Transportation company fined $453K for illegally terminating employees

A federal administrative law judge has ruled that CSX Transportation Inc., a subsidiary of Jacksonville-based CSX Corp., must pay a total of $453,510 to two railroad workers who were wrongfully terminated for exercising their federally protected rights to report workplace safety concerns.

The company must also reinstate the workers, the Department of Labor announced Friday.

The decision follows a whistleblower investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of CSX Transportation’s actions in November 2017 after the workers reported a blue flag on the tracks at a Waycross, Georgia, railyard, signaling they could not move their train safely. In response, the company removed them from the assignment and later fired them.

OSHA determined CSX’s response violated federal protections for workers raising safety issues.

The sum cited in the judge’s order includes $248,856 in back wages plus compound daily interest, $100,000 for emotional distress and $100,000 for punitive damages for the two workers. CSX Transportation must also pay one of the workers $4,654 for the health insurance premiums paid after their termination.

The decision is the latest of several in which federal officials have found CSX violating federal whistleblower regulations and retaliating against workers who reported safety concerns. In 2021, OSHA ordered the employer to pay $221,976 in back wages, interest and damages to a worker terminated similarly in New Orleans. In 2020, OSHA ordered CSX to reinstate an employee and pay more than $95,000 in back wages and $75,000 in punitive damages after an employee in Rebecca, Georgia, reported an unsafe customer gate and a work injury.

Similar whistleblower investigations at a locomotive shop in 2016 and at a dispatch office in 2010 in Selkirk, New York, led to reinstatements and payment of back wages and damages to employees.