Looming Rail Strike
- Thread starter Leeshouldveflanked
- Start date
Yup. Its been in negotiations for a couple of months. Canadian National hasn't given any raises in over 10 years. So it's hard to blame them with this rampant inflation eating into their wallets. Hopefully they can come to some agreement before Friday. Either way it won't last long.
If true, this is an absolutely heartbreaking synopsis of the working conditions
The remaining two unions slated to strike are infuriated by the board’s lack of strong proposals related to certain working conditions that they say are “destroying the lives” of their members, such as facing penalties for taking any time off. Labor groups say engineers and conductors have been fired for going to routine doctor’s appointments or family members’ funerals and can be on call for 14 consecutive days without a break, for up to 12 hours. They are also afforded no sick days.
“We’re facing the potential of a strike because the railroad refuses to grant one single day of sick time,” said Ron Kaminkow, a member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, one of the unions that has not reached an agreement. “It’s about the phone rings at 2 a.m. to be at work at 4 a.m. after just 10 hours of rest prior. It’s about not knowing when you’re coming home and being penalized with discipline up to firing if you need to go to the doctor.
Come on dudes, you can do better than this. These people are essential the larger economy.
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The remaining two unions slated to strike are infuriated by the board’s lack of strong proposals related to certain working conditions that they say are “destroying the lives” of their members, such as facing penalties for taking any time off. Labor groups say engineers and conductors have been fired for going to routine doctor’s appointments or family members’ funerals and can be on call for 14 consecutive days without a break, for up to 12 hours. They are also afforded no sick days.
“We’re facing the potential of a strike because the railroad refuses to grant one single day of sick time,” said Ron Kaminkow, a member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, one of the unions that has not reached an agreement. “It’s about the phone rings at 2 a.m. to be at work at 4 a.m. after just 10 hours of rest prior. It’s about not knowing when you’re coming home and being penalized with discipline up to firing if you need to go to the doctor.
Come on dudes, you can do better than this. These people are essential the larger economy.
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Looking very likely to happen. A short line I work with has been issuing guidance for service disruptions. There's some fairly contentious issues to get hammered out. I can't see it rocking on very long - the federal government has some pretty broad powers that are unique to railroad labor law.
The Government can stop it. They stop rail strike before. Do they have the guts to do it again? Our economy cannot take a rail strike right now. They have to make that tough choice.
Congress Votes to Halt Rail Strike Hours After Thousands Walk Off Job - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Congress Votes to Halt Rail Strike Hours After Thousands Walk Off Job - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
I know this is sarcasm, but I'm in the trucking industry and there is zero chance that happens the way that freight brokers are ******* around with freight rates right now. Rates were excellent last year when there was the backlog at the ports and there were about 50% more new trucking companies per day than usual, but then the big brokers colluded to increase profits while fuel prices skyrocketed and it chased most of the newbies out of the industry.
Precision Scheduled Railroading has turned the railroads into hedge funds....
Deferred maintenance, huge cuts in labor, and working the existing labor to the bone all to increase the stock price. Railroads are national security and what is being done to them by their leadership is borderline criminal. Rumors are flying that the Longshoreman are also threatening strikes to time with the railroad strike to add to the misery.
Deferred maintenance, huge cuts in labor, and working the existing labor to the bone all to increase the stock price. Railroads are national security and what is being done to them by their leadership is borderline criminal. Rumors are flying that the Longshoreman are also threatening strikes to time with the railroad strike to add to the misery.
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Hard for me to get a feel for the stance of the parties because you've got two untrustworthy parties between the unions and the railroads. It would not shock me if basically every union employee has gotten a raise every year for the last ten years while they are claiming because the payscale hasn't shifted up, there have been no raises.
Not familiar with Canadian National, but the long haul railroads I have passing familiarity with were paying very competitively well before COVID. Like a lot of well paying blue collar jobs, the tradeoff was really good starting pay plus overtime without having to do a bunch of school or training on your on dime first, but a ****** work life balance. It would not shock me if Canadian National was able to keep the payscale they had before COVID, although that probably made the job much less desirable for entry level workers. Their employees had probably been getting step raises a good bit above inflation for the prior 6 years, so now they look at it as moving backwards over the past couple of years, while the executives look at it as they are still well ahead of inflation over the past ten.
Just a couple of borderline lies that I have seen with a quick google: CN said the union rejected a 10% increase; the union claims it was really an 8% wage increase with a 2% bonus. If the union is telling the truth, CN is intentionally being misleading, even if their claim is technically accurate. ON the union side, they are claiming CN won't give them a single sick day. Which almost certainly means that the workers just get PTO for them to use as they see fit. They are just asking for an additional day of PTO, but it's more sympathetic if they can get people to believe they are asking for just one sick day.
The Administration has been part of these negotiations for months. 8 of 12 of the involved unions have already approved contracts. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/13/bid...s-for-a-potential-railroad-worker-strike.html
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It's is a dangerous game to ever assume there is a level of Shitiness that a Class I Railroad wont' stoop to, but I am going to risk it and call BS on every claim other than the being on call 14 consecutive days. For crew work, yes, you have to coordinate PTO, so if people try to take PTO after it's been denied they probably are penalized for it and it can be hard for new employees to get the time they want off. I also don't doubt there have been employees fired after missing work to go to doctors appointments or even funerals, but I would bet that that's not really why they are fired. There probably has been a crazy supervisor somewhere in the country that has fired an employee literally for using PTO or UPTO to go to a funeral, but it's not like that's going to be standard practice.
And the sick day stuff is just ********. Saying they want an additional day of PTO doesn't sound compelling, so they use the fact that they get PTO to use how they want rather than PTO designated as vacation and PTO designated as sick days to claim they don't get a single sick day.
ETA: People that haven't been exposed to it really don't understand how constraining some crew work is. The really ****** ones are crews for which you really only need a certain number of people and adding an extra person for cushion when somebody is on vacation doesn't really make the work go faster. It's just dead weight. So for those you end up having to have a floater to fill in for somebody to take vacation or is sick or no shows. Or you can have still operate if one person is missing but not two, so people that schedule PTO get asked to come in when somebody else gets sick or no shows. You usually get compensated for how rough it is, but it's a big tradeoff. And while good employees can get a ton of leeway because they're hard to replace, poor employees find themselves unable to say no to much or they will get replaced.
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That's how the big brokers roll. Sure their stock holders are happy -- maybe not today... but at some point.
If its a PTO day that has to be approved weeks in advance....then it's not a sick day.
They're certainly willing to screw unions for environmental groups. I could see it going either way at this point. Letting a railroad strike happen would probably result in a wipeout in November. But shutting down the strike will potentially alienate a lot of unions that support them. I would bet on them stepping in and stopping the strike just because what's more important at the federal level is money, not necessarily vote mobilization, and they 've got the money at this point. If it was an environmental issue, I'd bet on the person making the decision being a zealot that disregarded the political calculation. I don't think it will be the case on a union related issue though.
The union is simply leveraging it's position with the Dem party before the mid-terms. It is what it is.
I know a 10 year employee of CN and that is why I made the statement I did. They have not had a cost of living raise in over 10 years. Have you ? Also the have vacation days but have to put in at the first of the year, so no flexibility there. I got two raises in the last year due to the inflation. When the trains are sitting still on the rails they will get what they are asking for.
Again, I hesitate to assume there is a level of shitiness that a Class I won't stoop to, but if I had to bet, I would bet that you can still get paid if you submit for it (may require a doctor's excuse, which is stupid but not uncommon) or that you can cash out unused PTO (in which case it's really you don't have any "paid time off", you just get paid and you can use "PTO" to managed the timing of payment). This is just because companies with crews often really don't mind if their employees don't use PTO because it lets them run leaner if their employees don't use all the available PTO and paying it out is a good deal for them.
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2021/11/07/amtrak-joe-vs-the-modern-robber-barons/
Fat fingered the down vote. Sorry.
Yeah, but they only have to delay the strike a couple months, and the union can extract a heavy toll. I wonder if the nationalization card starts getting floated. That should scare the WS owners into cutting a deal.
That's very specific. So you are saying he is making the same amount he was ten years ago?
I don't know what you are arguing here, other than a pathological need to be against unions. If it's a PTO day that has to be pre-approved...and others here have said that's the case...then it's not a sick day. No one ever said it was about if they got paid for a day they have to show up for when sick? They want to be able to call in sick once a year, and are being denied it apparently. So stop calling them liars over demanding a single sick day.
Apparently it takes a vote of Congress? I wouldn't assume the GOP wouldn't vote in mass against it, to attempt to spike inflation. And then the lefty Dems may float being against it too, if they see an opening to extract concessions (as they should, rolling back some deregulation should be part of this).
All I know is that when Sturgill Simpson played in Omaha a few years ago, he dedicated several minutes for a heartfelt 17-YOU to Union Pacific headquartered here in town.
Just this week the GOP decided to bring up federal abortion regulations (months after giving the power to the states). Don't think for one second they would do something else stupid before November. They will find a way to shoot themselves in the foot every time.
I'm not sure one way or another whether Congress has to approve. I'd doubt it comes to a vote, the administration has pretty broad powers I believe.
Some of that article is wrong (the numbers for restoring amtrack service to the gulf coast is off by an order of magnitude; I think Mississippi is putting up more than that. And adding Amtrak would be disruptive to more valuable freight service), but the one thing it has right is that not regulating pricing of the railroads was a mistake. It also misses the best argument for that, which is that it is damn near criminal to use eminent domain to build out track and then allow railroads to essentially price as 10-15% less than trucking. Not sure the best way to do it, but I think one option to look at is have the rail system scheduled and maintained by a statutory, non-profit body and then let more or less unregulated rail companies compete on it. And let private developers have the ability to build out rail lines like they can transmission lines in the electric industry.
The fact that I have to explain this says alot but yes. To the rescue for Biden. It's as predictable as death and taxes that whenever the potential for a dark cloud comes over the White House, Dorn will come to the rescue. Now that I think about it, you're pretty good at that yourself. Which makes my explaining even more redundant.
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