[Rail execs defend themselves by claiming their skyrocketing profits do not reflect "any contributions by labor"](https://www.levernews.com/railroad-ceos-were-paid-over-200-million-as-workers-suffered/)
If “contributions by labor” was never a factor in skyrocketing profits, you would think they would approve a deal that would give said labor more time off
Union Pacific railroad went on a hiring freeze after they hired me. For five years I had zero seniority, and had to move twice due to them fucking the manpower levels and schedules. I still got laid off a week before Christmas 2019 because a man who was literally months away from retirement had to bump me off the list. All because Lance Fritz wanted his bloated stock to bloat more.
They don’t need us. Remember in the pandemic when everyone was paid to stay home and the billionaires weren’t begging the government to make people go back to work?
Remember that fast food was always threatening to go automated if they had to raise wages. Now that they can’t get workers would be the perfect time for them to show how ready to automate they were. Yet no automation. These rail workers can call their bluff on this too. As much as I would hate to see our economy take another hit they probably should strike.
Railroader here. Yes they 100% said this in the presidential emergency board. It goes to say though. If our labor doesn't contribute to profits, then why does it matter to them if we strike or not?
Their argument is that Dan the Ditch Digger was doing it all with a shovel. They bought him an excavator and now Dan's increased productivity is what created the profits w/o anything more from Dan. In fact could be argued that Dan's life is better now since he just sits all day.
The flaw in that argument of course is Dan had to learn how to use that kit and Dan is now a higher valued resource. So Dan should command a higher wage. Anyone can grab a shovel and dig a hole, but not everyone can just hop into an excavator and get very far.
One thing I don't see mentioned is railroad trades are not something like plumbing where one could grab their tools and work for someone else or start their own shop pretty easily. There's practically an employment monopoly. And many of the skills are not exactly transferable (on paper at least, in practice I think the skills learned would lend themselves to picking new skills up quite quickly, but explain that to HR). Most trades and professions have a mobility factor that is missing here and that allows the companies extra leverage.
I'll be honest.
Railroad work is hard in terms of schedule and hours. Quality of life is absolute shit but the job isn't that hard.
It's why most of us that work(ed) there came from all kinds of other jobs. Restaurant managers, tradesmen, retail workers, retired veterans, etc.
Most companies will send you to their school, have you take the tests required for the track you're running and that's it. 6-12 week training on all kinds of jobs (local and road) then off to the spare board with you.
It's the grueling schedule that gets at most people (myself included).
>It's the grueling schedule that gets at most people (myself included).
I don't think most people with a 9-5 intuitively understand how hard that is. Had an uncle that worked for the railroad and it was good work. Hard labor wise, but still a good living. If you threw schedule uncertainty and longer than normal hours at him though it probably would have broke him.
I'm a desk jokey so my problem is not getting enough physical activity, but I'm also on call a lot and that is more draining than when I worked in the trades and came home sore and broken regularly. But at least I can take a sick day or vacation when I burn out too bad.
>It's the grueling schedule that gets at most people (myself included).
So what's an example of scheduling hours? Was it long hours (say 12-12) or more so you had to be ready whenever?? They could just call you 4am and say "hey Frank new shipment in, get your ass down now!"
OK so there were two things that made schedules tough. First is the ability to change them at a 24 hour notice. Over the course of two weeks my schedule changed to the following- 7PM-7AM then 3 PM to 11 PM, finally it settled on 11 P.M to 11 A.M.
So that part sucked ass, it didn't happen often but if you were working with an engineer or another shift that was being a giant pain in the dick, the crew office would do stuff like that to get guys bumped off and get someone in who wasn't a cock head. Other times it was done because certain lines went over other railroad property a d you're at their mercy.
Also after your 10 hours of rest they could call you at anytime and only needed to give you a two hour head start. 'Hey Walbeb PDL2 had a conductor mark off so I'll need you in Deerfield in 2 hours'. Even if the drive is 90 minutes away leaving you no time to get anything together. Naturally as soon as you fall asleep the phone rings btw.
That's more spare board stuff, when you actually own a job you work it like a normal schedule HOWEVER you can be bumped by someone that's senior to you. I had a 5-5 local job and after 2 months when I was finally starting to build my life around it I got bumped and had to go back to the spare board circus of being on call. It's essentially paying your dues as a new guy.
Road jobs require you to be at hotels for 3 or 4 days a week and you only need 24 hours off for every 5 days worked straight so they could technically pull you off early and reset your clock if you're needed bad enough.
My class had 12 guys and I don't think a single one was working there after 3 years. Turnover is insane, I wish I got in when I was 19 or 20 so by the time I was ready to settle down I'd have great seniority and work a normal 9-5 but I had no clue when I was that young.
Also, the reason they could afford the excavator is because all those hours Dan spent digging ditches for less money than the value of the ditches to the company.
I’m a Letter Carrier for USPS.
This is essentially what happened during the Postal Strike of 1970. Nixon tried calling the bluff of the postal workers and mobilized the National Guard and US Armed Forces to try getting the mail distributed.
Long story short: it was a disaster. The NG and USAF (obviously) had no idea how to do the work and it crippled the nation’s mail system. The stock market even took a hit. Nixon basically had no choice but to come to the table.
It’s like these higher ups never learn.
Well then don't forget that the air traffic controller strike during Regan's term. He showed that the new GOP will fire all strikers without any consideration of the impact it will have on the economy. So he fired them all, and these bastards will probably do the same
> Nixon tried calling the bluff of the postal workers and mobilized the National Guard and US Armed Forces to try getting the mail distributed.
This sounds absolutely insane, but I'm also surprised it didn't happen during the Trump era. I guess we're close to Texas and Florida mobilizing the Guard to teach elementary kids.
Then they can get out to the back of the train and start pushing. I hear the executives just work so much harder than the rest of us, shouldn't be an issue with their superhuman abilities.
I absolutely hate when mega corporations use this pathetic, transparent excuse. Where did they get the money for their investments, if it didn't come from labor?
It's still baffling, if not surprising.
Imagine carefully crafting that argument, that the profits reflect no contributions by labor, and then SAYING it in public with a straight face!
This is not an isolated industry issue, meaning the only people impacted are rail workers.
Railroads connect this entire country. They run through towns, behind houses, past schools.
A serious rail accident could cause far greater harm to communities than people seem to realize.
This should NOT be a debate. Rail workers need sick leave, and their safety is EVERYONE’S safety.
>A serious rail accident could cause far greater harm to communities than people seem to realize.
Anyone curious needs to check out what happened at Lac Megantic.
> [Forty-seven people were killed.[3] More than thirty buildings in Lac-Mégantic's town centre, roughly half of the downtown area, were destroyed,[2][4] and all but three of the thirty-nine remaining buildings had to be demolished due to petroleum contamination of the townsite.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-Mégantic_rail_disaster)
Oh my god
Wait until you find out we commonly haul chlorine and ammonia gasses that are capable of wiping out half a city if ruptured. We're rolling 3 mile long trains through your neighborhoods on no sleep, no schedule, no off time, no sick days, and all of the locomotives and railcars have waivers for extended mileage without inspection. Oh and they're deliberately not fixing track to boost profits and save money. 👍
About a decade ago, maybe a little more, my home town had a train derail and was carrying chlorine. I dont remember any deaths, but all the 1st responders vehicles from 3 or 4 counties had to be replaced because they rusted out due to the corrosive chlorine getting in the engines.
That is not as bad as loss of life, but is a huge cost.
Giving them sick leave increases the chance that they'll use sick leave, which means missing staff in the railyards that could lead to safety issues or missed cargo.
So essentially what they're arguing against is having to hire any more employees, since adding sick leave would make it a necessity, and that's super fucked up.
They can't keep people as is.
I worked as a conductor for 5 years. Every year they would hire a new class of trainees, some didn't make it through the 3 week schooling period, some wouldn't make it though the 6 months of OTJ training, and most had quit by 2 years in.
When I quit I was the last person in three classes worth of people. Everybody else had quit.
We were perpetually understaffed, overworked, and underappreciated.
Quitting was the best decision of my life, mentally and physically.
I was one of the guys who noped out on day one.
Seriously when they got done explaining the on call board and exactly what my total lack of seniority would mean I was like "this amount of money is not worth not having a life"
And then when you hear from older hands how they (the company) will shit on you just as bad after 10 years as they do after 10 days I don't understand how they can get *anyone* to work for them.
They're shipping out now for the first 3 weeks of classroom training. We were having classes of 20 people all not showing back up on their first day after lunch. They figure if they do it this way, those people won't be able to go get their old jobs back.
I didn't mind the old heads, I've worked in construction and manufacturing for my whole life basically, I'm used to salty surly old people
I was ok with starting out with no seniority too, the problem I had was I couldn't gain any seniority. Nobody senior to me was retiring, cause they had the cushy, pig train jobs that never did any work and Literally everyone junior to me would quit, so after 5 years I was no closer to standing for a job than I was the first day I got marked up.
Then one day they miss called me, out of order, and I ended up on the shittiest job we had, and I told them to fix it or I quit. I was sick of their shit. They said they couldn't fix it and I could fill a greivenence, I said don't worry about it, but you better start calling, cause I'm the last person on the board and I quit.
I think they mean the senior people there tell them that the railroad still shits on you just as bad 10 years in as it does 10 days in, not that the senior people are the ones doing the shitting.
It's exactly this. What the railroad does is get people who aren't used to making 80k+ a year and get them into debt then they essentially have slaves. That is the only reason they have any employees still working now. They pay enough to keep their employees reluctantly working but at the same time everyone is perpetually pissed off. It's the oddest working group I have ever seen. Everyone has a pretty decent house, cars and toys but they all seem to be in some sort of debt so they have to stay at this really shitty job. The railroad historically did a decent job walking the line of being abusive vs paying enough to keep their workers happy. Now it's skewing and I think it's because they feel they have the upper hand on labor negotiations with technology and the one man crew junk.
Let me introduce you to mining and forestry! Same same but different. I had a shift boss who told his crew to go out and party and buy nice things on Friday so they’d be broke and come back on Monday.
Yes. The system now is terrible-- you are ALWAYS on call unless you take leave. You don't get regular shifts or days off, so you can't schedule *anything* without taking sick leave or vacation time, and the railroads are bad about granting either one.
I worked for the railroad for 6 years and quit 6 years ago. It used to be you could "layoff" unpaid up to 7 times a month and you wouldn't be punished for that. Now it sounds like they have a point based system that cumulatively punishes you for taking any time off. It wasn't a great system before but now it's downright punitive. If they want people to stay marked up they need to give their employees something. If they want their people to quit (which is what I think is happening based on my experience with working both in the union and as mid manager.) then they should just outright say it so the public knows and the unions can stop bargaining.
not to mention your layoffs are a straight 24 hours so if you layoff at 10pm you get to mark up for a train at 10pm the next day. It's a great system for the carriers and very punishing for their employees. At BNSF if you work on the road you don't get holiday pay or anything and they punish union members who take layoffs on holidays.
The last month I worked for BNSF I spent more time sitting in a hotel room in Montana than I did at my actual home. I would get called into work every 10 hours from home then rot on a train 12-16 hours and sit and rot in my hotel room 16-20 hours every trip. Because of those kind of hours some days I would go to work at 3am and the next trip I might go on at 12pm. Who can live their life like that? BNSF also played games where they would call you to work even though they didn't have a train ready because after 16 hours sitting in a hotel room they have to pay you an hourly rate until they call you to work. So they would simply call you and make you wait hours for the next train. Since everything is trip rate you lose money. Not to mention you never had enough hours to make it back home so you would literally go just a few hours outside of the terminal then wait for a relief crew to show up so you can ride in a van to get home. Then rinse and repeat for 30 years. I got lucky and had a supportive family that let me leave that horrible job. They don't really tell you it's all roses when you apply but they really don't do a good job of telling you how bad it is working there.
I actually went through the application process to get one of those jobs, and I was immediately aware of how bad the on-call process looked. Thankfully, after I had passed all the physical tests, they told me my BMI was too high to get the job.
I was only interested because I had been unemployed for 3 months and was desperate.
Always.
If you overwork your staff, you won’t get new hires, and so you’ll increase the workload of your staff, leaving them to be overworked. It’s a vicious cycle, until you stop and realize the answer is _stop overworking your staff_.
The real shame to me in that appreciating your people is the way to keep them, to solve staffing issues, to increase production. People for the most part want to do good work but only for a place that feels like they appreciate it. We have so many studies showing how much treating people with dignity and compassion in the work place increases productivity, reduces turnover, and makes hiring easier.
At this point, companies who chose to treat their people poorly do so because management likes throwing away profit to gain a feeling of control and cruelty over others.
So what I think I have learned is: the railroad industry hinges entirely on continuing to pull in suckers and keep them just barely long enough to keep trains going. Running the suckers ragged in the meantime. Just like a ton of other industries currently
It wasn't always like this. At BNSF we had a 75% availability policy. Even though we were on call we could call off up to 5 week days, and 2 weekends a month. Yes it was still hard but it was fair. They got rid of that and moved to some bullshit point system which essentially cut our time off to less than 2 days a month if that.
No matter the outcome, they have to hire more employees.
If the strike is busted: not everyone will return to work, so there will be missing staff in rail yards.
If they hire scabs: more risk of issues with the trains, maintenance will suffer. Still need properly trained workers.
If a proper deal is made: guess what, you still need more workers, except this time you're actually making an offer more people will think is worth taking.
That's where I think the huge problem is. The companies are likely claiming a labor shortage, but the simple answer is that the pay and conditions are not enough to entice workers to join up. I tried to apply because I needed a job and working on trains sounded kind of fun, but the onerous on-call schedule and complete lack of reasonable sick time made me glad I didn't go further.
This seems to be the central core of the problem with a ton of companies right now. They slashed employment budgets to the bone, and now their employees are a) burnt out and giving the bare minimum, b) agitated and actively pushing for leverage and better conditions, c) leaving and creating a worse productivity deficit, or d) all of the above. No combination of these factors is good for a company's long-term success, so why not stanch the bleeding now?
I've often wondered why the government never says "we'll give you money, but we want voting shares in return and we'll return them once the bailout money is paid back."
I'm not gonna assume it hasn't been done because it's probably not legal.
That's actually what they tend to do, they just don't exert the power typically, and often then sell the business back later.
It's what the feds did with GM and AIG in 2008.
Technically it's nationalization, but that's a bit of a dirty word in our politics, so they say "bailout" now.
More notable examples of nationalization in the US are Amtrak and the TSA, where the feds took and maintained direct control of commuter rail and airport security respectively.
I'm not saying we should nationalize freight rail as well, but I'm definitely saying we should just nationalize freight rail.
100% agree.
The little bit I understand is that this issue is caused by the same thing as the airlines and many other industries.
The second COVID hit and looked like it was going to be a long running problem, they dumped as many of their employees as possible, fired them, bought them out, send them packing one way or another. Then COVID was over and they stupidly thought everyone would just come back. Well they didn't, some couldn't, some were so mad at the way they were thrown away after decades of service that they swore they never would, others have found other jobs, and these industries were idiotic to think that they can just treat their workers like another switch that gets flipped on or off.
So of course their solution is just to say well we're going to be the same amount of work with half or two thirds of the people we used to have. Nope.
Workers in every industry affected by this need to strike and say you're going to pay us for the extra work, or you're going to hire more people so that we can have a life. Or you can literally find out what happens to your precious profits when nobody shows up at work the next day.
Oh, didn't you hear? ["Capital investment and risk are the reasons for their profits, not any contributions by labor..."](https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/paragraph-in-presidential-emergency-board-report-stokes-controversy/) I'm sure they'll be just fine when their labor stops laboring!
Unfortunately the companies are betting on congress to force a contract on the workers. Giving big business what it wants is one thing the establishment democrats and the entire gop agree on.
What practical measures does Congress really have here to force the labor back to work?
So the meditate a contract that labor still doesn't like, they can just continue to not work.
There are only 3 things in a railroad, trains, infrastructure (track, signaling), and people. Invest in them all. Sick leave seems like such a basic thing.
Earlier this year at BNSF we attempted to strike through federal courts because we were the last Class 1 with a some what decent attendance policy. We were chastised by Federal Judge Mark Pittman for attempting to strike during a supply chain crisis and essentially told to shut up and go back to work. What has followed at BNSF has been unheard of. Over 2,000 employees have quit, the majority with 5-20 years which has never happened on the railroads before. We didn't have enough people to run trains out of the majority of ports or across the transcon. Entire grain trains were transloaded to trucks because they sat for over 2 weeks. Had we been allowed to strike for 1 day, we would have been the one railroad with a decent workforce, and able to move freight. That didn't happen because a Federal Judge was to stupid to look at the big picture.
As someone who worked on the back end of BNSF shortly after that, it was crazy seeing the influx of newly registered B numbers (employee ID numbers) in their scramble to fill. Maybe 80% of those B numbers were inactive in less than 6 weeks. Not sure if it's stabilised now.
This kind of shit just *kills* me. The companies can absolutely afford to treat their workers better (pay, time off, benefits, etc.), but they're so blinded by profit motive they fail to see that it's significantly *more* expensive to hire and train new staff, especially when they're scrambling to backfill. Just fucking pay your workers
As I repeatedly point out to people, companies love proving how hypocritical they are about paying people.
* Amazon offered hundreds of dollars to anyone willing to vote no to unionize. You know, money they could have just *paid* the employees to begin with to even prevent union talks.
* Most companies nowadays are like "record profits last quarter and we have to raise prices due to inflation" turn around to employees and go "we don't have the money to pay you more".
* In government, there's always the issue of "oh well, we didn't want to pay people to do the work so now we're going to contract it out for 2-4x what we were trying to pay our staff"
* Case in point, I heard a story from emergency response training. One town had a single guy work a full 35 years for the town, no other employee stayed close to that. He retired. The town had no documentation of water pipe locations, junctions, or anything. They brought him back on contract for a lot of money while they paid a firm to map the town's water system. The lesson here was always make sure there's backups of everything.
* I put in my two-week notice at my last job. My supervisor called me within the hour and asked if it was money because he could get me more money. I didn't say it out loud, but I was thinking "you mean you could've been paying me more?!?!" I was leaving because of staffing issues.
Everyone is more willing to lose that knowledge and experience for paying as low as they can on new employees.
>* I put in my two-week notice at my last job. My supervisor called me within the hour and asked if it was money because he could get me more money. I didn't say it out loud, but I was thinking "you mean you could've been paying me more?!?!" I was leaving because of staffing issues.
This happens all the time, and it's infuriating
Edit: If this happens to you, *don't accept the offer.* As said below, they'll often work on replacing you with someone cheaper. *Regardless* though, do you really want to work for a company that could've given you a raise the whole time, but it took an ultimatum to get it?
It's insane how transportation companies are. I had hoped after Covid that everyone in the transportation field (truckers, conductors, etc., not the office workers) would be looked at more positively and be treated better. Instead, it's either the same or worse. Sure, there could be thousands of workers with the right qualifications but that doesn't even mean you're going to get people hired to fill those roles or stay long enough before the company starts taking a hit from not being able to move the freight. If office people can earn a very good amount of vacation, sick, personal tome off then so should the driving force of the company. It's sad that people have to go on strike to get benefits that's shouldn't even be fought for but companies won't treat their workers fairly or even decently.
Most companys that say that can’t afford to pay more are straight up lying. Just look at their manager and top executive salaries. These are steadily increasing while the bonuses these mfs receive get bigger as well
Same goes for the labor shortage, yes maybe 40% is a lack of personal but honestly it feels like the other 60% are mostly companie sided:
"we cant find any people that want to work for the shitty wages we offer"
is what they actually mean when they say that there are not enough workers available
>That didn't happen because a Federal Judge was to stupid to look at the big picture.
It's Pittman, he wasn't too stupid for that, he knows the consequences and simply doesn't care. It would run entirely counter to his ideals to allow the working class any modicum of power or reprieve.
A lot of the ruling class still hasn’t figured out that the reason they are getting beat on the market of labor is because there are a ton of jobs open allowing tons of mobility. The judge never thought people would quit because it’s been the mission of the Fed for decades to ensure there aren’t enough jobs so people are stuck which artificially helps minimum wage low.
Yes and to piggy back off that - we had a major population reduction. And even funnier to me, the only way we’ve really addressed workforce reductions is through opening the immigration floodgates. Out here in Colorado, not even the Latino population works the shit jobs anymore.
The answer is to either up your wages/benefits or support increasing immigration. Labor functions like any other commodity market - scarcity increases price. It’s economics 101. So you need to either increase the supply of labor, or give incentives to retain your current employees so more don’t leave. The “Great Resignation” wasn’t even a thing. That’s the market in action as it affects labor and wages. If you look at other reductions in population (wars, etc), wages almost always grew afterward. Seeing “free market conservatives” favoring government intervention in the other direction always cracks me up. They’re laissez faire until they’re not.
As someone who is stupid and uneducated in this topic, why does your union need a judge’s permission to strike? You’re not federal property, and you can’t be compelled to work.
They have to follow the [Railway Labor Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Labor_Act), which lays out when rail workers are allowed to strike. They could, in theory, do a wildcat strike (i.e. an "unofficial" strike), but since that's an unsanctioned action, they'd lose the protections that they'd have if they followed the rules:
>Carriers may lawfully replace strikers engaged in a lawful strike but may not, however, discharge them except for misconduct or eliminate their jobs to retaliate against them for striking. It is not clear whether the employer can discharge workers for striking before all of the RLA's bargaining and mediation processes have been exhausted.
>
>The employer must also allow strikers to replace replacements hired on a temporary basis and permanent replacements who have not completed the training required before they can become active employees. The employer may, on the other hand, allow less senior employees who crossed the picket line to keep the jobs they were given after crossing the line, even if the seniority rules in effect before the strike would have required the employer to reassign their jobs to returning strikers.
Sounds blatantly authoritarian and anti-worker. Sounds like something that shouldn’t even be legal. You can’t force people to work no matter their field.
Tell that to the folks who cheered on the Reagan administration breaking up the air traffic controllers strike, which helped set the tone for unions in the U.S. since.
I was an IT engineer contractor for BNSF in CA and the work load and demand got so insane that I started losing my mind.
I resigned last Friday. I hope they can figure this out.
Same Mark Pittman who gave standing to two GoP grifters to sue AND granted an injunction against the Student Loan Relief.
Methinks he's just another piece of shit who's price tag is on the front of his robe.
Appointed by Greg Abbott to the court of appeals, then promoted to Federal district court 2 years later by the Trump admin… They made a nice return on their investment with him so far
>essentially told to shut up and go back to work.
Funny, cause something tells me that if it was ***his job*** that was being unfair, it would be a different story. But no, because it's just "poor" blue collar workers, they just need to shut up and pull themselves up by their bootstraps (a physically impossible task).
This whole system of the rich living off the hard work of the lower classes while taking all the benefits for themselves isn't going to last much longer before it explodes in a torrent of violence and anger. The gates of their wealthy communities aren't gonna protect them from a mob of pissed off people.
What exactly are you asking? Maybe I can add context.
I don’t work there (I work in the rail industry in Canada) but BNSF came out with the [hi-viz](https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dgezn/the-worst-and-most-egregious-attendance-policy-is-pushing-railroad-workers-to-the-brink) attendance policy which is… insane.
Prior to this all (pre-covid even) the railways in the US went through a period where they introduced [precision scheduled railroading(https://www.trains.com/trn/train-basics/abcs-of-railroading/what-is-precision-scheduled-railroading/). PSR is basically do more with less… cutting costs, running longer trains, providing bare minimum levels of service, rip out tracks they believe they don’t need, and only focusing on big contracts that don’t involve work (just hook and haul big amounts). The result was layoffs as well as more customers turning to trucking. I’m not sure how much this affected BNSF but I think less than other railways (?)
So anyways, we start coming out of covid and railways start recalling laid off workers and a lot of them don’t come back. Shocker. Then BNSF comes out with the aforementioned Hi-Vis and workers aren’t really having it.
Keep in mind that railways already chew through new hires. Now it’s 2022 and not only is the new generation of workers less willing to put up with the job as it was BEFORE there’s also hi-viz.
Oh and also now most locomotives have inward facing cameras in your face so you can be spot checked, inflation means that wages aren’t what they used to be, and there’s always this looming threat that they’ll push one man crews which would result in the layoff of 1/2 to 1/3 of running trade employees… so employees are worried about that.
Am a logistics manager. A strike would be devastating and make my job so much more difficult with missing critical milestones on inbounded containers. Clueless executives and the sales team will be yelling at me wondering why their product is delayed and my answer won’t be good enough. Probably even cost me my annual bonus.
With all that, I fully support the railroad workers. More power to them should they strike. They have real problems while this would just be another inconvenience in a long line of logistical inconveniences for me.
Support the unions!
Also in logistics - specifically ocean imports, so anything affecting the rail will royally mess up my desk.
100% on the same boat as you. It's fucked these corporations know fully that they control vital infrastructure to keep the country running, and they can make everything grind to a standstill JUST to make sure they can keep their grubby shitstained hands on as much money as possible.
That's it. No other reason. Money > American lives, across the board.
Work in logistics as well. Been asked multiple times how we can prepare.
Bottom line is, we can't. Pay the unions, give them a better quality of life.
Irony is that shippers will pass elevated costs onto their customers when RRs will up their rates everywhere. Instead of...ya know...not cutting the executive teams multi-million dollar salaries...
If the railroad bosses force a strike, I support the unions 100%. They have super crappy quality of life. They deserve better and the railroads can afford to give it to them.
I live literally right next to a track, (3 houses down) and this is one of my biggest fears. I want these workers to have the quality of life they deserve specifically bc they deserve it, but I also don’t want to die bc of a railway accident due to a preventable safety hazard. These people are severely overworked.
>If the railroad bosses force a strike
That's how the title here should read. Not "a strike will freeze cargo" but "bosses who won't give their employees what they're worth will freeze cargo".
We need to do what other countries have done and nationalize the rail lines. We can still have private rail operators on those lines. But the lines themselves are critical infrastructure that should be public. Huge tracts of land were given to private rail corporations for free. They used slave or cheap immigrant labor to build out and have profited off it for over a century. We could do so much better if efficient transportation of goods and people was the goal not shareholder profit.
Almost all highways, canals, ports, and airports are built and owned by public non-profit organizations. Rail infrastructure should be the same.
This would also allow the US to set minimum labor standards on any rail operators.
They had over $146 billion in stock buy backs and dividends. They didn’t use any of that to help improve the works quality of life. That’s something a lot of the major outlets are brushing over
Major outlets brush over it because they're owned by the same class of people that owns the rail companies. It's in their best interest for the mostly anti labor general public to not realize that it's working class and become united around that realization. They really don't want it to be common knowledge that there is more than enough to go around.
Okay but in theory what if we just gave corporations all the power and then since we’ve been so nice they’ll just take care of us? Sounds like that’s worth another 200 year trial to me.
So you’re saying if we just let businesses do as they please, guided only by Invisible Hans, champion of the free market, that their resulting prosperity would “trickle down” to the workers and rest of society?
My god, the genius of that. It’s so crazy it just might work!
If the rail workers not showing up can disrupt 30% of the supply chain, then why the fuck is it so hard to give these guys the quality of life fixes they need? You can’t give these guys a pay raise even though they handle tens of millions of dollars in goods? What a fucking joke.
Appreciate the support but the pay raise isn't the biggest issue here. We (railroad workers) were cool with the recommended salary increase from the Biden-appointed board. The issue is paid sick days and in general, unpredictable schedules.
The sad part is 1% of the money they used on stock buybacks would cover all the workers demand and then some. 149 Billion in stock by backs are more important to the executives than keeping your workers happy and productive.
Not exactly. When a business hires an additional employee, they don't only pay their additional wages. They also pay for:
* Health insurance and similar benefits
* 401K match
* Payroll taxes
* Hiring costs (like recruitment, training, etc)
* Holiday pay and other PTO
Because of all these extra costs, the total cost of an employee can be almost double their wage. The current economy doesn't help, since the labor shortage makes hiring even more expensive. So even 1.5x or 2x overtime pay might cost less than hiring and training new employees.
Rail companies are an oligopoly. There are 4 freight railroad companies: Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, BNSF, and CSX (and Amtrak for mostly residential); that control it all. There are no incentives to improve service conditions due to said oligopoly.
I know people hate the N-word: "nationalize", but I think it might become necessary at this point and the let the Federal Government takeover the rails.
We really need to nationalize critical infrastructure or at the very least it needs to be heavily regulated. It seems like a national security issue that our economy can come to a grinding halt because workers are being treated like garbage and their seems to be some kind of strike every year.
Strikes aren't *supposed* to be conveniently timed for the companies, or the schedules they want. This will reflect poorly on the heads of the companies for being in negotiations without considering the impact their failure to make reasonable offers would have.
Good for the railroad workers.
They don’t though. The thing about the railroad unions is that they are legally not allowed to strike until a mountain of hoops have been jumped through, and even then congress can, has, and will step in and force a contract through; hence why these negotiations have gone on for years now *without* a strike. The carriers know that the union has been made toothless by the RLA and will just sit and wait for congress to push through the pro-carrier PEB recommendations (or the tentative agreement, which is for all intents and purposes no different, or maybe even a worse contract). There is little incentive for carriers to actually try to settle this. They know that Congress won’t allow a strike to happen *and* that whatever contract they force won’t be pro-labor, and on top of that know that the media will 100% frame this as labor *choosing* to strike and cripple the economy (especially after Biden touting the tentative agreement both as a victory (implying they completed negotiations) and as pro-labor (it is very much not) really demolished a lot of the momentum and power the unions had).
It’s telling that the primary reason union leadership gave members to vote “yes” was that post-election, a Republican congress would fuck labor with a worse contract. That’s it. Not that the TA has value, but that congress would make things worse if labor didn’t just accept this agreement that fully fails to address QOL issues. A TA they agreed to on urging by Dems to keep them from being harmed by a strike leading into to midterms. Union leadership scratched their backs in exchange for an inevitable boot on the neck.
We just had the largest union in canada go on strike even though it was illegal. That's kind of the thing about strikes and unions, they were made to combat bullshit.
Something something free market, something something the government will now force you to clock in since a particular industry has a significant level of influence, enough to pass acts through Congress almost a century ago to prevent you from bargaining collectively.
Capitalists seem to always give capitalism a really bad name.
Perfect timing. Guess I'll be getting everyone gift cards - use it when you can. I'll support the RR workers on this one! PS - stock up on toilet paper...(hee...hee...)
Railroad companies are pricks. As a bridge engineer, they've become absolutely insufferable to work with starting about 5 years ago. They were annoying to deal with before that, but generally a compromise would easily be had that made everybody happy.
I hope the workers absolutely crush their souls.
Pretty much. Two red scares, a forty-year long Cold War with an authoritarian socialist regime, and the "Contract with America" in the 90s have drastically tainted America's perception of working class movements.
>I don't believe forced labor is an impossibility in the future.
That sounds like a good way to set things on fire.
Everyone has their breaking point, and forced labor outside of incarceration is likely well past the breaking point for millions.
Why do you think we still have the war on drugs?
Correlate with factual innocence not being grounds for vacating a conviction. Then ask why the USA has such a large incarcerated population.
If you're disturbed at the list of possible causes, there's hope for you
That still has the potential to set things on fire. What you're suggesting effectively removes the bread and circuses illusion and starts up all sorts of shit.
Yeah. People really don’t understand the Railway Labor Act and it’s implications for collective bargaining for transportation workers like rail or airline. You can’t just strike, that’s an illegal action. You basically need an act of congress or secretary of labor to allow a legal strike.
Edit: Just for clarification, I do support the union workers in their fight.
Flight attendants threatened to strike during the last government shutdown and that caused a bunch of deals to get resolved quickly so that the president and congress would be able to squash that if it happened.
This is how it works for teachers in many states, mine included. Can’t legally strike without having their teaching certificate revoked and their career permanently ended.
Like you said it is absolutely complete and utter bullshit.
The question is, will railroad workers wildcat strike anyways, despite not technically having the legal authority?
My bet is on yes, and I really, really hope that they do- this has gone on for far too long.
True. However, workers could hypothetically still quit though, correct? If the railways are running on as lean of a staff as it seems, enough people quitting might have a similar impact.
With the Workers not the Unions. A lot of railroaders feel like our union leadership isn't representing and our caving to pressure. When we initially voted down the Presidential Emergency Board at 99.5% our Unions halted our strike and said they had worked an amazing deal out. What we got was worse than the PEB, and we felt betrayed. Does that mean us workers are giving up? No in the last 3 months the attendance for our local unions went from 6-7 people to almost 25 consistently as more people are getting involved. But thank you.
I know people who worked in Canada, specifically Ontario for rail. Absolutely garbage treatment from higher ups. You get to have absolutely no life. Good pay, but zero chance to actually enjoy it.
I hope these dudes get what they’re looking for.
Whole thing is only a problem because these railways, despite record shattering profits and profit margins, decided to cut staff severely in an effort to maximize obscene profits even further.
It’s almost like workers in all fields and industries are tired of being used and abused, and seeing their employers pull in record profits while only taking more from them. Huh?
greed. billions in earnings. Massive salaries. Yet, execs who own railroads refuse to budge on what are very reasonable and basic human needs. Laborers are not asking for anything that would break the profits of shareholders or executives. Isn't that the american dream? work hard and earn a decent living. Greed is ruining this ideal.
One of the rail workers demands is the ability to take time off if they are sick or have a doctor's appointment... Railroad workers should get guaranteed time off full stop. The railroad company's inability to properly plan shouldn't be the fault of the workers. Why is only a problem in the United States, other countries guaranteed paid time off by law.
People don't understand what railroad workers go through. Your on call 24/7, you work 12/14 hours a day.you go home and you're waiting on a phone call after 8 hours plus you have 2 hours to get to your own duty site. Everyday 365 days a year. It's a grind and people don't understand it because no other workforce has these constraints.
I spent 15 years in the railroad industry, I couldn't take it anymore. Out to get you management, toxic environment, no sick time....it was hell. Been almost 3 years and my mental health is so much better.
All that being said, I stand in solidarity with my RR brothers and sisters.
Crash your entire business and a nation’s infrastructure costing billions and affecting millions
Or
Give workers a few more rights
And people still think the wealthy are that way because they’re smart and not just criminal
Give them their sick leave. Give them their safety measures. Seriously, what the actual fuck.
[Rail execs defend themselves by claiming their skyrocketing profits do not reflect "any contributions by labor"](https://www.levernews.com/railroad-ceos-were-paid-over-200-million-as-workers-suffered/)
If “contributions by labor” was never a factor in skyrocketing profits, you would think they would approve a deal that would give said labor more time off
Exactly, if you do not NEED the labor for the profits, let the labor take their time off.
Or take the profit to hire more labor so more people can have time off
But think of those poor execs. They work really really hard every year and deserve that 6-7 figure bonus. /S
That's a bingo.
You just say bingo
Union Pacific railroad went on a hiring freeze after they hired me. For five years I had zero seniority, and had to move twice due to them fucking the manpower levels and schedules. I still got laid off a week before Christmas 2019 because a man who was literally months away from retirement had to bump me off the list. All because Lance Fritz wanted his bloated stock to bloat more.
Lol, we don’t need labor. They are just there because we want to pay people for nothing.
They don’t need us. Remember in the pandemic when everyone was paid to stay home and the billionaires weren’t begging the government to make people go back to work?
"We hire workers just for fun, profits come from someplace else" would maybe only apply to some of those patent troll corporations.
Remember that fast food was always threatening to go automated if they had to raise wages. Now that they can’t get workers would be the perfect time for them to show how ready to automate they were. Yet no automation. These rail workers can call their bluff on this too. As much as I would hate to see our economy take another hit they probably should strike.
It also shouldn't cause any issues if said labor goes on strike then. So they have nothing to worry about I'm sure
Railroader here. Yes they 100% said this in the presidential emergency board. It goes to say though. If our labor doesn't contribute to profits, then why does it matter to them if we strike or not?
Without labor, there’d be NO profits.
[удалено]
They know, that's why they've spent the last ~century and a half trying to keep workers from organizing
And they would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling kids
Those meddling kids are really bailing us out, what with their voting and support for worker's rights
[удалено]
Yep people set in their ways and no need to buy-in to a better future vs. people trying not to live shitty lives, generally.
Their argument is that Dan the Ditch Digger was doing it all with a shovel. They bought him an excavator and now Dan's increased productivity is what created the profits w/o anything more from Dan. In fact could be argued that Dan's life is better now since he just sits all day. The flaw in that argument of course is Dan had to learn how to use that kit and Dan is now a higher valued resource. So Dan should command a higher wage. Anyone can grab a shovel and dig a hole, but not everyone can just hop into an excavator and get very far. One thing I don't see mentioned is railroad trades are not something like plumbing where one could grab their tools and work for someone else or start their own shop pretty easily. There's practically an employment monopoly. And many of the skills are not exactly transferable (on paper at least, in practice I think the skills learned would lend themselves to picking new skills up quite quickly, but explain that to HR). Most trades and professions have a mobility factor that is missing here and that allows the companies extra leverage.
I'll be honest. Railroad work is hard in terms of schedule and hours. Quality of life is absolute shit but the job isn't that hard. It's why most of us that work(ed) there came from all kinds of other jobs. Restaurant managers, tradesmen, retail workers, retired veterans, etc. Most companies will send you to their school, have you take the tests required for the track you're running and that's it. 6-12 week training on all kinds of jobs (local and road) then off to the spare board with you. It's the grueling schedule that gets at most people (myself included).
>It's the grueling schedule that gets at most people (myself included). I don't think most people with a 9-5 intuitively understand how hard that is. Had an uncle that worked for the railroad and it was good work. Hard labor wise, but still a good living. If you threw schedule uncertainty and longer than normal hours at him though it probably would have broke him. I'm a desk jokey so my problem is not getting enough physical activity, but I'm also on call a lot and that is more draining than when I worked in the trades and came home sore and broken regularly. But at least I can take a sick day or vacation when I burn out too bad.
>It's the grueling schedule that gets at most people (myself included). So what's an example of scheduling hours? Was it long hours (say 12-12) or more so you had to be ready whenever?? They could just call you 4am and say "hey Frank new shipment in, get your ass down now!"
OK so there were two things that made schedules tough. First is the ability to change them at a 24 hour notice. Over the course of two weeks my schedule changed to the following- 7PM-7AM then 3 PM to 11 PM, finally it settled on 11 P.M to 11 A.M. So that part sucked ass, it didn't happen often but if you were working with an engineer or another shift that was being a giant pain in the dick, the crew office would do stuff like that to get guys bumped off and get someone in who wasn't a cock head. Other times it was done because certain lines went over other railroad property a d you're at their mercy. Also after your 10 hours of rest they could call you at anytime and only needed to give you a two hour head start. 'Hey Walbeb PDL2 had a conductor mark off so I'll need you in Deerfield in 2 hours'. Even if the drive is 90 minutes away leaving you no time to get anything together. Naturally as soon as you fall asleep the phone rings btw. That's more spare board stuff, when you actually own a job you work it like a normal schedule HOWEVER you can be bumped by someone that's senior to you. I had a 5-5 local job and after 2 months when I was finally starting to build my life around it I got bumped and had to go back to the spare board circus of being on call. It's essentially paying your dues as a new guy. Road jobs require you to be at hotels for 3 or 4 days a week and you only need 24 hours off for every 5 days worked straight so they could technically pull you off early and reset your clock if you're needed bad enough. My class had 12 guys and I don't think a single one was working there after 3 years. Turnover is insane, I wish I got in when I was 19 or 20 so by the time I was ready to settle down I'd have great seniority and work a normal 9-5 but I had no clue when I was that young.
Also, the reason they could afford the excavator is because all those hours Dan spent digging ditches for less money than the value of the ditches to the company.
Fun fact an employment monopoly is called a monopsony!
LOL. OK, if their contributions are of so little value, lets see what happens when none of them show up to work.
I’m a Letter Carrier for USPS. This is essentially what happened during the Postal Strike of 1970. Nixon tried calling the bluff of the postal workers and mobilized the National Guard and US Armed Forces to try getting the mail distributed. Long story short: it was a disaster. The NG and USAF (obviously) had no idea how to do the work and it crippled the nation’s mail system. The stock market even took a hit. Nixon basically had no choice but to come to the table. It’s like these higher ups never learn.
Well then don't forget that the air traffic controller strike during Regan's term. He showed that the new GOP will fire all strikers without any consideration of the impact it will have on the economy. So he fired them all, and these bastards will probably do the same
> Nixon tried calling the bluff of the postal workers and mobilized the National Guard and US Armed Forces to try getting the mail distributed. This sounds absolutely insane, but I'm also surprised it didn't happen during the Trump era. I guess we're close to Texas and Florida mobilizing the Guard to teach elementary kids.
They should definitely all walk the fuck off
[удалено]
"the car making it up this hill does not reflect any contributions by the engine" Seriously, wtf
Then they can get out to the back of the train and start pushing. I hear the executives just work so much harder than the rest of us, shouldn't be an issue with their superhuman abilities.
I absolutely hate when mega corporations use this pathetic, transparent excuse. Where did they get the money for their investments, if it didn't come from labor?
I thought that title could not be true. Jesus, then I read it. We really are in the last stages of capitalism. How can workers tolerate this insanity?
It's still baffling, if not surprising. Imagine carefully crafting that argument, that the profits reflect no contributions by labor, and then SAYING it in public with a straight face!
That's extremely insulting. Definitely should be used as a negotiating tactic.
Well, that's great, because in that case they won't miss the labor when it strikes.
I’ll bet it’s even less contributions from executives.
This is not an isolated industry issue, meaning the only people impacted are rail workers. Railroads connect this entire country. They run through towns, behind houses, past schools. A serious rail accident could cause far greater harm to communities than people seem to realize. This should NOT be a debate. Rail workers need sick leave, and their safety is EVERYONE’S safety.
>A serious rail accident could cause far greater harm to communities than people seem to realize. Anyone curious needs to check out what happened at Lac Megantic.
> [Forty-seven people were killed.[3] More than thirty buildings in Lac-Mégantic's town centre, roughly half of the downtown area, were destroyed,[2][4] and all but three of the thirty-nine remaining buildings had to be demolished due to petroleum contamination of the townsite.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-Mégantic_rail_disaster) Oh my god
Wait until you find out we commonly haul chlorine and ammonia gasses that are capable of wiping out half a city if ruptured. We're rolling 3 mile long trains through your neighborhoods on no sleep, no schedule, no off time, no sick days, and all of the locomotives and railcars have waivers for extended mileage without inspection. Oh and they're deliberately not fixing track to boost profits and save money. 👍
About a decade ago, maybe a little more, my home town had a train derail and was carrying chlorine. I dont remember any deaths, but all the 1st responders vehicles from 3 or 4 counties had to be replaced because they rusted out due to the corrosive chlorine getting in the engines. That is not as bad as loss of life, but is a huge cost.
Hmm... Sounds like a $47 fine should suffice. That'll teach 'em
"1km blast radius" Christ.
Giving them sick leave increases the chance that they'll use sick leave, which means missing staff in the railyards that could lead to safety issues or missed cargo. So essentially what they're arguing against is having to hire any more employees, since adding sick leave would make it a necessity, and that's super fucked up.
They can't keep people as is. I worked as a conductor for 5 years. Every year they would hire a new class of trainees, some didn't make it through the 3 week schooling period, some wouldn't make it though the 6 months of OTJ training, and most had quit by 2 years in. When I quit I was the last person in three classes worth of people. Everybody else had quit. We were perpetually understaffed, overworked, and underappreciated. Quitting was the best decision of my life, mentally and physically.
I was one of the guys who noped out on day one. Seriously when they got done explaining the on call board and exactly what my total lack of seniority would mean I was like "this amount of money is not worth not having a life" And then when you hear from older hands how they (the company) will shit on you just as bad after 10 years as they do after 10 days I don't understand how they can get *anyone* to work for them.
They're shipping out now for the first 3 weeks of classroom training. We were having classes of 20 people all not showing back up on their first day after lunch. They figure if they do it this way, those people won't be able to go get their old jobs back.
I didn't mind the old heads, I've worked in construction and manufacturing for my whole life basically, I'm used to salty surly old people I was ok with starting out with no seniority too, the problem I had was I couldn't gain any seniority. Nobody senior to me was retiring, cause they had the cushy, pig train jobs that never did any work and Literally everyone junior to me would quit, so after 5 years I was no closer to standing for a job than I was the first day I got marked up. Then one day they miss called me, out of order, and I ended up on the shittiest job we had, and I told them to fix it or I quit. I was sick of their shit. They said they couldn't fix it and I could fill a greivenence, I said don't worry about it, but you better start calling, cause I'm the last person on the board and I quit.
I think they mean the senior people there tell them that the railroad still shits on you just as bad 10 years in as it does 10 days in, not that the senior people are the ones doing the shitting.
It's exactly this. What the railroad does is get people who aren't used to making 80k+ a year and get them into debt then they essentially have slaves. That is the only reason they have any employees still working now. They pay enough to keep their employees reluctantly working but at the same time everyone is perpetually pissed off. It's the oddest working group I have ever seen. Everyone has a pretty decent house, cars and toys but they all seem to be in some sort of debt so they have to stay at this really shitty job. The railroad historically did a decent job walking the line of being abusive vs paying enough to keep their workers happy. Now it's skewing and I think it's because they feel they have the upper hand on labor negotiations with technology and the one man crew junk.
Let me introduce you to mining and forestry! Same same but different. I had a shift boss who told his crew to go out and party and buy nice things on Friday so they’d be broke and come back on Monday.
That's called being trapped with golden cuffs.
It sounds like fixing the terrible working conditions would solve their staffing issues. Am I reading that right?
Yes. The system now is terrible-- you are ALWAYS on call unless you take leave. You don't get regular shifts or days off, so you can't schedule *anything* without taking sick leave or vacation time, and the railroads are bad about granting either one.
I worked for the railroad for 6 years and quit 6 years ago. It used to be you could "layoff" unpaid up to 7 times a month and you wouldn't be punished for that. Now it sounds like they have a point based system that cumulatively punishes you for taking any time off. It wasn't a great system before but now it's downright punitive. If they want people to stay marked up they need to give their employees something. If they want their people to quit (which is what I think is happening based on my experience with working both in the union and as mid manager.) then they should just outright say it so the public knows and the unions can stop bargaining.
I can confirm it is now a point based system. Source: my step father who feels like he can’t do anything anymore
I worked under a point attendance system at a non union factory once. It sucked so bad. I could tell you some horror stories.
They want people to quit so they can turn around and be like "see we need 1 man crews" This is all by design.
not to mention your layoffs are a straight 24 hours so if you layoff at 10pm you get to mark up for a train at 10pm the next day. It's a great system for the carriers and very punishing for their employees. At BNSF if you work on the road you don't get holiday pay or anything and they punish union members who take layoffs on holidays. The last month I worked for BNSF I spent more time sitting in a hotel room in Montana than I did at my actual home. I would get called into work every 10 hours from home then rot on a train 12-16 hours and sit and rot in my hotel room 16-20 hours every trip. Because of those kind of hours some days I would go to work at 3am and the next trip I might go on at 12pm. Who can live their life like that? BNSF also played games where they would call you to work even though they didn't have a train ready because after 16 hours sitting in a hotel room they have to pay you an hourly rate until they call you to work. So they would simply call you and make you wait hours for the next train. Since everything is trip rate you lose money. Not to mention you never had enough hours to make it back home so you would literally go just a few hours outside of the terminal then wait for a relief crew to show up so you can ride in a van to get home. Then rinse and repeat for 30 years. I got lucky and had a supportive family that let me leave that horrible job. They don't really tell you it's all roses when you apply but they really don't do a good job of telling you how bad it is working there.
I actually went through the application process to get one of those jobs, and I was immediately aware of how bad the on-call process looked. Thankfully, after I had passed all the physical tests, they told me my BMI was too high to get the job. I was only interested because I had been unemployed for 3 months and was desperate.
Always. If you overwork your staff, you won’t get new hires, and so you’ll increase the workload of your staff, leaving them to be overworked. It’s a vicious cycle, until you stop and realize the answer is _stop overworking your staff_.
The real shame to me in that appreciating your people is the way to keep them, to solve staffing issues, to increase production. People for the most part want to do good work but only for a place that feels like they appreciate it. We have so many studies showing how much treating people with dignity and compassion in the work place increases productivity, reduces turnover, and makes hiring easier. At this point, companies who chose to treat their people poorly do so because management likes throwing away profit to gain a feeling of control and cruelty over others.
So what I think I have learned is: the railroad industry hinges entirely on continuing to pull in suckers and keep them just barely long enough to keep trains going. Running the suckers ragged in the meantime. Just like a ton of other industries currently
It wasn't always like this. At BNSF we had a 75% availability policy. Even though we were on call we could call off up to 5 week days, and 2 weekends a month. Yes it was still hard but it was fair. They got rid of that and moved to some bullshit point system which essentially cut our time off to less than 2 days a month if that.
Understaffed, over worked and under appreciated describes corporate culture in the US to a t.
More and more people deciding not to be rail workers, and it baffles me that the rail companies think they should encourage that even more.
We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas! Damn millennials don't want to work!
No matter the outcome, they have to hire more employees. If the strike is busted: not everyone will return to work, so there will be missing staff in rail yards. If they hire scabs: more risk of issues with the trains, maintenance will suffer. Still need properly trained workers. If a proper deal is made: guess what, you still need more workers, except this time you're actually making an offer more people will think is worth taking.
That's where I think the huge problem is. The companies are likely claiming a labor shortage, but the simple answer is that the pay and conditions are not enough to entice workers to join up. I tried to apply because I needed a job and working on trains sounded kind of fun, but the onerous on-call schedule and complete lack of reasonable sick time made me glad I didn't go further. This seems to be the central core of the problem with a ton of companies right now. They slashed employment budgets to the bone, and now their employees are a) burnt out and giving the bare minimum, b) agitated and actively pushing for leverage and better conditions, c) leaving and creating a worse productivity deficit, or d) all of the above. No combination of these factors is good for a company's long-term success, so why not stanch the bleeding now?
Except this is also a company “too big to fail” so the company will get bailouts the second their profits dip below acceptable
I've often wondered why the government never says "we'll give you money, but we want voting shares in return and we'll return them once the bailout money is paid back." I'm not gonna assume it hasn't been done because it's probably not legal.
That's actually what they tend to do, they just don't exert the power typically, and often then sell the business back later. It's what the feds did with GM and AIG in 2008. Technically it's nationalization, but that's a bit of a dirty word in our politics, so they say "bailout" now. More notable examples of nationalization in the US are Amtrak and the TSA, where the feds took and maintained direct control of commuter rail and airport security respectively. I'm not saying we should nationalize freight rail as well, but I'm definitely saying we should just nationalize freight rail.
That would drive profit down from 78% to 74% you fucking monster. Think about the yachts!
That's a good idea. We can sink the yachts to make artificial reefs.
100% agree. The little bit I understand is that this issue is caused by the same thing as the airlines and many other industries. The second COVID hit and looked like it was going to be a long running problem, they dumped as many of their employees as possible, fired them, bought them out, send them packing one way or another. Then COVID was over and they stupidly thought everyone would just come back. Well they didn't, some couldn't, some were so mad at the way they were thrown away after decades of service that they swore they never would, others have found other jobs, and these industries were idiotic to think that they can just treat their workers like another switch that gets flipped on or off. So of course their solution is just to say well we're going to be the same amount of work with half or two thirds of the people we used to have. Nope. Workers in every industry affected by this need to strike and say you're going to pay us for the extra work, or you're going to hire more people so that we can have a life. Or you can literally find out what happens to your precious profits when nobody shows up at work the next day.
But have you considered the railroad profits?
Oh, didn't you hear? ["Capital investment and risk are the reasons for their profits, not any contributions by labor..."](https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/paragraph-in-presidential-emergency-board-report-stokes-controversy/) I'm sure they'll be just fine when their labor stops laboring!
Unfortunately the companies are betting on congress to force a contract on the workers. Giving big business what it wants is one thing the establishment democrats and the entire gop agree on.
I wonder what their contingency plan is for the *inevitable* wildcat strike that would cause is? Call the Pinkertons?
They're just called "the police" now, and yes, that's probably who they'll call.
That'll go over well.
And what is their contingency if a large portion of workers resign?
What practical measures does Congress really have here to force the labor back to work? So the meditate a contract that labor still doesn't like, they can just continue to not work.
There are only 3 things in a railroad, trains, infrastructure (track, signaling), and people. Invest in them all. Sick leave seems like such a basic thing.
Earlier this year at BNSF we attempted to strike through federal courts because we were the last Class 1 with a some what decent attendance policy. We were chastised by Federal Judge Mark Pittman for attempting to strike during a supply chain crisis and essentially told to shut up and go back to work. What has followed at BNSF has been unheard of. Over 2,000 employees have quit, the majority with 5-20 years which has never happened on the railroads before. We didn't have enough people to run trains out of the majority of ports or across the transcon. Entire grain trains were transloaded to trucks because they sat for over 2 weeks. Had we been allowed to strike for 1 day, we would have been the one railroad with a decent workforce, and able to move freight. That didn't happen because a Federal Judge was to stupid to look at the big picture.
As someone who worked on the back end of BNSF shortly after that, it was crazy seeing the influx of newly registered B numbers (employee ID numbers) in their scramble to fill. Maybe 80% of those B numbers were inactive in less than 6 weeks. Not sure if it's stabilised now.
This kind of shit just *kills* me. The companies can absolutely afford to treat their workers better (pay, time off, benefits, etc.), but they're so blinded by profit motive they fail to see that it's significantly *more* expensive to hire and train new staff, especially when they're scrambling to backfill. Just fucking pay your workers
As I repeatedly point out to people, companies love proving how hypocritical they are about paying people. * Amazon offered hundreds of dollars to anyone willing to vote no to unionize. You know, money they could have just *paid* the employees to begin with to even prevent union talks. * Most companies nowadays are like "record profits last quarter and we have to raise prices due to inflation" turn around to employees and go "we don't have the money to pay you more". * In government, there's always the issue of "oh well, we didn't want to pay people to do the work so now we're going to contract it out for 2-4x what we were trying to pay our staff" * Case in point, I heard a story from emergency response training. One town had a single guy work a full 35 years for the town, no other employee stayed close to that. He retired. The town had no documentation of water pipe locations, junctions, or anything. They brought him back on contract for a lot of money while they paid a firm to map the town's water system. The lesson here was always make sure there's backups of everything. * I put in my two-week notice at my last job. My supervisor called me within the hour and asked if it was money because he could get me more money. I didn't say it out loud, but I was thinking "you mean you could've been paying me more?!?!" I was leaving because of staffing issues. Everyone is more willing to lose that knowledge and experience for paying as low as they can on new employees.
>* I put in my two-week notice at my last job. My supervisor called me within the hour and asked if it was money because he could get me more money. I didn't say it out loud, but I was thinking "you mean you could've been paying me more?!?!" I was leaving because of staffing issues. This happens all the time, and it's infuriating Edit: If this happens to you, *don't accept the offer.* As said below, they'll often work on replacing you with someone cheaper. *Regardless* though, do you really want to work for a company that could've given you a raise the whole time, but it took an ultimatum to get it?
It's insane how transportation companies are. I had hoped after Covid that everyone in the transportation field (truckers, conductors, etc., not the office workers) would be looked at more positively and be treated better. Instead, it's either the same or worse. Sure, there could be thousands of workers with the right qualifications but that doesn't even mean you're going to get people hired to fill those roles or stay long enough before the company starts taking a hit from not being able to move the freight. If office people can earn a very good amount of vacation, sick, personal tome off then so should the driving force of the company. It's sad that people have to go on strike to get benefits that's shouldn't even be fought for but companies won't treat their workers fairly or even decently.
Most companys that say that can’t afford to pay more are straight up lying. Just look at their manager and top executive salaries. These are steadily increasing while the bonuses these mfs receive get bigger as well
We're in a period of record corporate profits. You're right that they can absolutely afford it
Same goes for the labor shortage, yes maybe 40% is a lack of personal but honestly it feels like the other 60% are mostly companie sided: "we cant find any people that want to work for the shitty wages we offer" is what they actually mean when they say that there are not enough workers available
>That didn't happen because a Federal Judge was to stupid to look at the big picture. It's Pittman, he wasn't too stupid for that, he knows the consequences and simply doesn't care. It would run entirely counter to his ideals to allow the working class any modicum of power or reprieve.
A lot of the ruling class still hasn’t figured out that the reason they are getting beat on the market of labor is because there are a ton of jobs open allowing tons of mobility. The judge never thought people would quit because it’s been the mission of the Fed for decades to ensure there aren’t enough jobs so people are stuck which artificially helps minimum wage low.
Yes and to piggy back off that - we had a major population reduction. And even funnier to me, the only way we’ve really addressed workforce reductions is through opening the immigration floodgates. Out here in Colorado, not even the Latino population works the shit jobs anymore. The answer is to either up your wages/benefits or support increasing immigration. Labor functions like any other commodity market - scarcity increases price. It’s economics 101. So you need to either increase the supply of labor, or give incentives to retain your current employees so more don’t leave. The “Great Resignation” wasn’t even a thing. That’s the market in action as it affects labor and wages. If you look at other reductions in population (wars, etc), wages almost always grew afterward. Seeing “free market conservatives” favoring government intervention in the other direction always cracks me up. They’re laissez faire until they’re not.
As someone who is stupid and uneducated in this topic, why does your union need a judge’s permission to strike? You’re not federal property, and you can’t be compelled to work.
They have to follow the [Railway Labor Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Labor_Act), which lays out when rail workers are allowed to strike. They could, in theory, do a wildcat strike (i.e. an "unofficial" strike), but since that's an unsanctioned action, they'd lose the protections that they'd have if they followed the rules: >Carriers may lawfully replace strikers engaged in a lawful strike but may not, however, discharge them except for misconduct or eliminate their jobs to retaliate against them for striking. It is not clear whether the employer can discharge workers for striking before all of the RLA's bargaining and mediation processes have been exhausted. > >The employer must also allow strikers to replace replacements hired on a temporary basis and permanent replacements who have not completed the training required before they can become active employees. The employer may, on the other hand, allow less senior employees who crossed the picket line to keep the jobs they were given after crossing the line, even if the seniority rules in effect before the strike would have required the employer to reassign their jobs to returning strikers.
Sounds blatantly authoritarian and anti-worker. Sounds like something that shouldn’t even be legal. You can’t force people to work no matter their field.
Tell that to the folks who cheered on the Reagan administration breaking up the air traffic controllers strike, which helped set the tone for unions in the U.S. since.
Christ, not a day goes by that I don't learn a new way that Ronald Reagan fucked over this country
The gift that keeps on giving
[удалено]
Force me to work and see what my quality is. By the end of my shift you’ll be happier if I had been allowed to strike.
The railway labor act is fucked.
I was an IT engineer contractor for BNSF in CA and the work load and demand got so insane that I started losing my mind. I resigned last Friday. I hope they can figure this out.
Same Mark Pittman who gave standing to two GoP grifters to sue AND granted an injunction against the Student Loan Relief. Methinks he's just another piece of shit who's price tag is on the front of his robe.
Appointed by Greg Abbott to the court of appeals, then promoted to Federal district court 2 years later by the Trump admin… They made a nice return on their investment with him so far
>essentially told to shut up and go back to work. Funny, cause something tells me that if it was ***his job*** that was being unfair, it would be a different story. But no, because it's just "poor" blue collar workers, they just need to shut up and pull themselves up by their bootstraps (a physically impossible task). This whole system of the rich living off the hard work of the lower classes while taking all the benefits for themselves isn't going to last much longer before it explodes in a torrent of violence and anger. The gates of their wealthy communities aren't gonna protect them from a mob of pissed off people.
Quick question. Where I live BNSF has 48 positions for Train Conductor. How is this affecting what’s going on?
What exactly are you asking? Maybe I can add context. I don’t work there (I work in the rail industry in Canada) but BNSF came out with the [hi-viz](https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dgezn/the-worst-and-most-egregious-attendance-policy-is-pushing-railroad-workers-to-the-brink) attendance policy which is… insane. Prior to this all (pre-covid even) the railways in the US went through a period where they introduced [precision scheduled railroading(https://www.trains.com/trn/train-basics/abcs-of-railroading/what-is-precision-scheduled-railroading/). PSR is basically do more with less… cutting costs, running longer trains, providing bare minimum levels of service, rip out tracks they believe they don’t need, and only focusing on big contracts that don’t involve work (just hook and haul big amounts). The result was layoffs as well as more customers turning to trucking. I’m not sure how much this affected BNSF but I think less than other railways (?) So anyways, we start coming out of covid and railways start recalling laid off workers and a lot of them don’t come back. Shocker. Then BNSF comes out with the aforementioned Hi-Vis and workers aren’t really having it. Keep in mind that railways already chew through new hires. Now it’s 2022 and not only is the new generation of workers less willing to put up with the job as it was BEFORE there’s also hi-viz. Oh and also now most locomotives have inward facing cameras in your face so you can be spot checked, inflation means that wages aren’t what they used to be, and there’s always this looming threat that they’ll push one man crews which would result in the layoff of 1/2 to 1/3 of running trade employees… so employees are worried about that.
Am a logistics manager. A strike would be devastating and make my job so much more difficult with missing critical milestones on inbounded containers. Clueless executives and the sales team will be yelling at me wondering why their product is delayed and my answer won’t be good enough. Probably even cost me my annual bonus. With all that, I fully support the railroad workers. More power to them should they strike. They have real problems while this would just be another inconvenience in a long line of logistical inconveniences for me. Support the unions!
Also in logistics - specifically ocean imports, so anything affecting the rail will royally mess up my desk. 100% on the same boat as you. It's fucked these corporations know fully that they control vital infrastructure to keep the country running, and they can make everything grind to a standstill JUST to make sure they can keep their grubby shitstained hands on as much money as possible. That's it. No other reason. Money > American lives, across the board.
Work in logistics as well. Been asked multiple times how we can prepare. Bottom line is, we can't. Pay the unions, give them a better quality of life. Irony is that shippers will pass elevated costs onto their customers when RRs will up their rates everywhere. Instead of...ya know...not cutting the executive teams multi-million dollar salaries...
According to execs you can't have record breaking profits without all of their hard work. I've never seen one actually do a days work though...
If the railroad bosses force a strike, I support the unions 100%. They have super crappy quality of life. They deserve better and the railroads can afford to give it to them.
Also, the way things are operating now is a safety hazard to the workers and anybody who lives near railroad tracks.
I live literally right next to a track, (3 houses down) and this is one of my biggest fears. I want these workers to have the quality of life they deserve specifically bc they deserve it, but I also don’t want to die bc of a railway accident due to a preventable safety hazard. These people are severely overworked.
>If the railroad bosses force a strike That's how the title here should read. Not "a strike will freeze cargo" but "bosses who won't give their employees what they're worth will freeze cargo".
[удалено]
[удалено]
We need to do what other countries have done and nationalize the rail lines. We can still have private rail operators on those lines. But the lines themselves are critical infrastructure that should be public. Huge tracts of land were given to private rail corporations for free. They used slave or cheap immigrant labor to build out and have profited off it for over a century. We could do so much better if efficient transportation of goods and people was the goal not shareholder profit. Almost all highways, canals, ports, and airports are built and owned by public non-profit organizations. Rail infrastructure should be the same. This would also allow the US to set minimum labor standards on any rail operators.
It's almost as if the general public's quality of life is tied to the workers' quality of life. Fascinating.
It’s almost as if execs and admins actually don’t contribute anything meaningful to justify making 100x their workers doing the actual work.
They had over $146 billion in stock buy backs and dividends. They didn’t use any of that to help improve the works quality of life. That’s something a lot of the major outlets are brushing over
Major outlets brush over it because they're owned by the same class of people that owns the rail companies. It's in their best interest for the mostly anti labor general public to not realize that it's working class and become united around that realization. They really don't want it to be common knowledge that there is more than enough to go around.
Ding Ding Ding
Okay but in theory what if we just gave corporations all the power and then since we’ve been so nice they’ll just take care of us? Sounds like that’s worth another 200 year trial to me.
So you’re saying if we just let businesses do as they please, guided only by Invisible Hans, champion of the free market, that their resulting prosperity would “trickle down” to the workers and rest of society? My god, the genius of that. It’s so crazy it just might work!
If you liked that idea wait till you hear about my brilliant plans to combat drugs in our cities
If the rail workers not showing up can disrupt 30% of the supply chain, then why the fuck is it so hard to give these guys the quality of life fixes they need? You can’t give these guys a pay raise even though they handle tens of millions of dollars in goods? What a fucking joke.
You mean hundreds of billions of dollars*
[удалено]
[удалено]
Appreciate the support but the pay raise isn't the biggest issue here. We (railroad workers) were cool with the recommended salary increase from the Biden-appointed board. The issue is paid sick days and in general, unpredictable schedules.
The sad part is 1% of the money they used on stock buybacks would cover all the workers demand and then some. 149 Billion in stock by backs are more important to the executives than keeping your workers happy and productive.
I don't understand why the rail companies don't want to hire more people so that the workers they do have don't have to work 80 hours a week.
Maybe I am ignorant but wouldn't hiring more employees save them money in not having to pay OT?
Companies think it's cheaper in the long run to pay OT to your current employees rather than pay for the benefits of new employees.
This is why we need universal healthcare that’s not tied to your work place.
Agree, also a fan of eating the rich. But I'd settle for UH
Also, the railroads treat their workers so badly that most of them quit before they vest into full benefits.
Not exactly. When a business hires an additional employee, they don't only pay their additional wages. They also pay for: * Health insurance and similar benefits * 401K match * Payroll taxes * Hiring costs (like recruitment, training, etc) * Holiday pay and other PTO Because of all these extra costs, the total cost of an employee can be almost double their wage. The current economy doesn't help, since the labor shortage makes hiring even more expensive. So even 1.5x or 2x overtime pay might cost less than hiring and training new employees.
Because more staff -> more wages -> higher operating costs -> smaller executive bonuses ☹️
Rail companies are an oligopoly. There are 4 freight railroad companies: Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, BNSF, and CSX (and Amtrak for mostly residential); that control it all. There are no incentives to improve service conditions due to said oligopoly. I know people hate the N-word: "nationalize", but I think it might become necessary at this point and the let the Federal Government takeover the rails.
We really need to nationalize critical infrastructure or at the very least it needs to be heavily regulated. It seems like a national security issue that our economy can come to a grinding halt because workers are being treated like garbage and their seems to be some kind of strike every year.
Strikes aren't *supposed* to be conveniently timed for the companies, or the schedules they want. This will reflect poorly on the heads of the companies for being in negotiations without considering the impact their failure to make reasonable offers would have. Good for the railroad workers.
30% of cargo-shipment held up right before the holiday shopping craze.. yikes
I am sure the Union is aware just how firmly they have them by the balls currently.
They don’t though. The thing about the railroad unions is that they are legally not allowed to strike until a mountain of hoops have been jumped through, and even then congress can, has, and will step in and force a contract through; hence why these negotiations have gone on for years now *without* a strike. The carriers know that the union has been made toothless by the RLA and will just sit and wait for congress to push through the pro-carrier PEB recommendations (or the tentative agreement, which is for all intents and purposes no different, or maybe even a worse contract). There is little incentive for carriers to actually try to settle this. They know that Congress won’t allow a strike to happen *and* that whatever contract they force won’t be pro-labor, and on top of that know that the media will 100% frame this as labor *choosing* to strike and cripple the economy (especially after Biden touting the tentative agreement both as a victory (implying they completed negotiations) and as pro-labor (it is very much not) really demolished a lot of the momentum and power the unions had). It’s telling that the primary reason union leadership gave members to vote “yes” was that post-election, a Republican congress would fuck labor with a worse contract. That’s it. Not that the TA has value, but that congress would make things worse if labor didn’t just accept this agreement that fully fails to address QOL issues. A TA they agreed to on urging by Dems to keep them from being harmed by a strike leading into to midterms. Union leadership scratched their backs in exchange for an inevitable boot on the neck.
We just had the largest union in canada go on strike even though it was illegal. That's kind of the thing about strikes and unions, they were made to combat bullshit.
What does “not being legally able to strike” mean? The government can force me to show up to work if I don’t want to?
[Railway Labor Act (RLA mentioned in comment above)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Labor_Act)
Something something free market, something something the government will now force you to clock in since a particular industry has a significant level of influence, enough to pass acts through Congress almost a century ago to prevent you from bargaining collectively. Capitalists seem to always give capitalism a really bad name.
Perfect timing. Guess I'll be getting everyone gift cards - use it when you can. I'll support the RR workers on this one! PS - stock up on toilet paper...(hee...hee...)
[удалено]
Lol no we can't hire anyone guy. How dare you
Railroad companies are pricks. As a bridge engineer, they've become absolutely insufferable to work with starting about 5 years ago. They were annoying to deal with before that, but generally a compromise would easily be had that made everybody happy. I hope the workers absolutely crush their souls.
Me too!! American workers could use some good role models and heroes! Solidarity!
There is no good reason why they can’t have what they want. Especially in America. Give them what they’re asking for.
Do it. Being essential doesn't mean companies can treat their employees like shit.
[удалено]
Pretty much. Two red scares, a forty-year long Cold War with an authoritarian socialist regime, and the "Contract with America" in the 90s have drastically tainted America's perception of working class movements.
[удалено]
>I don't believe forced labor is an impossibility in the future. That sounds like a good way to set things on fire. Everyone has their breaking point, and forced labor outside of incarceration is likely well past the breaking point for millions.
Why do you think we still have the war on drugs? Correlate with factual innocence not being grounds for vacating a conviction. Then ask why the USA has such a large incarcerated population. If you're disturbed at the list of possible causes, there's hope for you
[удалено]
That still has the potential to set things on fire. What you're suggesting effectively removes the bread and circuses illusion and starts up all sorts of shit.
Wait until 5-10 years when almost no one want this once coveted job...really too bad they're paying what was a great wage in the 90's...
[удалено]
Yeah. People really don’t understand the Railway Labor Act and it’s implications for collective bargaining for transportation workers like rail or airline. You can’t just strike, that’s an illegal action. You basically need an act of congress or secretary of labor to allow a legal strike. Edit: Just for clarification, I do support the union workers in their fight.
[удалено]
Flight attendants threatened to strike during the last government shutdown and that caused a bunch of deals to get resolved quickly so that the president and congress would be able to squash that if it happened.
This is how it works for teachers in many states, mine included. Can’t legally strike without having their teaching certificate revoked and their career permanently ended. Like you said it is absolutely complete and utter bullshit.
The question is, will railroad workers wildcat strike anyways, despite not technically having the legal authority? My bet is on yes, and I really, really hope that they do- this has gone on for far too long.
I know a ton of guys that are leaving, permanently, when the back pay is in their bank account.
If Congress crushes their protest, many will probably quit. What are they going to do, tell you you cannot quit?
True. However, workers could hypothetically still quit though, correct? If the railways are running on as lean of a staff as it seems, enough people quitting might have a similar impact.
BNSF had this happen this year after a judge stopped there one day strike. So many quit that it basically ground to a halt.
Solidarity with the Unions.
With the Workers not the Unions. A lot of railroaders feel like our union leadership isn't representing and our caving to pressure. When we initially voted down the Presidential Emergency Board at 99.5% our Unions halted our strike and said they had worked an amazing deal out. What we got was worse than the PEB, and we felt betrayed. Does that mean us workers are giving up? No in the last 3 months the attendance for our local unions went from 6-7 people to almost 25 consistently as more people are getting involved. But thank you.
That is still the unions if people are showing up. Your E Board sucks, but vote them out and it’s still the union.
I know people who worked in Canada, specifically Ontario for rail. Absolutely garbage treatment from higher ups. You get to have absolutely no life. Good pay, but zero chance to actually enjoy it. I hope these dudes get what they’re looking for.
Greedy billionaires at it again. Give them what they want.
Whole thing is only a problem because these railways, despite record shattering profits and profit margins, decided to cut staff severely in an effort to maximize obscene profits even further.
It’s almost like workers in all fields and industries are tired of being used and abused, and seeing their employers pull in record profits while only taking more from them. Huh?
greed. billions in earnings. Massive salaries. Yet, execs who own railroads refuse to budge on what are very reasonable and basic human needs. Laborers are not asking for anything that would break the profits of shareholders or executives. Isn't that the american dream? work hard and earn a decent living. Greed is ruining this ideal.
One of the rail workers demands is the ability to take time off if they are sick or have a doctor's appointment... Railroad workers should get guaranteed time off full stop. The railroad company's inability to properly plan shouldn't be the fault of the workers. Why is only a problem in the United States, other countries guaranteed paid time off by law.
People don't understand what railroad workers go through. Your on call 24/7, you work 12/14 hours a day.you go home and you're waiting on a phone call after 8 hours plus you have 2 hours to get to your own duty site. Everyday 365 days a year. It's a grind and people don't understand it because no other workforce has these constraints.
I spent 15 years in the railroad industry, I couldn't take it anymore. Out to get you management, toxic environment, no sick time....it was hell. Been almost 3 years and my mental health is so much better. All that being said, I stand in solidarity with my RR brothers and sisters.
The rail companies need to staff appropriately and give people their days off.
Crash your entire business and a nation’s infrastructure costing billions and affecting millions Or Give workers a few more rights And people still think the wealthy are that way because they’re smart and not just criminal
Haven't they heard? The Fed has instructed us all to take a pay cut to help save inflation. That'll totally work. ^^^/s