From The Matier and Ross report, November 28, 2007 - San Francisco Chronicle [1]

Railroad reversal: Two years after Amtrak conductor Rebecca Gettleman was fired for injuring herself while keeping a passenger from stumbling down the train stairs, a federal arbitration panel has ordered her reinstated with back pay.

As we reported last year, Gettleman's Orwellian adventure began in August 2005 when she wrenched her right arm while preventing a drunken traveler from falling while getting off the train at the Amtrak station in Emeryville.

Faster than you can yell, "All aboard!" she was brought up on Railroad Labor Act safety charges - namely, allowing herself to get hurt helping the passenger.

Her Amtrak bosses wrote her a letter saying she had violated a rule that says, "Employees must be careful to prevent injuring themselves or others. They must be alert and attentive when performing their duties and plan their work to avoid injury."

But the real blow came a few days later when Gettleman was notified that she was being fired for being accident-prone - with Amtrak citing four injuries over her eight years on the job as evidence of "extreme negligence" on her part.

Gettleman appealed her dismissal to Amtrak higher-ups but lost. Her case was eventually heard by a three-member federal arbitration panel, which just this month reversed her dismissal on a 2-1 vote.

The dissent came from Amtrak's representative on the board, who wrote that the railroad was within its right in making personnel decisions to "consider injuries for which the employee is not responsible."

Given Gettleman's eight-year track record at Amtrak, the rep said, "she can be expected to incur an additional 12 injuries between now and her projected retirement date of Nov. 1, 2031" - which exposes the railroad "to unreasonable and unnecessary risk and/or liability."