The Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen said nearly 61 percent of the workers who voted opposed the five-year contract even though it included 24 percent raises and $5,000 in bonuses. It is the second rail union to reject a deal this month.
Contrcts involve much more than money. Those outside the Unions can ONLY understand the money, not all the other issuses that cause contracts to be rejected. Thusly, outsiders have no idea what the real points of conflict are.
Do you think that the consolidation that has gone on in the industry the past 60 years has given the handful of major players that survive, excess bargaining power?
In illustration, back when there were 30 class ones, it might have been more crucial to retain the best qualified employees, because they could usually walk across town and go to work for your competitor, if they were unhappy. Now with the way things are, employees have fewer options, and would customarily have to move to a new town to work for a different railroad.
Additionally, with so many competing entities, the opportunity to grasp business from a competitor was greater back then, so it paid to keep “extra ponies” in the stable, just in case they were needed. In today’s environment, things are more predictable.
Maybe part of the problem is just that, the attitude that nobody outside can understand. If these workers are to achieve their goals, they need support from broader public. Perhaps better PR is needed. The signalmen’s union president’s statement is a step in the right direction: “Union President Michael Baldwin said the “lack of good-faith bargaining” by the railroads and the recommendations of a board of arbitrators that President Joe Biden appointed this summer denied workers the “basic right of paid time off for illness.”.”
C.O. Consolidation from 30 to 6 gave the rails much more power in negotiations.
I suspect many of the people that are looking for a new job (or may be looking) are fully prepared to leave the industry.
The RR industry’s carrot has been shrinking for a while now.
Duplicate
It may be a baby step in the right direction. Where is it established that it is a basic right to receive paid time off for illness? Was there once a provision in the contract to take unlimited paid days off for illness?
I have suggested many times here that the issues are not being explained to the public, and that that would be a great oportunity to get more traction and support for Labor’s case. But I am told that such an explanaton is not possible because only those directly affected by the problem can understand it.
Can’t speak to other craft’s contracts. Under the ATDA contract when I had Colon Cancer in 1996, the contract, in accordance with my 31 years of service at that point in time, allowed for full pay for 30 days, 3/4 pay for another 30 days and 1/2 pay for a further 30 days. Differences between full and reduced levels were to be supplemented by Railroad Retirement Unemployment benefits. I entered the hospital on July 9 and returned to work after Labor Day.
The ATDA contract with my level of seniority allowed 30 days of ‘Sick Leave’ per year that would be rolled over for a maximum of three years - thus with my 30+ years of Seniority and not having taken prior sick days - at the time of my illness I had 90 days of sickness benefits available to me.
I can tell you this much. Right now my industry is starting to prepare for the holiday peak rush season. We’re scrambling to come up with the equipment needed to cover all our needs right now. Now due to this uncertainty in the railroads I know my company’s customers that receive via rail and us are asking if we can deliver more for them. If we can we are. But a nationwide strike at this time would not benefit anyone. Then throw in a low reserve of fuel in fuel oils of all types as of today it’s less than 20 day’s worth at current demand and if we get a disruption in supplies areas of the nation could actually run out of fuel.
Probably not a fair comparison, as I think that today’s railroads- and most big corporations- aren’t that interested retaining their best qualified employees. They just want trainable bodies that they can interchange like cogs in a machine. They’re not a lot different than Burger King in that respect.
Not to mention that new employees are cheaper than old heads…
When I hired out in the 70’s it was possible to mark off sick, even when being called to work, without any repercussions. Of course this was unpaid time off. Worker abuse of this and the thinning of the worker’s ranks led to this being restricted severely, as it is today.
Now not only do you not get paid but can also be fired for even legitimate sick time.
Every business requires plowing profits back into it in order to maintain and improve the plant. It is short sighted to grab all the profit at the expense of maintaining the plant. Part of maintaining the plant is maintaining the labor force. If the railroads are cutting expenses to the bone to grab the most profit, they will be unable to meet customer demand for shipping. But they are protected from repercussions from customers because there is little competition giving customers an alternate choice for transportation. So nothing stands in the way of hollowing out the company until it is depleted.
However, there just happens to be one point of leverage available to stop this destructive cost reduction. That is the customers complaining to the Government about railroads failing to meet their Common Carrier Obligation, which is imposed by Government.
This obligation is borne by railroad management, and if they refuse to accept it, the Government must step in and replace current private management, or take some kind of punitive action such as fining the railroads for delaying transportation due to insufficient workforce, or imposing new regulations. Here is an article in Freight Waves:
What does the common carrier obligation mean for U.S. railroads?
A point that’s been made here many times. If, as an investor, you are in it for short term gain, you don’t care about what happens after you’ve pulled your personal profit.
And that’s the issue with the “activist investors.” Get control of the company, milk it for all they can, then bail.
We seem to forget that mutual funds are, by far, the largest investors. And the pension funds that we rely upon at retirement time are the largest participants.
You make that point a number of times, and while valid on the surface, it is a bit misleading.
True, on the very end are Ma and Pa Kettle, trying to survive on a modest retirement account that they paid into over a life time. What your analogies seem to overlook is all the well compensated admins at those pension and mutual funds, and their overhead. The well compensated stock brokers who turn the transactions, as well as the investment bankers who rake in the rewards for their “risk”. All the fat cat middlemen. When I lament about the impact of the “Wall Street” burden, it really isn’t Ma and Pa Kettle that I see as the problem.
I think it would be interesting to see a “current ratio” type metric that accounts for how big a slice of each revenue dollar goes to the fat cats in between the man with his hand on the throttle, and your sacred retirees .
I suspect it would be an eye opener just how big a share the fat cats in the middle keep for themselves.
If that is happening, I have yet to hear any proposal for a way to stop it. I assume that it is not illegal, so there would be no way to prevent it. However, it can be legally limited if it goes too far; to the point of weakening a railroad by interfering with the company’s common carrier obligation.
In that case, the government will step in and enforce that obligation, thus preventing the company from completely destroying itself, or just running itself down to the point of not complying with the common carrier obligation. It sounds like we may be near that point right now. In any case, the shippers will press this point, not the railroad unions.
Anyone who has ever worked for a living can understand that its not JUST about the money. Likely people who have never had any representation at all can understand it better, even, than those who have had nothing but representation. For some, particularly for those employed by large companies where the power dynamic is in the companies’ favor, unions provide a real benefit, and even for the employer they provide structure (greivance procedures etc) that might otherwise not be present or as well thought out. For employees of small typical family businesses which are the mainstay of the economy there’s also power in numbers… the power of SMALL numbers. If you’re a typical worker employed by a typical small employer of ten employees, then you represent 10% of that employer’s workforce. That fact alone provides the employee much more power than/he or she would have at a large Fortune 100 company. Now, if that employee is also skilled and reliable the power dynamic shifts markedly in the employee’s favor. But I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t understand its not just about the money, especially in this rough and tumble industry where two weekends at home in a month is considered a balanced lifestyle…
And those two weekends don’t line up with the shared custody agreement for the kids.
Exactly…two circles… one contains employers’ responsibilites/expectations and another represents employees’ responsibilities/expectations… where ever we have overlap is the sweet zone… got to love Venn Diagrams…