On October 23, an administrative law judge ruled that Union Pacific CEO Jim Vena’s video remarks about raising rates for customers who don’t support the proposed Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger must be made public. The judge’s ruling related to a keynote address Vena gave at the Southwest Association of Rail Shippers (SWARS) Annual Conference in Houston earlier this year. The UP CEO told the audience of shippers that if the merger did not happen and he remained in charge, he “will probably increase everybody’s rates” that stood opposed. The railroad has until today, October 30, to release the video or file an appeal with the Surface Transportation Board (STB). It has not yet acted on the judge’s ruling as this issue of the Recap was published.
Vena’s heavy-handed tactics, and by extension UP’s effort to shroud information that should be made public, is part of a pattern. Shippers, labor, and other interested groups have called out the railroad’s lack of transparency. The Stop the Rail Merger Coalition has called it “a clear pattern of secrecy and dishonesty from Union Pacific.” For example:
• STB rejected the initial UP-NS merger application as “incomplete” because it did not contain certain information required by the board’s regulations.
• STB accepted the second application but said, “there are several aspects of the revised application that are unclear or underdeveloped and require supplementation.” STB gave the railroads two months to submit additional information.
• STB member Richard Kloster was highly critical of the railroads for their “lack of transparency and depth.”
• STB had to force UP-NS to release job impact data to the public. Similar data had been made public in previous merger filings, but UP-NS inexplicably labeled it “confidential.”
• Vena expressed the company’s desire to meet behind closed doors with regulators to discuss the merger, out of view of the general public.
• During a call with investors in late October, Vena confirmed the railroad was purposely holding back information and undermining the review process… something STB Member Kloster criticized as “letting the line out slowly.”
• Earlier this week, CPKC CEO Keith Creel called out UP-NS for their lack of transparency and threats to shippers. “This process, in and of itself, to me, has been compromised by the way these applicants have behaved,” Creel said during CPKC’s Q3 2026 earnings call on October 28. “My phone rings, and people tell me when they get threatened. Customers share that.” Creel then described the type of threats shippers have received from UP-NS: “‘If you’re not for us, you’re against us; don’t be on the wrong side of history … don’t side with the losers.’”
In late-breaking news today, CPKC urged the STB to take “swift remedial action” against UP over Vena’s comments and other threats to shippers by immediately terminating UP’s merger application with Norfolk Southern. CPKC’s October 30 submission to STB reads in part: “The imminent public release of the videotape of Mr. Vena’s statement will show the public at large how UP has attempted to bully its way to merger approval… UP’s deliberate effort to intimidate potential participants and thereby subvert the integrity of these proceedings calls for swift and sure consequences… The Board should… take the next logical step of terminating this poisoned proceeding now.” Read the CPKC’s submission here (PDF).
The Teamsters Rail Conference, comprised of BLET and BMWED, is a founding member of the Stop the Rail Merger Coalition. Including the Rail Conference, seven rail unions representing more than 70 percent of union railroad workers oppose the UP-NS merger.
“A merger of this magnitude demands maximum transparency, not a continuing campaign to hide the facts from public view,” the Stop the Rail Merger Coalition said.
Photo by Cory Rusch, BLET Division 659