Railroad unions threaten strike over sick leave demands

[matrixman124]

1 hour ago, scoobdog said:

If they had stuck together, we wouldn't have had an opportunity for Biden's administration to latch on to a low-ball offer.

I don't think the lesson here is that the unions are to blame.

[Raptorpat]

But technically the unions negotiated the agreement and four of them failed to sell their deal to their members.

[scoobdog]

17 minutes ago, matrixman124 said:

I don't think the lesson here is that the unions are to blame.

I think it is, in part.  None of them should have ratified it knowing the others weren’t going to.  The US Government isn’t negotiating, they are.  If they had properly represented the majority of their members, Biden wouldn’t have brokered the deal with no sick days. in the first place.

[Raptorpat]

I don't know enough about the issues to blame the union either way, but worth noting they negotiated an entire contract of things and this is just one of those things.

Were the employers 100% unwilling to budge on sick leave from the start? Did the unions trade sick leave away for something they thought was more important, and then had no chips to trade for it back? Would it be a reasonable deal if the members didn't already want to burn it all to the ground? I dunno.

[Raptorpat]

the answer appears to be "activist investors" milking everything dry

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/11/rail-strike-why-the-railroads-wont-give-in-on-paid-leave-psr-precision-scheduled-railroading.html

[matrixman124]

1 hour ago, Raptorpat said:

the answer appears to be "activist investors" milking everything dry

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/11/rail-strike-why-the-railroads-wont-give-in-on-paid-leave-psr-precision-scheduled-railroading.html

"Capitalism"

[matrixman124]

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/02/biden-signs-bill-averting-rail-worker-strike-despite-lack-of-paid-sick-days.html

Oh dear

[André Toulon]

1 minute ago, matrixman124 said:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/02/biden-signs-bill-averting-rail-worker-strike-despite-lack-of-paid-sick-days.html

Oh dear

Fat oof

[Doom Metal Alchemist]

He could have signed a bill that made railworkers get no less than 4 paid sick days, but no.

[matrixman124]

11 minutes ago, Doom Metal Alchemist said:

He could have signed a bill that made railworkers get no less than 4 paid sick days, but no.

Now he gets to share the blame if they strike anyway.

[Raptorpat]

It would be an illegal strike, 75% the national guard would do the job in the interim.

[matrixman124]

43 minutes ago, Raptorpat said:

It would be an illegal strike, 75% the national guard would do the job in the interim.

Yeah and they are not well trained to work as rail engineers. That won't be sustainable.

Edited December 3, 2022 by matrixman124

[stilgar]

2 hours ago, Raptorpat said:

It would be an illegal strike, 75% the national guard would do the job in the interim.

No strike should ever be considered illegal.

[NewBluntsworth]

This is 1000% on the Democrats, no other way around it. Absolutely worthless party, a political deadend for trying to actually achieve anything good instead of just wishcasting and PR fakery. 

 

 

[Raptorpat]

9 minutes ago, stilgar said:

No strike should ever be considered illegal.

But that doesn't change the fact that there are lawful strikes where workers' rights are protected by the law, and unlawful strikes where they're not. And sometimes laws are passed or unions bargain away their right to strike and there is a separate dispute resolution process that supplants any prior right to strike.

[Poofy]

15 hours ago, NewBluntsworth said:

This is 1000% on the Democrats, no other way around it. Absolutely worthless party, a political deadend for trying to actually achieve anything good instead of just wishcasting and PR fakery. 

 

 

After everything else they won in the negotiations already, 4 paid sick days isn't that critical. The penalties for taking off was the fucked up thing. With the penalties now gone, this merely accounts to a 1-2% pay raise on top of the 24% raise they already won. They'd be huge assholes imo if they crippled the whole country over that. It just pulls on the heart strings more / sounds better when it's sold as "sick days" instead of a 25.5% pay raise vs 24%. 

And the law that gives the government this power over the negotiations is the same law that guarantees rail workers the right to have unions in the first place.

Edited December 3, 2022 by Poofy

[scoobdog]

On 12/1/2022 at 4:42 PM, Raptorpat said:

I don't know enough about the issues to blame the union either way, but worth noting they negotiated an entire contract of things and this is just one of those things.

Were the employers 100% unwilling to budge on sick leave from the start? Did the unions trade sick leave away for something they thought was more important, and then had no chips to trade for it back? Would it be a reasonable deal if the members didn't already want to burn it all to the ground? I dunno.

According to your article, it looks like the rail companies were always going to be against paid sick leave, so it doesn’t look like the deal was ever reasonable.  

[matrixman124]

Well the railroad companies should have been more reasonable. Wildcat strike is going to happen with at least one of the unions.

 

 

[Poofy]

They really trying to fuck the country up over 4 days pay after everything else they got. If they got a 27% raise instead of 24% would it be ok? Or would the companies and Biden still be evil since the value doesn’t have the meaningless label “sick days” written on it? It would literally be the exact same thing. They’re playing you at this point.

tbh I hope they do strike. I wanna see how many people are willing to fuck up their plans so rail workers get that 2-3% more

I’m super pro worker and pro union. The loss of so many unions and laws to protect unions is one the main reasons why shit sucks so much in general, but there needs to be a balance between unions vs management. Unions aren’t always right. When they get too much leverage over the boss and go unchecked, it actually hurts the public’s perception of unions as a concept. Then the public votes anti-union.

[naraku360]

11 minutes ago, Poofy said:

They really trying to fuck the country up over 4 days pay after everything else they got. If they got a 27% raise instead of 24% would it be ok? Or would the companies and Biden still be evil since the value doesn’t have the meaningless label “sick days” written on it? It would literally be the exact same thing. They’re playing you at this point.

tbh I hope they do strike. I wanna see how many people are willing to fuck up their plans so rail workers get that 2-3% more

I’m super pro worker and pro union. The loss of so many unions and laws to protect unions is one the main reasons why shit sucks so much in general, but there needs to be a balance between unions vs management. Unions aren’t always right. When they get too much leverage over the boss and go unchecked, it actually hurts the public’s perception of unions as a concept. Then the public votes anti-union.

I don't think the issue is that the workers want 4 paid sick days.

The companies being unwilling to give something so small are the actual villains here.

[rpgamer]

19 minutes ago, naraku360 said:

I don't think the issue is that the workers want 4 paid sick days.

The companies being unwilling to give something so small are the actual villains here.

I can sorta see where the argument is, tho. Like. Yeah, 4 paid sick days sounds like a thing to want to have. Orrrr... they can just spread that "paid" amount out across their whole salary. They still get the same value. Conceivably, better value, for anyone that doesn't use their hypothetical paid sick days (assuming company doesn't just pay it out or roll it over or whatever).

Now, I don't know if that's genuinely the case here, if the idea/intent of the raise was to actually cover that cost, and if it actually did cover it. And, perhaps, holding out for actual "paid sick days" may be the better option in the face of, idk, wage fluctuation or something, where the "value" may not stay in balance.

On the whole, tho, mostly in agreement. Something fucky must be going on for a company like this to not budge on paid sick days. I'll choose to assume the company knows how exploitative and harmful the working conditions are and just doesn't want to lose any profits on employees taking the time off that they need.

[Poofy]

13 minutes ago, naraku360 said:

I don't think the issue is that the workers want 4 paid sick days.

The companies being unwilling to give something so small are the actual villains here.

They're villains for how they treated the workers before, but imo, the workers won the battle already. I'm not even saying the workers don't deserve it for what they had to put up with. If they had a real strike right now tho, it *might* be okay-ish, or it could hurt lots of people who aren't even involved. It would exacerbate inflation, like a lot a lot, the shortages, gas and food prices will go up. We're trying to keep interest rates as low possible so we can keep as many jobs as possible.

So if they strike and tens of thousands of people in other industries lose their jobs? It's possible.

[stilgar]

6 minutes ago, Poofy said:

They're villains for how they treated the workers before, but imo, the workers won the battle already. I'm not even saying the workers don't deserve it for what they had to put up with. If they had a real strike right now tho, it *might* be okay-ish, or it could hurt lots of people who aren't even involved. It would exacerbate inflation, like a lot a lot, the shortages, gas and food prices will go up. We're trying to keep interest rates as low possible so we can keep as many jobs as possible.

So if they strike and tens of thousands of people in other industries lose their jobs? It's possible.

The workers have not won shit.

[Poofy]

2 minutes ago, stilgar said:

The workers have not won shit.

oh ok nvm

[scoobdog]

11 hours ago, matrixman124 said:

Well the railroad companies should have been more reasonable. Wildcat strike is going to happen with at least one of the unions.

Based on what Pat posted, it looks like the problems are more fundamental than that.  Their business model doesn’t allow for the added sick days, which is far more egrious than greed… it’s outright mismanagement and negligence.  Adding the sick days won’t actually help.  Reverting to a more sustainable model with smaller trains and more crews is the only way to make it work, and is going to cost investors.

[matrixman124]

ain't over yet