Nearly all railroads in America have some slogan along the lines of “safety is our number one priority.” But, if you ask any employee who has been injured on the job due to the carelessness created by corporate greed, they’ll tell you that is a joke. The fact is, railroad companies don’t care one bit about safety if it affects their bottom line – profits. One clear example of this is allowing the unsafe practice of getting on and off moving equipment (GOOME).
The term “GOOME” refers to the process of railroad workers boarding and deboarding rail cars before they have come to a complete stop. For many years, nearly every Class 1 railroad prohibited GOOME because studies showed it to be too dangerous and was responsible for a staggering amount of worker injuries and deaths. Then came the advent of Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR), a system devised to keep freight moving on strict schedules in order to maximize profits. Not surprisingly, GOOME was brought back into most railroad operations to increase efficiency, despite previously determining it presented an unacceptable risk to employees. The decision to allow GOOME is indefensible, which has been reflected in the massive verdicts juries have awarded to workers that have been injured by GOOME.
At Doran & Murphy, we hear stories of railroad employers’ disregard for safety from our clients every day. Workers are constantly expected to perform tasks that violate the railroads’ own safety rules. We recently represented a shop worker who was expected to regularly lift and move a 300-pound piece of equipment, even though the rules prohibited lifting anything over 50 pounds without assistance. Of course, this employee worked alone and when he repeatedly asked for some type of assistive lifting device, he was denied over and over. After he injured his shoulder during one of these lifts, we filed a lawsuit against his employer on his behalf. During depositions, his supervisors offered no excuse for denying him help, other than it would have been an inconvenience to provide him with a safe way to perform his job.
These are just two of the countless examples of railroad companies’ indifference to worker safety, despite their insincere slogans.
Unfortunately, it is the workers who suffer when safety is ignored in the pursuit of efficiency and profits. If you have been injured on the job due to the carelessness of your employer, call us today for a free consultation.