to support workers doing safety-critical jobs rather than to eliminate them and leave those jobs undone.
More information on the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen is available at brs.org.
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