Rail & Labor News from RWU
| | Weekly Digest Number 20 - May 13, 2025 | | 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. Got a hot tip? Please forward the article and a link to raillabornews@gmail.com. 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! | | THIS WEEK'S RAIL AND LABOR NEWS | | Editor's Note: The 450 BLET engineers at NJ Transit are not asking for the moon, they’re asking for dignity. Six years without a raise while moving millions safely is not just neglect, it’s contempt. These are the lowest-paid passenger engineers in the country, and yet they’ve been met with delay, deflection, and political theater. As the May 16 strike deadline nears, let’s be clear: if there’s disruption, it won’t be caused by the workers, it’ll be caused by a system that values obedience over fairness and delay over justice. | |
BLET / May 12th
The National Mediation Board summoned the BLET and NJ Transit back to Washington, D.C. for a last-ditch effort to reach a contract settlement. The parties met on May 12. A strike or lockout could begin as early as 12:01 a.m. on May 16.
The BLET hosted a press conference late last week where BLET National President Mark Wallace and NJT General Chairman Tom Haas spoke and took questions from members of the media. The BLET leaders discussed a contract offer BLET presented to NJ Transit’s management earlier this week and exposed misinformation being circulated by the transit agency. Watch the press conference here. President Wallace said the extra meeting requested by NMB is not required by the Railway Labor Act (RLA), but said BLET would attend in an effort to pursue all options to avoid a strike.
BLET’s 450 members at NJT are the lowest-paid locomotive engineers at any of the major passenger railroads in the United States.
| | Editor's Note: Ironically, as the engineers union (BLET) is about to strike the carrier, the largest union at New Jersey Transit (TWU) settles. Typical hijinks from the divided craft unions, where the unions fail to stick together and form a united front to win a victory for all. You can bet in the next round the carrier may come after the TWU members ... and BLET members will remember this and be more than happy to settle and leave them flapping in the breeze. RWU believes in cross-craft solidarity of ALL rail unions! | |
Trains Magazine / May 8th
NJ Transit and its largest labor union, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), have reached a tentative contract agreement. NJ Transit is the nation’s third-largest provider of bus, rail, and light rail transit, linking major points in New Jersey, New York, and Philadelphia. The ATU represents more than 5,500 NJ Transit employees.
| | Editor's Note: The tentative deal with CSX offers an 18.77% compounded raise through 2029, less than the 24% secured in the last national contract, and stretched out over more years. That’s not a win. That’s a discount. Even with improved sick leave and better dental and vision coverage, the numbers don’t lie: CSX is locking in labor at a bargain. If inflation holds steady, this agreement could leave engineers with less buying power than they had five years ago. Members would do well to read past the bullet points and ask: is this progress, or just a polite retreat? | |
BLET / May 9th
BLET has reached a tentative agreement with CSX Transportation engineers. If ratified by the members, the tentative agreement would provide compounded general wage increases of 18.77 percent.
Engineers would also earn five new days of paid sick leave per year under the tentative deal, with the flexibility to convert two earned personal leave days into sick days. There are no changes to the engineers' cost share for Health and Welfare. Vision and dental benefits are expanded. The agreement would be in effect through December 31, 2029.
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| Editor's Note: This comes as no surprise. During the first reign of Trump, his FRA chief Ron Batory declared that the 2-person crew mandate of previous FRA chief Joe Szabo under Barrack Obama) was dead. We can expect that the new FRA chief under Trump 2 will do the same with the rule promulgated by his FRA Chief Amit Bose juts a few short years ago which restored the ban on single person train ops. Rail workers must relay ultimately on themselves to fight this battle with the carriers on the property, like we did a decade ago when we sent the union and the BNSF back on its heels, voting 5-to-1 to defeat a single person crew initiative. Oh, and watch how quickly DOT chief and VP Vance change their tune on the two-person crew issue now in power. | |
Progressive Railroading / May 7th
The Association of American Railroads filed comments in response to the U.S. DOT’s request for information on how to modernize and streamline rail regulations.
The principal issue raised in the filing is the Biden administration’s crew staffing rule that mandates a minimum of two crew members per train in perpetuity.
AAR describes this as "an unsubstantiated mandate that conflicts with the Trump administration’s policy goals of regulatory reform, technological advancement, and data-driven rulemaking".
| | Editor's Note: Good to see Colorado actually bargain for something after allowing Union Pacific to use this asset for a few thousand dollars "rent" each year for many years. Hopefully this will facilitate the increase/restoration of passenger rail service to central and western Colorado. | |
Progressive Railroading / May 6th
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Union Pacific Railroad President Beth Whited yesterday celebrated the signing of a historic lease agreement for Colorado's Moffat Tunnel, replacing the original lease signed in 1926.
The new agreement follows the memorandum of understanding signed Nov. 1, 2024, and includes a 25-year lease, a 25-year access agreement for the future Mountain Passenger Rail and finalizes the purchase and sale of the Burnham lead line that will unlock transit-oriented development (TOD) potential for the Burnham Yard property. The public-private partnership ensures continued freight operations through the Moffat Tunnel but also passenger-rail access from Denver through the Moffat Tunnel to Winter Park, Granby, Steamboat Springs and Craig for the future Mountain Passenger Rail Service, state officials said in a press release issued by Polis' office.
| | Editor's Note: Amtrak says it will save $100 million a year by cutting 450 jobs, another reminder that in modern railroading, the quickest path to “efficiency” is through elimination. Whether the roles were filled or vacant doesn’t change the message: people are the first cost to be carved out when the budget gets tight. But a railroad run by spreadsheets alone isn’t built to serve the public, it’s built to serve itself. | |
Progressive Railroading / May 9th
Amtrak announced this week that it has cut about 450 management roles through layoffs and elimination of open positions, following a review of its costs and management structure.
"This workforce adjustment, combined with other recent cost-saving actions, will help Amtrak save $100 million annually," Amtrak officials said yesterday in an emailed statement. In a memo to employees, Amtrak President Roger Harris said the 450 positions represented just over 10% of the management team.
| | Editor's Note: The NTSB is ostensibly "non-partisan" and "independent", set up to objectively look at accidents in the transportation sector. But as with everything else in recent months, it has now apparently been politicized, as this representative gets the boot. | |
Progressive Railroading / May 7th
President Donald Trump's administration on May 5 abruptly removed the vice chair of the National Transportation Safety Board Vice Chairman Alvin Brown from his position, national news media reported yesterday.
A Democrat and the only Black member of the board, Brown was designated vice chair by President Joe Biden in December 2024. Brown joined the board in March 2024 and his term was slated to run through 2026. His removal from the board was first reported by Reuters, which confirmed his departure with the White House. No reason for his removal was given, and Brown has not publicly commented.
| | Editor's Note: It is too early to comment on this incident at this time. We hope to know more by next issue next Tuesday. Meantime, our hearts go out to the trainman who was seriously injured and in the hospital. | | |
Trains Magazine / May 12th
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Union Pacific conductor was seriously injured in a grade crossing collision on Saturday night, according to local media reports.
An eastbound UP train, being operated by remote control, was hit by a van that drove around the crossing gates at North Prospect Avenue around 9:45 p.m. The impact of the collision forced the van to swing into the last car of the train, pinning the remote control operator. The UP employee was taken to the hospital with serious injuries. The driver of the van was not injured.
| | NEWS FROM AROUND THE LABOR MOVEMENT | | Each week, RWU includes a few articles about advances and developments in the larger labor movement that are of interest to railroad workers. Got an artcile to submit for possible inclusion next week? Email it along to raillabornews@gmail.com. Thank you! | | Editor's Note: During the election and the first three months of the Trump regime, some labor unions faltered. Now they are beginning to close ranks in the face of the wholesale assault on all working people that is being levelled by the Trump administration. | |
Slate / May 5th
Stock markets slid and business executives frowned when President Donald Trump announced a 25 percent tariff on auto imports, but he could take solace that the nation’s most prominent union president applauded the move. Shawn Fain, the usually combative president of the United Auto Workers, heaped praise on the tariffs, saying they would help “end the free-trade disaster that has devastated working class communities for decades.” Fain added, “The Trump administration has made history with today’s actions.”
Fain’s words got plenty of attention—he had been an outspoken supporter of Kamala Harris during the 2024 campaign, and many Americans saw his praise of the auto tariffs as evidence that labor unions were enthusiastic about Trump.
| | WEEKLY DERAILMENT DEPARTMENT | | Each Tuesday in this news bulletin, RWU does our best to present a picture of what has been happening over the course of the previous week in terms of derailments in North America, and investigation determinations of previous accidents. NOTE: This list is by no means comprehensive. Smaller and less consequential mishaps are generally not reported here. If the wreck results in injury or fatality, or is especially damaging/extreme, a full article will appear as a feature in the dozen or so rail articles above. Know of a train wreck? Please feel free to forward a link to raillabornews@gmail.com for possible inclusion next week. Thanks! |
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