Congress forced a contract on railroad unions last year does not guarantee sick leave for employees. After many months bad publicityThe major railroad companies announced on Monday that it was finally, sort of, moving towards doing the right thing.
Goods rail lines BNSF, csx, South NorfolkAnd Pacific Alliance granted four days of sick leave to nearly half of its 93,000 workforce, with the option to use three days of sick leave.
It’s generous. Apparently, it took lobbying directly from the office of the president to convince the railroads to allow even a few days of sick leave after Congress forced workers to contract without them to prevent strikes. From guard:
“We are very happy about this. “We have been trying to achieve this for decades,” said Artie Maratea, president of the Transport Communications Federation. “It was public pressure and political pressure that brought them to the negotiating table.”
When Joe Biden and Congress enacted legislation in December to prevent a threatened freight rail strike, many workers angry blame Biden because there is no guarantee that the law also guarantees paid sick leave. But since then, union officials said, members of the Biden administration, including transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg and labor secretary, Marty Walsh, who resigned on March 11, lobbied the railroads, telling them it was wrong not to pay sickness benefits. day.
“We’ve made a lot of progress,” said Greg Regan, president of the Transportation Trade Division of the AFL-CIO, the main US labor union. “This is being done the right way. Each railway is negotiating with its individual unions on this matter.”
He added: “Railway companies have miscalculated how the public will see their huge profits and stories about the hard lives of railway workers and no sick days and no sick days. the draconian policies they are applying.”
It’s still far from perfect: CSX only grants sick days to 61% of its 17,000 workers. Norfolk Southern grants 46 percent sick days and BNSF only 36 percent. Of the 12 unions operating in the railway sector, only eight have reached an agreement with the companies.
I’ll give you a prediction of the workers for whom these railroads have scrapped the deal:
“The railroads reached out to the craftsmen who were not working first and made a deal with them,” said Mark Wallace, first vice president of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. “If one looks after the car [who inspects and repairs railcars] If you have to take sick leave and don’t go to work, the train will still run. If the engineer or conductor has to report sick, the train may not run that day.”
Associations such as the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen are held contract negotiations last year to ensure a safer working environment and better quality of life for their members. Line workers still have no avenue for sick leave without scheduling weeks in advance (which isn’t exactly how sickness works) while being responsible for some of the most dangerous jobs in the business. When a small number of workers are still running the train tired or sick on the job, that’s when mistakes happen.
While the White House is busy patting itself on the back, this could be more of a PR move than anything else. Especially considering the rail industry’s disastrous start to 2023 with derailments and dangerous trains after years of record profits—and record share buybacks. Railroad companies have achieved these record profits by strategically employing longer trains, less maintenance and core crews. The Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, earlier this year with only three people on board the 149-car train with 11 carriages loaded with hazardous substances. National Traffic Safety Board.
