Four of twelve unions have rejected the deal the administration brokered in mid-September between rail carriers and union workers to avert a national strike. They remain concerned about their lack of paid sick days. More generally, though, they oppose a new staffing system implemented after 2018, which created record profits for the country’s main rail carriers but cost the industry 40,000 jobs, mainly among the people who actually operate the trains, leading to brutal schedules and dangerous working conditions.
"The new system, called Precision Schedule Railroading (PSR), made trains far more efficient by keeping workers on very tight schedules that leave little time for anything but work. Any disruption in those schedules—a family emergency, for example—brought disciplinary action and possible job loss."
Yes, a national rail strike would harm this nation. [UPDATE: I chose "harm" over "destroy" or "annihilate" because I try to avoid over-the-top rhetoric.] But I'd strike over this if I were a railroader, as it's pretty damn inhuman for the people who run the trains--and dangerous for the public to keep sick engineers behind the throttle of megatons of steel rushing toxic freight through population centers.
So I will support a strike, even though it will hurt me as a citizen and a consumer.
It seems that President Biden is taking prudent action. That said, the treatment of these workers is horrendous because of disgraceful greed. Congress must act to give them a reasonable amount of sick and vacation days, but will it act before Republicans take control of the House?
Tonight, Rachel Maddow rightly complained that the Senate and House will be in session for only 15 and 12 days respectively before the new Congress convenes in January. One would think that Democrats would want to maximize their time in control of both chambers — and with so many priorities.
The siren song of a long holiday break must be louder than the nation's pressing needs.
The rail companies have grown fat on the backs of workers who they treat like units they can place where and when they want them. This is inhumane and if Biden asks Congress to institute the contract rejected by four unions, he will be siding with the rail companies against the interests of the workers.
We see the trend of treating people as work units in large companies like Walmart where I believe workers don't have a regular schedule and cannot make plans for child care etc.
Workers are human beings and it is their labor that makes the money for their employers! We need to support our workers no matter the industry or business!
As willful an ignoramus as you know Trump is, the reality of his moron stupidity is even moreso. The fooking idiot just confessed to one of the crimes for which he is under investigation! "When will you invade the other Presidents’ homes in search of documents, which are voluminous, which they took with them, but not nearly so openly and transparently as I did?" Those last two words are his confession.
I am completely behind the railroad workers and am thoroughly disgusted that Biden, in the same sentence, can crow about his union bona fides while carrying water for the industry. Freight railroads in the United States had a pre-pandemic profit margin of 50 percent (this is not a misprint: https://ajot.com/news/railroads-are-usas-most-profitable-industry-with-a-50-profit-margin). To reap economic gains on the backs of overworked people is the very definition of immorality.
Regrettably, elections have consequences. Had the Democrats held the House, I, not to mention the 8 unions, likely would have opposed the decision to reach an agreement with railway management at the expense of stronger protections for workers. I imagine the Biden team (and the unions) underwent a harms/ benefits analysis, wherein they weighed gains (increased wages and health benefits) against loses (paid leave and stronger worker protections) combined with consequences to supply chains and the economy in general, let alone a Republican-controlled House starting January 3rd, and the Biden team plus 8 of the 12 unions chose to settle. As horrendous an impact the “Precision Schedule Railroading” system will have on workers, as stated, I imagine there had been serious discussions with serious people engaged in an honest effort to arrive at a modicum of economic (and social) justice before Republicans retook the House.
Regarding Congress’s decision to reduce the final session to a handful of days before Republicans take back the House, our legislators need to hear from us as we press for at least 4 major priorities: 1) completing their work reforming the Electoral Count Act, 2) prophylactically raising the debt ceiling to block the Republican controlled House in 23 and 24 from leveraging concessions on entitlements like Social Security and Medicare to avert defaulting on the national debt and blaming Biden for the economic calamity that would ensue, 3) advancing legislation already passed in the House banning high capacity assault weapons and instating universal background checks and nationwide red flag laws, and 4) forwarding marriage equality protections, also already passed in the House.
I cannot understand Biden's lack of support for the unions. Train accidents carrying chemicals have happened before and are tragic. A long time ago I heard filmmaker Michael Moore say, if you keep choosing the lesser of 2 evils, pretty soon you have evil, and he was right! Thank you HCR for educating us on issues like this that don't make headlines.
If the railroad executives want their workers to behave like machines -- no minutes to spare, no days of unexpected life -- then they should install Tesla-like machines in their trains and fire all the humans. Go ahead, let's see how that works. Never demand that humans be machines.
I agree with you, Shane, their working conditions are medieval and intolerable. While a strike may be “potentially crippling,” that’s their only recourse to date -- and they have a right to demand that their grievances be fully met.
“They remain concerned about their lack of paid sick days. More generally, though, they oppose a new staffing system implemented after 2018, which created record profits for the country’s main rail carriers but cost the industry 40,000 jobs, mainly among the people who actually operate the trains, leading to brutal schedules and dangerous working conditions.”
Thank you, Heather, for highlighting their plight.
Why is the only option for action by congress to bring the unions to their knees? If it is a true emergency and an issue of worker safety, why can’t the owners be forced to concede?
Heather, thank you so much for showcasing the railroad workers’ fight for a healthy workplace. Their conditions remind me of the ones a friend experienced after Sam Walton relinquished control. Her schedule varied from week to week, so she could not hold down a second job, even though her job was only 30 hours a week. I hope that the American public is caring enough to support the railroad workers in their quest for a decent work/life balance.
PSR..."created record profits for the country’s main rail carriers but cost the industry 40,000 jobs, mainly among the people who actually operate the trains, leading to brutal schedules and dangerous working conditions."
I am a union member of a different industry, and I support this pending strike. With record profits and safety concerns, this is a no-brainer. Time to write some letters to Nancy Pelosi and my Rep Jared Huffman. No reason they must go on the hook for Joe's poor choices this time.
If this had happened in Qatar's building the World Cup infrastructure, America would be up in arms. The response of the objecting unions is what anyone wants: work-life balance, not just money. We may actually need a strike.
My feeling is that the resolution of the strike should favor the rail workers. Biden claims he is pro union, time to show it. If working conditions are unacceptable, then Warren Buffet (a big railroad owner and famous for saying his secretary is underpaid) should look into a solution. As well as all USians. We already have some inflation. Might as well accept a bit more if it means protecting workers and their families.
After all, a big part of the reason inflation has been so low for so long (less than 2% for decades) is outsourcing to cheap labor overseas. And outsourcing hollows out the economy, leading to a loss of diverse and meaningful jobs.
The rail and trucking workforce is crucial, to be sure. But that doesn't mean we should accept poor working conditions for them and their families.
"The new system, called Precision Schedule Railroading (PSR), made trains far more efficient by keeping workers on very tight schedules that leave little time for anything but work. Any disruption in those schedules—a family emergency, for example—brought disciplinary action and possible job loss."
Yes, a national rail strike would harm this nation. [UPDATE: I chose "harm" over "destroy" or "annihilate" because I try to avoid over-the-top rhetoric.] But I'd strike over this if I were a railroader, as it's pretty damn inhuman for the people who run the trains--and dangerous for the public to keep sick engineers behind the throttle of megatons of steel rushing toxic freight through population centers.
So I will support a strike, even though it will hurt me as a citizen and a consumer.
It seems that President Biden is taking prudent action. That said, the treatment of these workers is horrendous because of disgraceful greed. Congress must act to give them a reasonable amount of sick and vacation days, but will it act before Republicans take control of the House?
Tonight, Rachel Maddow rightly complained that the Senate and House will be in session for only 15 and 12 days respectively before the new Congress convenes in January. One would think that Democrats would want to maximize their time in control of both chambers — and with so many priorities.
The siren song of a long holiday break must be louder than the nation's pressing needs.
The rail companies have grown fat on the backs of workers who they treat like units they can place where and when they want them. This is inhumane and if Biden asks Congress to institute the contract rejected by four unions, he will be siding with the rail companies against the interests of the workers.
We see the trend of treating people as work units in large companies like Walmart where I believe workers don't have a regular schedule and cannot make plans for child care etc.
Workers are human beings and it is their labor that makes the money for their employers! We need to support our workers no matter the industry or business!
As willful an ignoramus as you know Trump is, the reality of his moron stupidity is even moreso. The fooking idiot just confessed to one of the crimes for which he is under investigation! "When will you invade the other Presidents’ homes in search of documents, which are voluminous, which they took with them, but not nearly so openly and transparently as I did?" Those last two words are his confession.
I am completely behind the railroad workers and am thoroughly disgusted that Biden, in the same sentence, can crow about his union bona fides while carrying water for the industry. Freight railroads in the United States had a pre-pandemic profit margin of 50 percent (this is not a misprint: https://ajot.com/news/railroads-are-usas-most-profitable-industry-with-a-50-profit-margin). To reap economic gains on the backs of overworked people is the very definition of immorality.
Regrettably, elections have consequences. Had the Democrats held the House, I, not to mention the 8 unions, likely would have opposed the decision to reach an agreement with railway management at the expense of stronger protections for workers. I imagine the Biden team (and the unions) underwent a harms/ benefits analysis, wherein they weighed gains (increased wages and health benefits) against loses (paid leave and stronger worker protections) combined with consequences to supply chains and the economy in general, let alone a Republican-controlled House starting January 3rd, and the Biden team plus 8 of the 12 unions chose to settle. As horrendous an impact the “Precision Schedule Railroading” system will have on workers, as stated, I imagine there had been serious discussions with serious people engaged in an honest effort to arrive at a modicum of economic (and social) justice before Republicans retook the House.
Regarding Congress’s decision to reduce the final session to a handful of days before Republicans take back the House, our legislators need to hear from us as we press for at least 4 major priorities: 1) completing their work reforming the Electoral Count Act, 2) prophylactically raising the debt ceiling to block the Republican controlled House in 23 and 24 from leveraging concessions on entitlements like Social Security and Medicare to avert defaulting on the national debt and blaming Biden for the economic calamity that would ensue, 3) advancing legislation already passed in the House banning high capacity assault weapons and instating universal background checks and nationwide red flag laws, and 4) forwarding marriage equality protections, also already passed in the House.
I cannot understand Biden's lack of support for the unions. Train accidents carrying chemicals have happened before and are tragic. A long time ago I heard filmmaker Michael Moore say, if you keep choosing the lesser of 2 evils, pretty soon you have evil, and he was right! Thank you HCR for educating us on issues like this that don't make headlines.
If the railroad executives want their workers to behave like machines -- no minutes to spare, no days of unexpected life -- then they should install Tesla-like machines in their trains and fire all the humans. Go ahead, let's see how that works. Never demand that humans be machines.
Thank you for keeping us informed on the railroad strike potential.
I agree with you, Shane, their working conditions are medieval and intolerable. While a strike may be “potentially crippling,” that’s their only recourse to date -- and they have a right to demand that their grievances be fully met.
“They remain concerned about their lack of paid sick days. More generally, though, they oppose a new staffing system implemented after 2018, which created record profits for the country’s main rail carriers but cost the industry 40,000 jobs, mainly among the people who actually operate the trains, leading to brutal schedules and dangerous working conditions.”
Thank you, Heather, for highlighting their plight.
Why is the only option for action by congress to bring the unions to their knees? If it is a true emergency and an issue of worker safety, why can’t the owners be forced to concede?
Heather, thank you so much for showcasing the railroad workers’ fight for a healthy workplace. Their conditions remind me of the ones a friend experienced after Sam Walton relinquished control. Her schedule varied from week to week, so she could not hold down a second job, even though her job was only 30 hours a week. I hope that the American public is caring enough to support the railroad workers in their quest for a decent work/life balance.
PSR..."created record profits for the country’s main rail carriers but cost the industry 40,000 jobs, mainly among the people who actually operate the trains, leading to brutal schedules and dangerous working conditions."
I am a union member of a different industry, and I support this pending strike. With record profits and safety concerns, this is a no-brainer. Time to write some letters to Nancy Pelosi and my Rep Jared Huffman. No reason they must go on the hook for Joe's poor choices this time.
If this had happened in Qatar's building the World Cup infrastructure, America would be up in arms. The response of the objecting unions is what anyone wants: work-life balance, not just money. We may actually need a strike.
My feeling is that the resolution of the strike should favor the rail workers. Biden claims he is pro union, time to show it. If working conditions are unacceptable, then Warren Buffet (a big railroad owner and famous for saying his secretary is underpaid) should look into a solution. As well as all USians. We already have some inflation. Might as well accept a bit more if it means protecting workers and their families.
After all, a big part of the reason inflation has been so low for so long (less than 2% for decades) is outsourcing to cheap labor overseas. And outsourcing hollows out the economy, leading to a loss of diverse and meaningful jobs.
The rail and trucking workforce is crucial, to be sure. But that doesn't mean we should accept poor working conditions for them and their families.
The January 6 report in a month - Merry Christmas