Possible Railroad Strike Looming

militaryhorn

militaryhorn

Prediction Contest Manager
I don't know if you all are aware of the possible strike looming for the railroad community, but tomorrow is an important date for everyone in America. If an agreement is not reached by 1200 am tomorrow night EST then all Class I railroads will be striking come 1201 am EST. This effects everyone since they transport most of the goods, bulk commodity, and everyday needs across the nation.

This is very close to my heart since I am on the labor side of this argument and work for BNSF Railroad as a Locomotive Engineer/Conductor. If you have any questions on what the labor side is trying to achieve with this strike feel free to ask and I will try to answer to the best of my ability without making it seem one sided.

I can tell you this, it is not about the money at this point since the current offer from the carriers is a decent 24% increase in pay starting back in 2020 until 2024 with a $1,000 bonus for each year. It is about our quality of life with how much time we get off, health care, and our work rules we deal with.
 
I'm for the railroaders (the railroad employees) here. It's an important, skilled, and dangerous job--especially in the Yard. I had a buddy who's dad worked hard in a Yard for decades, retired with a good pension + benefits, then died shortly thereafter from asbestos-related complications in his lungs (I think it's the brakes...).

I also have some cousins who are railroaders. Great job, but it comes with plenty of danger. They also complain of very nitpicky company inspectors who try to tag employees for the most minor ticky-tacky infractions (ones without any real safety concern at stake), some of which are apparently almost unavoidable.
 
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I am not worrying about it; we have a great Secretary of Transportation and I am sure he will get everybody on board with a reasonable agreement. If not, the rest of the transportation system is humming along just fine.
 
huisache said:
I am not worrying about it; we have a great Secretary of Transportation and I am sure he will get everybody on board with a reasonable agreement. If not, the rest of the transportation system is humming along just fine.
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Railroad barons and pretentious pricks do have a connection, so I give Pete that.
 
militaryhorn said:
Strike is automatic. If there is no agreement by that time, there is no rail traffic.
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I know very little about the RR regulatory scheme, but I do know there is a federal RR regulatory scheme, so I don't think it's handled like a normal industry's strike. You can be sure the feds will be deeply involved. This President claims to stand for the working man. Of course, so did Harry Truman who brutally suppressed strikers.
 
Chop said:
I know very little about the RR regulatory scheme, but I do know there is a federal RR regulatory scheme, so I don't think it's handled like a normal industry's strike. You can be sure the feds will be deeply involved. This President claims to stand for the working man. Of course, so did Harry Truman who brutally suppressed strikers.
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We fall under the Railroad Labor Act (RLA) and are at the end of the process for negotiations and this is the only time we can basically strike legally. We are basically the only union that cannot strike anytime we want and the only union that Congress can force back to work. There is a resolution brought to the Senate right now to force us to take the PEB recommendations and go back to work because of the economic impact to the country and now the supply chain issues currently going on.
 
Here are some links to look over.

PEB 250 Recommendations

Senate Draft

Again, this strike is mostly about our quality of life which was essentially dismissed by the PEB if you read the full report. I already make good money and will admit it is over six figures and this recommendation will only increase it but it hardly covers the past inflation and the current trend.

From the PEB linked above is what I have found really interesting:
PEB 250.jpg


If you add up all the Real Wage Change Over Term for the last 7 contracts we have only had a pay increase worth 3.6% in real wage gains over the last 40 years while the carriers continue to post quarterly profits in the billions.
 
Nice to see a Locomotive Engineer/Conductor. My kids love all y'all, by the way. We have trains galore in the house.
 
militaryhorn said:
This is very close to my heart since I am on the labor side of this argument and work for BNSF Railroad as a Locomotive Engineer/Conductor. If you have any questions on what the labor side is trying to achieve with this strike feel free to ask and I will try to answer to the best of my ability without making it seem one sided.
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Did you get the right to FINALLY come to a stop just far enough BEYOND the crossing gates for the gates to rise?
 
HIC,

Are you familiar with how the old Braniff employees handled that "forced to work" by the feds?
 
Two things they did:

1) They had "color day". Having seniority, I would pick the color pink or turquoise. New guy got stuck with green. On the ramp, I would only load or unload pink bags. Military duffle bags were green. You only touched bags of your color. Things piled up on the tarmac, but nothing Harding could do about it.

2) They would take all the bags going from Love to South America and load them on a plane to Minneapolis. All other bags at Love Field went to Lima or Rio or Sao Paulo or Mexico City. Total cluster and getting unclaimed luggage back from a foreign country was a *****, but rarely did it return without having been pillaged first.

I will give Harding Lawrence credit though, every year during the OU game, a Boeing 707/730 flew down the middle of The Cotton Bowl on final into Love Field. It wasn't Burnt Orange, but against OU it was still orange.
 
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