Railroad companies don’t want to relinquish 24/7 control

Lingering tensions are increasing between thousands of railroad workers and the big freight lines, and the first union to put up a picket line – possible this week -- will spark a national work stoppage, the first rail strike since 1991. A rail strike would be inconvenient and disruptive, but perspective is needed. As others have said, “Sometimes a strike is necessary. If it weren’t, a memo would do.” As for me, this fight is personal.

For decades, members of my family worked for the Norfolk & Western and the Wabash lines, and they gave a lot more than they got considering the time they sold to the profitable, powerful companies.

In retirement, they were weary and worn out, but they wouldn’t have survived what today’s rail workers endure.

Time is still an issue, and control of that priceless commodity is something the rail companies don’t want to surrender.

Again, a strike could start this week, as the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET, a Teamsters affiliate) and the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and transportation Workers (SMART-TD) are predicted to reject the Tentative Agreement within days. T.A. this week. The Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen (BRS) and Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employee Division of the Teamsters (BMWED) already rejected the T.A., and those four unions together represent three-fourths of all unionized rail workers.

After the National Mediation Board in June and the Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) in August failed to hammer out a contract, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh in a 20-hour bargaining session forged a revised offer, and leaders of 8 of the 12 unions involved recommended ratifying it. Six unions did pretty quickly (Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, American Train Dispatchers, Firemen & Oilers, Railway Carmen, the Transportation Communications Union and SMART’s Mechnical division).

After some 4,900 members of Machinists’ District 19 on Nov. 5 voted to approve the proposed settlement with the rail industry’s National Carriers’ Conference Committee, seven unions have now ratified the T. A., but all 12 unions must agree and the rank and file remains skeptical.

A look at the vote by the Machinists this month (after rejecting a settlement in September) seems revealing. The union said the 4,900 supporting votes were 52% of ballots cast, meaning about 9,400 voted. The union also said there was “59% of the membership participating,” so about 41% did not take part – some 6,600 Did Not Vote. That’s more than the  number who voted in favor of the T.A.

Machinists’ leaders said the union “recognizes that the agreement wasn’t accepted overwhelmingly, so our team will continue conversing with our members at our rail yards across the nation. Our union will continue to amplify the deficiencies in the carriers’ sick leave and attendance policies,” they said, conceding two other unresolved issues: overtime and travel expenses, which will be discussed in future negotiations and a joint study.

So: The rank and file has the last word – unless government steps in.

Congress could extend the “cooling-off” period, intervene by either ordering the parties to enter binding arbitration or even impose a contract. Or Congress could fail to act if elected representatives can’t come to an agreement. Certainly, the pressure will be on since the economic impact would be immediate and enormous, essentially affecting everything from food and fuel to manufacturing and military supplies. In late October, more than 300 business groups wrote Biden asking him to impose the PEB deal.

Illinois’ senior Sen. Dick Durbin said, “I think it is naïve to believe that we could just quickly come up with an agreement on settling this strike. It takes a lot more work.”

Meanwhile, the playing field is far from level. Unions’ strike pay is limited, and jobless benefits are delayed, even as the four biggest rail companies – BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific – have billions.

“Rail companies reported record profits in 2021,” says a report co-written by Terri Gerstein from Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program and Washington, D.C., labor lawyer Jenny Hunter. “These companies are making, in technical terms, a gazillion boatloads of money.” (BNSF alone reported $6 billion in net income last year).

 

                                                        It’s about much more than money

For workers,    pay isn’t the issue. Instead, all of the unions share concerns about the working conditions of away-from-home duties and anger about draconian scheduling. Rather than dealing with those issues, the rail corporations offer an insulting ONE paid sick day and permission to miss work for a doctor’s appointment without penalty (or pay).

“Carriers estimate that granting unionized employees seven days of paid sick leave annually would cost around $400 million,” reported journalism Frank N. Wilner in Railway Age. “That is less than three cents of each dollar of this year’s projected free cash flow among the Big Four.”

The carriers are exploiting workers as a result of cutting the workforce about 29% since November 2018 – some 45,000 jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. An industry that still had more than 1 million workers in the 1950s has about 150,000 now.

To make up for fewer workers, the companies unilaterally imposed the strict-attendance policy of “Precision Scheduled Railroading,” making workers on call 24/7 with two hours’ notice.

“Precision Scheduled Railroading, which is just a fancy way of saying lean-and-mean production, [is them saying,] ‘We’re going to cut maintenance, we’re going to cut costs, we’re going to cut staffing, and otherwise do whatever we can to pump up the stock price, increase the profitability of the carrier, reduce the operating ratio,’ and so forth,” commented Ron Kaminkow, organizer for Railroad Workers United, a rank-and-file organization. “And one of those ways to do that, it’s assumed, is to get more work out of the existing workforce. And it’s made for a completely miserable situation.”

BNSF conductor Jordan Boone in Galesburg, a SMART Workers union legislative representative, told the Washington Post, “BNSF came up with this policy, because of all the cuts they’ve made, and they’re trying to do all they can to get us to pick up the slack.

“They haven’t hired enough,” he continued. “The time away from family has a big impact on our mental health. I know people that have missed doctor’s appointments for months and months because of this policy.”

Again, this fight is about perspective. And profits. And power.

“If the only way a company can operate is to penalize or ultimately fire someone for taking their kid to an emergency room, that’s a major operational failing,” write Gerstein and Hunter. “That’s not appropriate for companies of any kind—even the most nonessential ones, much less in an industry so central to our economy.”