The
midterm election
season’s waning days brought bad news for the freight
railroads
and President
Joe Biden’s
administration. A second rail union voted to reject the agreement that had been hammered out between the railroads and the 12 unions representing their workers, making an eventual strike more likely.
This bad news from Oct. 26 was tempered, however, by an agreement between the railroads and the latest union to say no to the deal, the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen. It stipulated that there would be no work stoppage until December at the earliest. The same is likely true for the other holdout unions as well.
STRIKE THREATENS TO FURTHER DERAIL ECONOMY
The hope of the railroads had been that the first failed vote was essentially a fluke. The vote by members of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division on Oct. 10 had been followed by two more union memberships voting to accept the deal, bringing six of the 12 railroad unions on board.
But half the unions are not the “all aboard” the railroads were hoping for.
“Railroaders do not feel valued,” Tony Cardwell, BMWED union president, told the trade publication Progressive Railroading at the time of the first “no” vote. “They resent the fact that management holds no regard for their quality of life, illustrated by their stubborn reluctance to provide a higher quantity of paid time off, especially for sickness.”
The paid time off demand seemed, to many observers, like moving the goalposts, but the railroads tried to persuade workers that this issue had been addressed in negotiations.
Association of American Railroads spokesman Ted Greener pointed the Washington Examiner to a statement from the industry group touting both more money and time off for railroad workers.
According to the new contract, the AAR explained, railroad workers would see a “24 percent wage increase during the five-year period from 2020 through 2024, including an immediate payout on average of $11,000 upon ratification … $5,000 in performance bonuses [and] total average annual pay” of $110,000. They would also have good healthcare coverage and “employees would receive an additional paid personal leave day per year.”
The rail lobby emphasized that under the new agreements, “Employees will continue to have multiple options for time off and, for those employees who operate trains, the agreements include enhanced abilities to schedule time off and local agreements to be finalized after ratification of the national agreement will further enhance quality of life and the predictability of schedules.”
What the railroads were not willing to do, however, was reopen negotiations with half of the unions left to ratify the new contracts. A second “no” could change the railroads’ willingness to deal, or it could lead to more threats of strike, and a possible intervention by the lame-duck Congress.
In negotiating the new contracts, the railroads and their unions had followed the recommendation of the Biden-appointed Presidential Emergency Board to increase worker pay substantially. Other things were on the table, but compensation was the biggest issue.
The railroads quickly acceded to that demand. It’s possible either that the rank-and-file workers and union negotiators did not see eye to eye on the time-off issue or that unions are currently using the issue to push for greater concessions from the railroads.
Most political rail watchers agree that the Biden administration has managed to dodge at least one bullet with no rail strike before the midterm elections. If so, the administration is dodging a bullet that it fired in the first place.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
It is difficult for rail workers to get into a position in which they can legally strike because of the vital nature of their work to America’s supply chains. It can take six months or more to hammer out a new contract, with unions and railroads working things out in front of the National Mediation Board.
Yet at the behest of Biden NMB appointees Linda Puchala and Deirdre Hamilton, the board released the unions and the railroads from “statutory mediation” in June. At that point, negotiations had been ongoing for only two months, which is about as long as it usually takes the two sides to clear their throats.
