Weekly Digest Number 49 - December 6th, 2022 |
|
Welcome to the RWU Rail & Labor News! This news bulletin is produced and emailed out each Tuesday morning. We hope you find each week's news and information useful. If so, please share with co-workers, friends, and colleagues. If you like, you can sign them up to get all the news from RWU HERE. Or forward them the link. Note: If you read over this news bulletin each week, you will be sure to never miss the important news of what is going on in the railroad world from a worker's perspective!
|
|
(Editor's Note: Railroad Workers United (RWU) finds it despicable – but not surprising – that both political parties opted to side with Big Business over working people last week and vote against the interests of railroad workers - not once, but twice, within hours. We suffered a one-two punch at the hands of, first the Democratic Party; the second served up by the Republicans.)
|
|
Putting 'Profits Over People', Senate Rejects Paid Sick Leave for Rail Workers |
|
Speaking on the floor of the U.S. Senate on Thursday before votes on a trio of bills affecting the nation's freight rail employees, Sen. Bernie Sanders said he had one "simple question" to ask: "Are any Republicans prepared to stand with rail workers who have zero paid sick days or are they instead going to back the outrageous greed of the rail industry?"
Sanders (I-Vt.) got his answer a short time later when 42 Republicans—and serial Democratic obstructionist Joe Manchin of West Virginia—voted down Rep. Jamaal Bowman's (D-N.Y.) proposal to include seven paid sick days in the tentative contract being foisted upon rail workers by Congress and the Biden administration under the terms of the Railway Labor Act of 1926 in order to avoid a strike that experts say could cost the nation's economy $2 billion per day.
Six Republican senators voted for the sick leave measure: Mike Braun (Ind.), Ted Cruz (Texas), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Josh Hawley (Mo.), John Kennedy (La.), and Marco Rubio (Fla.).
The senators also voted 80-15 to approve the contract supported by President Joe Biden—who once called himself the "most pro-labor president" in U.S. history—to force freight rail workers to remain on the job under pain of termination. A third measure, which would have extended the negotiation period by another 60 days, was rejected.
|
|
(Editor's Note: While many rail workers feel rightfully betrayed, a quick look at Biden's history reveals that his labor record is not as good as he may pretend. Breaking a rail strike has been done by U.S. Presidents dating back to Rutherford Hays, and includes in more modern times Presidents Truman, Reagan and Bush.) |
|
By Siding Against Rail Workers, Biden is Breaking His Promise of Paid Sick Leave for All |
|
As a labor dispute between railworkers and railroad companies barrels toward a nationwide rail strike, President Joe Biden is standing with railroad barons to force a deal on workers that not only falls far short of their demands, but also goes against Biden’s own promises to grant reasonable paid sick leave to all Americans.
The move is the latest and possibly starkest example of the chasm between Biden’s pro-worker rhetoric during his campaign and presidency, and the numerous pro-corporate actions he has taken in the White House. As part of his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden pledged that he would ensure all workers have at least seven paid sick days. And early in his presidency, he called on Congress to pass a bill that would require companies to let all of their workers accrue at least seven days of paid sick leave per year.
But this September, Biden reversed course, helping negotiate a deal between railroad bosses and unions that would only grant workers a single paid sick day per year, despite the unions pushing for as many as fifteen sick days — a number they were ultimately willing to reduce to as few as four. Now, to avoid a shutdown of the nation’s rail network, he is asking Congress to force that deal on workers who voted to reject it.
With Democrats in full control of Congress for just a few more weeks, Biden could be using this moment to push lawmakers to pass the party’s landmark union rights legislation or implement a national paid leave policy. Instead, he is calling on Democrats and Republicans alike to side with highly profitable railroad companies and crush their workers.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has demanded that any back-to-work legislation include the unions’ paid sick leave demands and pledged Tuesday that he will slow down the Senate’s process unless lawmakers pass an amendment of his guaranteeing five to seven paid sick days.
|
|
“Enough Is Enough”: Rail Workers Decry Biden’s Push to Impose Strike-Breaking Labor Deal |
|
President Biden is pushing Congress to block a pending nationwide rail strike and push through a contract deal that includes no sick days and is opposed by four of the 12 rail unions. Biden’s latest request is an attempt to “legislate us basically back to work, before we’ve even had a chance to strike,” says locomotive engineer and Railroad Workers United organizer Ron Kaminkow. “Workers should have the right to take off work for a reasonable amount for whatever reason they need it,” says labor professor Nelson Lichtenstein, who urges the rail workers to strike anyway. |
|
Wurst RWU Discusses Railroad Labor Fight |
|
The railroad workers fight for better benefits and working conditions has prompted President Biden to urge Congress to make the strike illegal and force the workers to accept a contract they have largely rejected. Congress is being urged to at least add sick time to the deal but so far Congress has resisted even that. Nick Wurst, a member of Railroad Workers United from Massachusetts explains the workers’ position, including the call for public ownership of the railroads due to its vital nature. With Mark Dunlea for Hudson Mohawk Magazine. |
|
(Editor's Note: Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich weighs in ...) |
|
The One Thing You Need to Know About the Railroads
It's not that a rail strike would be bad for the economy
|
|
Yesterday, the House approved legislation to avert a nationwide rail strike by forcing railroad workers to abide by a tentative agreement that the Biden administration helped broker earlier this year. (The proposal failed to win the approval of the workers at all of the unions involved.)
Later today, the measure was approved in the Senate. (The House also approved a separate measure to add seven days of compensated sick time, but it may lack enough bipartisan support to pass the Senate.)
Let me be clear. A strike and shutdown of the nation’s railroads would be terrible for the economy. It would worsen inflation.
But legislation effectively prohibiting a strike would impose unfair working conditions on employees in one of the most profitable industries in America — further tilting the nation’s economic imbalance toward large corporations and Wall Street, and against working people.
Here, a concentrated industry has gained record profits by understaffing — squeezing its workers to the breaking point. Prodded by Wall Street, the big rail companies have intentionally gutted their own spare capacity.
Last year, adjusted operating margins for the five largest US railroads were 41 percent. Ten years ago, they were 29 percent. Two decades ago, they were 15 percent. Even compared with other transportation companies (which are doing extremely well)— trucking, parcel, air freight, maritime shipping, airlines – today’s railroad profits are humongous.
Union Pacific, the largest publicly traded US railroad, paid its investors more than $41 billion in dividends and share buybacks over five years through 2021. In the first six months of 2022, it heaped an additional $5 billion on them.
Why are railroads so profitable? Largely because they’re spending so little on labor.
|
|
(Editor's Note: Jordan Barab, former OSHA employee and friend of railroad workers, has his say on the debacle.) |
|
When last we discussed employer greed labor problems in the rail industry, President Joe “the most labor-friendly President in American history” Biden had heroically led the cavalry to the rescue ushering in a last-minute deal between the rail unions and the robber barons rail carriers, and avoiding a nation-wide strike that would have crippled the economy along with any hopes the Democrats had of not being decimated in the mid-term elections.
Although the deal included a substantial 24 percent pay increase by 2024 and some protections against the strict attendance policies employed by the railroads, it did not provide any paid sick days, which was the main goal of the rail workers — especially after working through the pandemic. And for the first time, workers would be able to take time off when they are hospitalized or to attend three routine doctor’s appointments a year without being assessed disciplinary points, but the time off was unpaid or they must use vacation time. The agreement also does little to resolve the scheduling issues that make it impossible for many rail workers to plan their lives. Consequently, three of the five largest rail unions rejected a tentative contract.
With Friends Like These…
Here we are a mere two and a half months later. The Dems pulled a rabbit out of a hat in the mid-term elections. But now, after saving American democracy in the mid-terms, the most labor friendly President in American history is threatening democracy in the workplace. Last night, Biden called on Congress to “immediately” pass legislation to avert a rail shutdown by imposing a tentative agreement approved by labor and management negotiators in September — even though rail workers rejected the Tentative Agreement that failed to satisfy rail workers unreasonable request for a few sick days and less unpredictable schedules.
There are 12 rail unions and around 115,000 rail workers in the country. The 57,000 member Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) membership narrowly ratified the tentative agreement, while the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers transportation division (SMART-TD), which represents 28,000 conductors, brakemen, yardmen and others narrowly rejected it, joining the Maintenance-of-Way, Signal Maintainers, and Boilermakers.
|
|
(Editor's Note: You know that your issue has made the BIG Time when "The Onion" does a spoof piece on it!) |
|
Biden Signs Legislation To Avert Crisis Of Treating Rail Workers Like Humans |
|
WASHINGTON—Praising the last-minute agreement to deny the laborers any sort of civility or respect, President Joe Biden signed legislation Friday to avert a crisis in which rail workers might have been treated like actual human beings. “We were only a week away from a nationwide catastrophe in which we would have been forced to acknowledge the basic rights of these employees,” said President Biden, applauding lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who ensured rail workers would continue to be denied a benefit as humane as paid sick days. “So much of what Americans rely on is delivered by train—from clean water to food to gas—and the last thing we want is for the people responsible for transporting those goods to be able to stay home when they’re seriously ill. Thanks to this law, we can guarantee that no engineer driving 20,000 tons of freight across this great nation will be able to access healthcare without having their pay docked.” Biden went on to express confidence that next year, bipartisan legislation would be passed to ensure rail workers were no longer allowed to eat or sleep between shifts.
|
|
(Editor's Note: The votes in the House and Senate last week have hopefully lifted the scales from the eyes of railroad worker. The two parties are flip sides of the same coin. Controlled by big business at every turn, when the chips are down they side with capital, not labor.) |
|
Rail Contract Shows Unions Need New Leadership; Workers Need Our Own Party |
|
At the “urgent appeal” of President Biden, the U.S. Senate voted 80 – 15 on December 1 to impose a contract settlement previously rejected by four unions representing a majority of railroad workers and by thousands who voted “No” in eight other unions. The House of Representatives approved a similar measure, which Biden swiftly signed into law on December 2.
A separate bill would have added seven days paid sick leave to the new national rail contract. It was no surprise that it failed. Biden firmly opposed any changes to the contract that his administration brokered in September on the eve of a national strike deadline.
Rail workers are angry and frustrated by this outcome. Rank-and-file rail workers refused to accept Biden’s deal that top union leaders claimed was the best contract possible. The ranks of the unions spoke out, explained the intolerable conditions of work and life they face every day, and won support from millions of working people.
Without rank-and-file resistance, no resolution on sick pay would have been considered. Without rank-and-file resistance, those brutal conditions would have remained unknown to other working people.
Biden led the way
On the day Biden demanded action by Congress to prevent railroad workers from exercising their democratic right to strike, he piously insisted he was “a proud pro-labor president.” Actions, however, speak louder than words.
Such sanctimonious posturing by politicians was on full display. While 52 senators voted for the bill to provide paid sick leave (knowing it did not have the 60-vote supermajority needed for passage — an anti-democratic Senate rule enjoying bipartisan support), 80 backed the imposition of the contract and banning a strike, as did the large majority of the House.
Again, Biden took the lead. At a White House news conference, “Mr. Biden bristled at a question about why he had not insisted on more paid leave for rail workers in the deal, saying that he had ‘negotiated a contract no one else can negotiate,’” reported the New York Times.
Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis and North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer, both Republicans, made this absurd and pretentious argument: “It is in the best interest of all parties that the railroads, not Congress, work through issues such as paid leave directly with their employees.” They then voted for Congress to settle all the issues in favor of the rail barons! Any rail worker could have told them the railroads stubbornly refused for over two years to “work through issues such as paid leave directly with their employees.”
“This one-two punch from the two political parties is despicable,” said Railroad Workers United (RWU) general secretary Jason Doering. (RWU is a rank-and-file group that brings together members of all rail unions.) “Politicians are happy to voice platitudes and heap praise upon us for our heroism throughout the pandemic, the essential nature of our work, the difficult and dangerous and demanding conditions of our jobs. Yet when the steel hits the rail, they back the powerful and wealthy Class One rail carriers every time.”
|
|
(Editor's Note: Paid sick leave and time off the job is an issues for tens of millions of working Americans. By raising the issue to such a high profile these last few week, rail labor has put it front and center and is in a position to lead the working class forward on this - and other - key issues.) |
|
By Fighting for Paid Sick Leave, the Rail Workers Are Fighting for All of Us |
|
Paid sick leave is a right we all deserve — and an urgent public health issue. Win or lose, we’re indebted to the rail workers for their fight to achieve it.
With the help of the Senate, Joe Biden channeled Ronald Reagan this week in moving to deprive railworkers of the right to strike over a simple demand: paid sick leave. The bourgeois apologetics have flowed more freely than Schramsberg at a Silicon Valley fundraiser. Celeste Drake, director of labor issues for the National Economic Council, told the New York Times, “[Y]ou know, in the end this is the president standing with all Americans.”
Many ridiculous things have been said on this topic but this one may be a winner. There was only one way that the president could have stood with “all Americans” this week, and that would have been to defend the workers who are fighting for every one of us by holding their ground on this critical public health issue: the right to recover — and not spread our illnesses around — when we get sick.
Sticking up for paid sick leave would be a political win, as the issue is well understood and popular. That’s because many of us have the same problem as the railworkers: our bosses won’t pay us to stay home when we’re sick. Americans go to work when they’re sick and send our feverish kids to school because we lack the right to stay home with them. We thus spread germs throughout the community, we take too long to recover, and we neglect our long-term health by skipping doctor visits. The lack of sick leave for workers in this country, then, is always abusive. During the deadly pandemic of the last nearly three years, it’s been downright dangerous.
There’s a growing consensus, among policymakers and the public, that this needs to change. In standing with the railroad bosses instead of the workers here, Biden is swimming against a powerful current.
There is no US law requiring that employers offer paid sick leave to workers. But since San Francisco passed a law requiring it in 2007 — with other municipalities and states, including the District of Columbia, following suit over the following decade — the number of workers enjoying this basic benefit has increased. Even so, when the pandemic hit in March 2020, there was still plenty of room for improvement: one quarter of private sector workers in this country had zero paid sick days. (Workers in the public sector, whether federal, state, or local, are better off on this score.)
For American workers who had paid sick leave in March 2020, the average number was eight days — more than the railway workers were asking for. Only 3 percent of workers had an “as needed” sick leave plan with no limit (meaning they can even get cancer and not be ruined by medical debt and unemployment — positively un-American).
These numbers are likely to look better soon. That’s because the pandemic — during which many outbreaks were traced to workplaces like meatpacking plants where workers were forced to come in while ill — has prompted still more state and local governments to mandate paid sick leave. New Mexico passed a law this summer, requiring employers to give workers one hour of sick leave for every thirty hours worked, which means they can get up to eight days a year. Colorado and Virginia have also mandated sick pay, bringing the number of states that do so to seventeen.
Better than any of the latest TikTok crazes — from raw liver to cold showers — paid sick leave is indisputably good for everyone’s health. An emergency federal measure enacted in 2020 demonstrated its effectiveness. A study found that in each state where workers lacked the right to paid sick leave, that federal law reduced the COVID-19 epidemic by four hundred cases per day between March and May of that year. A Canadian study this year had similar findings. As we pointed out last year, our media loves to get us all fighting with one another about vaccine mandates and masks, but our energies are always better spent doing what the rail workers are doing: fighting with our bosses over sick pay.
|
|
(Editor's Note: Railroad Workers United has experienced unprecedented support in recent weeks and months in terms of new members, merchandise sales, and donations. In addition, there has been an outpouring of solidarity, as workers from all industries send along their greetings and offer solidarity action.) |
|
Rail Workers and Allies Rally in Boston |
|
A crowd of about 200 protested President Biden's visit to the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Dorchester, decrying the bill the President signed just hours earlier to enforce a settlement between railroads and major rail worker unions as the threat loomed of a freight rail strike.
|
|
Proposed Rail Merger Would Ramp Up Environmental Injustice
Precedent-setting decision could affect similar proposals around the nation
|
|
(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Now that the midterm elections have drawn to a close, the nation is gradually shifting its focus from polls and partisanship back to day-to-day issues that shape the future of our communities at a local level—things like permitting, zoning, city council meetings, regulatory hearings, and more. And while such matters don’t drive flashy national headlines and animate talking heads on CNN or Fox News, they weigh every bit as heavily on the lives of Americans.
Take for example, the ongoing review by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board of a proposed mega-merger between Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern railroads. While regulatory review of a rail merger may seem mundane to casual observers in comparison to a midterm election, the fact of the matter is that this merger has massive implications to communities near the rail routes impacted by the merger—especially communities of color.
In September, the Trice Edney News Wire wrote at length about the environmental justice concerns related to this proposed merger. As is so often the case, minority communities—which are disproportionately close to the relevant rail lines in places like Houston—face a host of negative environmental impacts if the merger is approved. This case sets a precedent that could affect how such reviews are handled around the nation, according to leading environmental activists.
|
|
Shareholder Resolutions Seek Paid Sick Time for Rail Workers |
|
NEW YORK – Investors who have launched shareholder resolutions seeking paid sick time for railroad employees say that the lack of paid sick days endangers workers’ health, threatens the economy, and has made it harder for railroads to retain their unionized employees.
Activist investors today filed the non-binding shareholder resolutions requesting that Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern provide all employees with paid sick time.
Trillium Asset Management, which filed the resolution with Union Pacific, said it was reasonable for railroads to offer paid sick time because railroad employees are essential workers who keep critical commodities moving.
“Focusing on the short term at the expense of workers poses potential risks to the company and the economy,” Kate Monahan, a director at Trillium, said in a statement. “As shareholders, we are asking management to reprioritize and take the longer-term view that safeguarding the health and safety of their workers will better position them for the future.”
The resolution at Norfolk Southern was filed by Impact Shares, a Dallas-based activist investment firm.
“We believe paid sick leave to be essential to protecting and maintaining one of a company’s – and the economy’s – most important assets: workers,” Impact Chief Engagement Officer Marvin Owens said in a statement. “Paid sick leave should not be seen by companies as an expense, but as a prudent investment – an insurance policy that will promote a strong workforce and, by extension, a healthy economy.”
UP and NS shareholders could vote on the resolutions in the spring if the proposals are ultimately included in their annual proxy forms.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
