On November 7, 2025, UE Local 1477 ratified its first contract with PTI, covering rail crew drivers at the Denver and Grand Junction BNSF locations formerly operated by Hallcon, PTI’s rival company.
The local’s fight for a contract began back in April of 2025, when the local learned that Hallcon was losing its contract to service the BSNF railroad across Colorado. After a meticulous campaign to make sure all drivers applied with PTI (which took over in Denver and Grand Junction), the local won recognition through the NLRB “Burns Successorship” doctrine, because the vast majority of PTI’s workforce came directly from Hallcon. The result, in the words of Local 1477 President Dave Ferguson, was that “PTI had to deal with the UE.”
PTI took over the operation in late June and the local assembled a bargaining committee which began to draft proposals in July. Local 1477 met with its sister Local 1077 in California, which already has a contract with PTI at several Northern California railyards.
To prepare for bargaining, the bargaining committee wrote a letter to PTI’s CEO. Nearly all of the drivers at Denver and Grand Junction signed their own personal printed copy of the letter. On the first day of bargaining in September, bargaining committee member Roger Howard read the letter and passed the company a stack of the signed copies, along with a petition of solidarity signed by over 50 BNSF railroaders.
One early victory in bargaining was the bridging of previous industry seniority. Initially, PTI wanted to freeze all former Hallcon drivers’ seniority for a year, delaying all benefits associated with seniority, including PTO accrual. However, as a result of the letter campaign, the company agreed to immediately bridge seniority for all former Hallcon drivers now employed by PTI.
After the employer made an underwhelming offer on economics, the bargaining committee invited senior drivers to observe the employer’s next counter-offer. “The senior drivers made it clear to the company that their success in servicing the BNSF in Colorado was dependent on workers who had years of experience transporting rail crews,” said bargaining committee member Chenalle Lovato. The drivers all held up signs during bargaining that stated “The Cost of Living is the Cost of Doing Business.”
The final contract provides initial back-to-back raises in November 2025 and April 2026, meaning that drivers’ pay will increase by 6 to 12 percent in the first six months of the contract, with more senior drivers earning higher raises. Road drivers will now receive daily pay guarantees of two hours if they go a shift without receiving a call to take a trip. According to Grand Junction road driver and bargaining committee member Kim Cline, “Daily guaranteed pay is crucial because otherwise, our paychecks are up to the whims of the company and the railroad.”
Denver driver Shawn Marsh commented that for him, the “$0.30 night and weekend shift differential and the improved vacation were the most important,” and that he was “especially excited that his road driver coworkers would receive a daily guarantee.”
Finally, the contract’s expiration date is aligned with the expiration of Local 1077’s contract with PTI, setting up both locals for a joint contract campaign in 2028. Bargaining committee member Roger Howard said, “We stand with our brothers and sisters in California and we are ready to fight together in 2028. We may be different locals but we are all UE.”
The Local 1477 bargaining committee consisted of Kim Cline, David Ferguson, Chenalle Lovato, and Roger Howard. They were assisted by Field Organizer Noah Wexler and Staff Coordinator J Burger.