TDG

Train derailments get more headlines, but truck crashes involving hazardous chemicals are more frequent and deadly in US

Michael F. Gorman, Professor of Business Analytics and Operations Management, University of Dayton
Tue, February 21, 2023 

A trooper checks the tire of a truck carrying flammable contents during a random hazmat checkpoint in Colorado. Andy Cross/The Denver Post via Getty Images

Less than two weeks after train cars filled with hazardous chemicals derailed in Ohio and caught fire, a truck carrying nitric acid crashed on a major highway outside Tucson, Arizona, killing the driver and releasing toxic chemicals into the air.

The Arizona hazmat disaster shut down Interstate 10, a major cross-country highway, and forced evacuations in surrounding neighborhoods.

But the highway crash didn’t draw national attention the way the train derailment did, or trigger a flood of calls for more trucking regulation like the U.S. is seeing for train regulation. Truck crashes tend to be local and less dramatic than a pile of derailed train cars on fire, even if they’re deadlier.


In fact, federal data shows that rail has had far fewer incidents, deaths and damage when moving hazardous materials in the U.S. than trucks.

After the train derailment and fire in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 3, 2023, the U.S. EPA tested over 500 homes. It reported that none exceeded air quality standards for the chemicals tested. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Trucks carry more hazmat and more risk

At one time, rail and water were the only options for transporting chemicals and other potentially dangerous materials. The emergence of the automobile and subsequent construction of the interstate highway system changed that, and hazardous materials shipments by road steadily increased.

Today, trucks carry the largest percentage of hazardous materials shipped in the U.S. – about twice as much as trains when measured in ton-miles, according to the Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ latest data, for 2017. A ton-mile is one ton shipped for one mile.

While truck incidents involving hazardous materials don’t look as dramatic as train derailments and are not as widely covered by news media, federal data shows they represent more fatalities and property damage, and there are thousands more of them every year.

Truck-related hazardous materials incidents caused over 16 times more fatalities from 1975 to 2021 – 380 for truck, compared with 23 for rail, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. The difference is more pronounced in the last decade, when U.S. rail transportation of hazardous materials caused zero fatalities and truck incidents were responsible for 83.

Trucks have also caused nearly three times as much property damage as rail incidents since 2000. That might seem surprising since derailments can involve several cars with hazardous materials. But most rail events take place in remote areas, limiting their human impact, while trucks travel on highways with other drivers around and often in busy urban areas.
Where do we go from here?

I study rail systems and regulation, and I have followed the increasing costs to the industry to comply with tightening regulatory rules.

Shipping hazardous materials in the U.S. has been regulated for over 150 years. A deadly explosion in San Francisco in 1866 involving a just-arrived cargo of nitroglycerin, used for blasting rock, led to the first federal laws regulating shipping explosives and flammable materials.

The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks spurred a vast expansion of regulation over movement of hazardous materials. Many cities now have hazardous materials routes for trucks that circumvent city centers to reduce the potential risk to high-population areas.

With the Ohio train derailment now making national news, lawmakers are focusing on regulations specifically for rail.

Ohio’s governor wants rail companies to be required to notify states of all hazardous shipments. This knee-jerk reaction to a major event would appear to be a responsible demand with relatively low costs, but it would have no impact whatsoever on prevention of hazmat events.

Activists are calling for more expensive investments, including requirements for heat sensors on train bearings, which appeared to have been involved in the Ohio derailment, and the restoration of a rule requiring advanced braking systems for trains carrying hazardous materials. Both would raise the cost of rail shipping and could wind up putting more hazardous materials shipments on U.S. roads. The Trump administration repealed the braking system requirement in 2017, arguing that the costs outweighed the benefits.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, speaking with reporters, discussed looking into new rules for advanced braking systems, higher fines and encouraging rail companies to speed up their phase-in of more puncture-resistant tank cars.

On Feb. 14, 2023, a truck carrying hazardous materials crashed on busy Interstate 10 near homes outside Tucson, Ariz., killing the driver and forcing an interstate shutdown and evacuations. 

Arizona Department of Public Safety via AP

Rail is still more economical and better for the environment than trucks for longer distances, but with ever-increasing regulations, rail transport can be economically and logistically discouraged – chasing more traffic to far more dangerous roadways.

If the concern is the public’s exposure to hazardous materials, regulation on road-based hazardous materials transportation should expand as well.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. The Conversation is trustworthy news from experts. Try our free newsletters.

It was written by: Michael F. Gorman, University of Dayton.

Read more:

How dangerous was the Ohio chemical train derailment? An environmental engineer assesses the long-term risks

How vinyl chloride, chemical released in the Ohio train derailment, can damage the liver – it’s used to make PVC plastics

Despite disasters, oil-by-rail transport is getting safer

As an expert in rail policy, Michael Gorman has consulted with railroad companies over the past 20 years. He worked for BNSF in the 1990s.

CSX revamps attendance policy as railroad unions push back on sick time


 A CSX freight train blasts through high snow at a crossing in Silver Spring


Tue, December 13, 2022 
By Lisa Baertlein and Rod Nickel

(Reuters) -Rail operator CSX Corp is changing its workforce attendance policy for unexpected, short-term medical absences next year after U.S. railroads' sick-time policies became a flashpoint in national labor talks.

CSX is among the railroads that used so-called points-based attendance policies to reduce unplanned absences. Under the long-established policies, workers are penalized with points for unscheduled absences, and risk being suspended or fired.

The scheme came under fire during the pandemic, when industry-wide job cuts meant to bolster profits left fewer workers to manage the COVID-related cargo surge.

Rail unions are protesting the lack of federal intervention on sick-time policies outside the U.S. Capitol and in cities around the country on Tuesday.

On Dec. 2, U.S. President Joe Biden signed legislation that broke the impasse that could have halted shipments of food, fuel and medicine, stranded commuters and harmed the U.S. economy without making any changes to sick-time agreements.

When the pandemic struck and freight volumes surged, affected rail workers said those policies discouraged them from seeking medical care or taking time off to recover from illness.

Under the new policy effective Jan. 1, CSX said on Tuesday it will no longer assess points when an employee calls in sick shortly before a scheduled workday with an illness for which they saw a doctor.

CSX's new attendance rules will be "non-disciplinary and non-punitive," the company said in an email to Reuters.

Four of 12 unions involved in the latest railroad contract talks rejected a recently negotiated deal because it did not include any paid short-term sick days and failed to address the attendance points system used by CSX and the two largest U.S. railroads: Union Pacific and Berkshire Hathaway-owned BNSF.

Under the new CSX policy, accrued points will expire on a rolling 12-month cycle rather than accumulate indefinitely, and employees will receive credit for working without an absence and can use those to expunge points. CSX said it does not apply points when employees miss work due to hospitalization or emergency treatment.

Clark Ballew, a former CSX track worker and communications director for the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division (BMWED) rail union, said the changes are a step in the right direction, but fall short of repairing damage from industry cost-cutting.

Union Pacific told Reuters it expects to start working with unions on quality of life issues in the coming weeks. BNSF did not immediately respond to questions regarding its policy on health-related absences.

On Friday, more than 70 lawmakers urged Biden to take executive action to guarantee rail workers paid sick days.

Meanwhile, Canada on Dec. 1 granted workers at railroads and other regulated workplaces at least 10 days of paid sick leave annually. Canada's two biggest freight railways, Canadian National Railway Co and Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd, have about 10,000 employees in the United States. Collective bargaining with U.S. workers will determine sick-day requirements, the railways said.

(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles and Rod Nickel in Winnipeg;

Editing by Tomasz Janowski, Matthew Lewis and Kim Coghill)

Rail workers say deal won’t resolve quality-of-life concerns
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

DECEMBER 3, 2022

Rail strike threat recedes as Congress prepares to impose unpopular contract on unions. Shipping containers and rail cars sit in a Union Pacific Intermodal Terminal rail yard on November 21, in Los Angeles. Mandatory Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — When BNSF railroad conductor Justin Schaaf needed to take time off from work this summer, he had to make a choice: go to the dentist to get a cavity in his molar filled or attend a party for his son’s 7th birthday.

He chose his son.

“Ultimately I decided to take the day off for my kid’s birthday party,” Schaaf said. “Then when I am finally able to get into the dentist four, five, six months later, the tooth is too bad to repair at that point, so I have to get the tooth pulled out.”

Those are the kind of tradeoffs that railroad workers worry they might still have to make after Congress voted this week to impose a contract on them to avoid the economic disaster that would accompany a railroad strike. Workers and their unions say the deal didn’t do enough to address their quality-of-life concerns and didn’t add any sick days.

President Joe Biden signed a bill Friday to block a strike and force workers to accept the agreements union leaders made in September, even though four of the 12 unions — which include a majority of rail workers — voted to reject them. Business groups had been urging Biden to intervene for weeks.

For Schaaf, he’s not sure if the new contract will make it any easier to find another day off sometime next year to pay to have a fake tooth implanted in his mouth.

“If I had the option of taking a sick day … I would have never been in that situation,” he said from his home in Glasgow, Montana.

Schaaf said it was discouraging, but not surprising, to see Congress step in to settle the contract dispute ahead of next Friday’s strike deadline. Lawmakers have made a habit of stepping in to impose contracts when railroads and their unions reach the brink of a strike — 18 times since the passage of the 1926 Railway Labor Act, by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s count — because of the potential economic consequences.

Many businesses rely on railroads to deliver raw materials and ship their final products, so a rail strike would send a catastrophic ripple through the economy. Passenger railroads also would be disrupted because so many use tracks owned by the freight railroads.

The five-year deals that rail workers wound up with include 24% raises and $5,000 in bonuses. But concerns about the lack of paid sick time and the demanding schedules that unions say make it hard for workers to ever take a day off dominated the contract talks. The rail unions say they weren’t able to get more concessions out of the railroads because the big companies knew Congress would intervene.

The railroads refused to add paid sick days to the deal at the end of three years of negotiations because they didn’t want to pay much more than a special board of arbitrators appointed by Biden recommended this summer. Plus, the railroads say the unions have agreed over the years to forego paid sick leave in favor of higher wages and strong short-term disability benefits that kick in after as little as four days.

The railroads agreed to offer three unpaid days for engineers and conductors to tend to medical needs as long as they are scheduled at least 30 days in advance. They also promised to negotiate further to improve the way regular days off are scheduled to help workers better know when they will be off.

But to retired engineer Jeff Kurtz, there is still a lot of work to be done to restore the quality of life he enjoyed before he left the railroad eight years ago. He doubts rail workers today would be able to get time off for key family events on short notice the way he did when he found out his son was getting his doctorate right before Christmas in 2009.

“You hear when you hire out on the railroad you’re going to miss some things. But you’re not supposed to miss everything,” said Kurtz, who remains active even in retirement with the Railroad Workers United coalition that includes workers from every union. “You shouldn’t miss your kids growing up. You shouldn’t miss the seminal moments in your family’s life.”

Over the past six years, the major railroads have eliminated nearly one-third of their jobs as they overhauled operations, making the work more demanding for those who remain.

The unions say they won’t stop fighting for more paid sick leave, but now they may have to wait for negotiations on the next contract beginning in 2025.

The head of the Association of American Railroads trade group, Ian Jefferies, acknowledged “there is more to be done to further address our employees’ work-life balance concerns” but he said the compromise deals that Congress voted to impose should help make schedules more predictable while delivering the biggest raises rail workers have seen in more than four decades.

1933

Why paid sick leave 

became a big issue in 

rail labor talks

Unions say rail carriers cut too much in the name of efficiency, 

leaving them with too few workers to cover for absent colleagues.

By Julian Mark

December 3, 2022

With an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote on Thursday, the Senate forced itself between freight railroad companies and their unions — an action that averted a national rail strike and potential economic catastrophe, but which failed to provide workers with a component they aggressively sought: paid sick leave.

On Wednesday, the House approved two versions of a deal meant to stave off a Dec. 9 strike by rail workers. One echoed the recommendations that union leaders and the White House agreed to in September. The other, pushed by liberal Democrats, included seven paid sick days for rail workers.

The Senate ultimately approved the option without the added paid sick leave, and President Biden signed it. The terms mirror those in the agreement the White House brokered in September, including a roughly 24 percent pay increase by 2024, more flexibility to take time off for doctor’s appointments, and a paid personal day.

After forcing rail deal, Biden works to smooth over labor relations

So why was paid sick leave such a sticking point — and why didn’t workers get it?

Rail carriers have said they need to maintain their attendance policies to ensure adequate staffing. Some industry experts and union officials say the companies no longer have enough workers to cover for absent colleagues because of the switch in recent years to “precision scheduled railroading,” a system designed to improve efficiency and cut costs. Instead of running trains that carried just one type of product — which left trains waiting for long stretches before they had enough load to depart — rail companies now have more trains carrying a mix of goods on a set schedule. Fixed scheduling allows them to use the same crew more often than they could have under the old system.

President Biden on Dec. 1 defended the deal that he negotiated to avoid a rail worker strike and said he would continue to push for paid leave for all workers. (Video: The Washington Post)

From November 2018 to December 2020, the rail industry lost 40,000 jobs, according to a report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The bureau described precision scheduling as possibly the “most widely accredited reason for the decrease in rail transportation employment,” although the pandemic, uncertainties in trade and a decline U.S. coal usage also hurt the industry.

Wall Street at the time cheered the transition to a new system. In 2019, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific stocks rose 30 percent, and shares of Kansas City Southern jumped more than 60 percent.

But the labor force cuts “led to this kind of crisis of work-life balance,” said Todd Vachon, a Rutgers University labor professor who sees short staffing as “a model of maximizing profits to have high returns for shareholders.”

And unions say precision scheduled railroading leaves little room to give workers the benefits they need.

“There is a direct connection to these business decisions that the railroads have made — either PSR by itself or just these attendance policies that’s an offshoot of PSR — forcing people to work more than any average American worker wants to do or can do,” said Dennis Pierce, the national president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, an influential union that narrowly voted to ratify the White House proposal.

Brendan Branon, chairman of the National Railway Labor Conference, who represented the industry at the bargaining table, rejected the idea that paid sick leave represented a sticking point in labor talks. “All rail employees have some form of paid sick leave,” he said in a statement to The Post.

A spokeswoman for the Association of American Railroads, Jessica Kahanek, pointed to a list that includes several leave options, such as a system in which sick employees can temporarily remove themselves from a roster of available workers, as well as time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act. And all employees have a long-term sickness benefit that can pay a portion of the worker’s income for up to 26 weeks, the rail association said.

But time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act is unpaid, according to the Department of Labor. And the system that allows employees to remove themselves from availability is unpaid, union lawyer Richard Edelman said. Workers also could be disciplined for using it, he added.

Moreover, the long-term sickness benefit is meant for more serious illnesses or injuries, he said, and would not help employees who get the flu, for example, or need emergency dental surgery. “All of those things that are one- or two-day things — railroad employees don’t have that,” Edelman said.

Tony Hatch, a longtime industry analyst, said the financial community wants a more constructive relationship between railroad management and their workers.

“We don’t want to see semi-slave labor here,” he said. “We want to see a happy workforce because the railroads have terrific opportunity to recapture … market share.”

The negative effects of scheduled railroading and related staff reductions are a “boogeyman” that has been overblown, Hatch said. But he said that the system has made the industry more fragile and needs more flexibility to deal with emergency situations such as the coronavirus pandemic and sick workers.

“One of the things that you need to run a scheduled railroad is crew availability,” Hatch said. “And if people are quitting, you need to do something about that.”

The rail labor conference’s Brannon said workers and companies must keep talking.

“While the bargaining round has concluded, conversations about bringing greater predictability and work-life balance for railroaders will continue,” he said.

Vachon, the labor professor, said that nothing should prevent rail companies from providing their employees with paid sick leave. He said it comes down to paying for more workers and maintaining a rotating pool of people to cover shifts while others are out.

“There’s nothing inherent about the railroad industry to make paid sick leave unsustainable,” he said, adding that rail workers in Europe have the benefit. “This idea that it’s not possible is really just a cop-out. … The companies are deciding how to spend their resources, and they’re spending the money to buy back their stocks and give dividends to shareholders rather than investing in their workers.

WILDCAT!

U.S. Railroad unions struggle to get rebellious workers to ‘yes’ on contracts


LM Otero/AP Photo

Eleanor Mueller
Tue, November 15, 2022 

More than half of freight rail workers will vote on proposed contracts next week amid a highly organized effort by some of their colleagues to urge a “no” vote.

It’s the biggest test yet of the Biden administration’s push to avert an economically crippling rail strike after it helped a dozen unions broker a compromise with freight carriers in September. A rebel group, Railroad Workers United, is stoking opposition among members who believe the compromise green-lit by union leaders doesn’t go far enough to address working conditions that have led to severe attrition at the nation’s largest carriers.

So far, seven smaller unions have voted to approve their tentative agreements, while three have voted against — one as recently as Monday.

“There's a sense of hopelessness amongst a number of working railroaders,” said one of RWU’s leaders, Ron Kaminkow, who is a member of one of the unions voting next week. “The goal of our campaign is to basically empower people to just vote 'no' if they actually believe that this thing is not good. Don't be conned into voting for something that you really don't want.”

If unions don't get members on board by the end of an industry-wide cooling-off period Dec. 9, just one could spark a strike that capsizes the nation’s supply chain — stripping store shelves, starving livestock and compromising drinking water. At that point, Congress could be forced to step in and extend the cooling-off period, during which workers are barred from walking off the job — or impose the employer-championed recommendations of a presidentially appointed emergency board.

The presidents of the industry’s two largest unions — Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers-Transportation Division and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen — are criss-crossing the U.S. to buoy support for the proposed contracts before their members' votes are tallied Monday. They say they’ve gotten them the best deal possible.

“My message is, ‘Guys, we went all the way to the championship. We never backed down,’” SMART-TD President Jeremy Ferguson said from his car recently on the way to yet another event in Boone, Iowa.

But the RWU’s message is resonating with burnt-out freight rail employees frustrated by what they consider employers’ punitive attendance policies, among other things, and critical of the compromises accepted by their union presidents.

RWU is “just trying to get the unions to put the full interest of the membership ahead of everything else,” said one railroad worker, who is not associated with RWU and spoke anonymously to avoid retaliation from their employer. “I can definitely see interest in their message grow significantly.”

One union official called the situation “out of control.”

“There's going to be lessons learned going into the next round of bargaining about how we … control the narrative a little bit better — and I don't mean that in the propaganda way, I mean making sure that people have the facts,” said Greg Regan, president of the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department. “This was, for all intents and purposes, the first major national bargaining round in which social media reached this place it is right now.”

Since launching its campaign last month, RWU has held virtual events, solicited support from other organizations, and even peddled merch. A recent town hall drew nearly 500 RSVPs on Eventbrite as well as about $4,000 in donations, according to RWU — and, as of last Thursday, around 1,800 views on YouTube.

Union leaders, meanwhile, have been just as active. SMART-TD’s Ferguson has gone on podcasts, sent letters, participated in conference calls and attended town halls across the country alongside BLET President Dennis Pierce.

Face-to-face with workers, “I can tell right away who the ‘no’ votes are” and start “explaining how it works,” Ferguson said. “‘We're at the end. This is it. We're out of runway, guys.’”

Part of the effort is just explaining the negotiating process, said BLET Vice President Vince Verna — and the few options left to unions.

“It reminds me of those signs in the mall that say, ‘You are here,’” Verna said. “That's been part of this whole thing with our members — saying ’Here, ‘we're at this point in the process, and we're at the very last stages of the process.’”

As it stands, union officials are unsure of which way the rank-and-file will vote.

“It’s on a razor's edge,” Ferguson said. “It’s going to be tight.”

Workers’ decision to strike could cause Congress to step in and lengthen the cooling-off period — or impose the employer-endorsed recommendations of a presidentially appointed emergency board.

“We're gonna get what [workers] ratify, or we're gonna go back and forth to Congress — and God knows what's going to come out of this,” Ferguson said.

Either way, AFL-CIO’s Regan said, the proposed contracts aren’t the end of the line for rail workers.

“We are going to need to have major reforms to the industry, period,” he said, noting that those reforms go well beyond what can be negotiated in a labor contract. “All those quality-of-life issues are directly tied to the fact that [carriers] have cut their workforce to the bone.”

So far, RWU has steered clear of endorsing or advocating for specific contract language — earning them criticism from union officials.

“There are factions out there on social media … actively campaigning against this thing, with no thought on the merit,” Jared Cassity, SMART-TD’s alternative national legislative director, said. “It sucks. It sucks.”

RWU’s leaders maintain that there are too many disparate interests at play to weigh in on particular proposals.

”Each craft is going to be very different in their demands,” another RWU leader, Ross Grooters, said. The group “isn't going to represent every specific demand for each craft; that's up to us as workers to bring forward and push up.”

Tanya Snyder contributed to this report.

Another union rejects deal with nation's freight railroads


A worker walks along tracks at a BNSF rail yard, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022, in Kansas City, Kan. On Monday, Nov. 14, 2022, a third railroad union has rejected its agreement with the nation's freight railroads, increasing the chances that Congress may be called upon to settle the dispute and block a strike. 

(AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File) 

JOSH FUNK
Mon, November 14, 2022 

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A third railroad union has rejected its agreement with the nation's freight railroads, increasing the chances that Congress may be called upon to settle the dispute and block a strike.

The small International Brotherhood of Boilermakers union on Monday voted down the contract even though it includes the biggest raises workers have seen in more than four decades. The union represents just a few hundred of the roughly 115,000 rail workers involved in the contract dispute with Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, BNSF, Kansas City Southern, CSX and other railroads.

All 12 rail unions must approve their deals to prevent a strike, although no strike is imminent because all the unions have agreed to keep negotiating even if their members vote no, until a deadline early next month.

Seven other unions have ratified the five-year deals that include 24% raises and $5,000 in bonuses. The focus now is on the three unions that have voted down their agreements and the remaining two that haven’t finished voting.

Workers' quality-of-life concerns about demanding schedules and the lack of paid sick time in the industry have threatened to derail the agreements even with the sizeable raises railroads are offering.

Contract talks with the two unions that rejected their deals last month remain deadlocked over the issue of paid sick time. So it is looking increasingly likely that Congress will have to step in to settle this dispute

“If we can’t improve the agreement by getting some sort of sick leave, I think Congress is going to have to intervene because I think the railroads are just too stubborn to give us what we want unless we are able to strike," Tony Cardwell, president of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division union, said Monday.

The railroads have said they want these contracts to closely follow the recommendations made this summer by a special board of arbitrators that President Joe Biden appointed. Offering sick leave on top of the raises and bonuses that are already in the deal would require the railroads to spend more.

Congress is expected to block a rail strike and impose contract terms on both sides if they can't come to an agreement before next month's deadline. That's because the stakes are so high for the economy with so many businesses relying on railroads to deliver their raw materials and finished products.

When they’re not at the negotiating table, the railroads and unions will be lobbying Congress over the next few weeks about what should be included if lawmakers do decide to impose contract terms on the freight railroads.

If the two biggest unions that represent conductors and engineers also reject their deals when they release the results of their votes next Monday, that would put additional pressure on the railroads. But Cardwell said he doesn't think even that would be enough to get the railroads to budge on sick time.

The railroads declined to comment Monday on the status of the talks with the BMWED and Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen unions, but they have been adamant about not offering paid sick time. They say they believe the unions agreed to forego paid sick time over the years in favor of higher wages and strong short-term disability benefits.

One reason the unions object to the railroads' refusal to offer sick time is because federal contractors are required by an executive order to give that to their employees. The railroads insisted they were federal contractors last year when they required employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine but now they say the sick time requirement doesn't apply to them.

Hundreds of business groups have written letters to Biden and members of Congress urging them to be prepared to intervene in the contract dispute, if necessary. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh has said he is in daily contact with the railroads and unions urging them to work out a deal.

U.S. rail union representing 4,900 workers narrowly approves contract
Reuters
November 05, 2022


By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A labor union representing about 4,900 rail workers said on Saturday that members narrowly ratified a tentative contract agreement with freight railroads in the United States.

The union representing locomotive machinists, roadway mechanics, and facility maintenance personnel is the seventh of 12 to approve the deal, while two unions previously voted to reject the national deal announced in mid-September.

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) District 19 said 59% of the membership voted and it was approved by 52% of voting members after an initial unsuccessful ratification attempt last month.

The union said it was "confident that this is the best deal for our members" and said it "will continue to amplify the deficiencies in the carriers’ sick leave and attendance policies."

IAM looks "forward to sitting down with the carriers to find a solution to the overtime policies in our industry."

The National Carriers’ Conference Committee (NCCC), which represents freight railroads in labor talks, said unions "have repeatedly agreed that short-term absences would be unpaid in favor of higher compensation for days worked and more generous sickness benefits for longer absences."

Last month, the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen (BRS) union, representing more than 6,000 members, voted against the deal as did the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees (BMWED), which represents 11,000 workers.

BMWED could initiate a work stoppage as early as Nov. 19. The rail deal included a 24% percent wage increase over a five-year period from 2020 through 2024 as well $1,000 lump sum payments in each of the next five years.

The unions represent 115,000 workers at railroads including Union Pacific, BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern and Kansas City Southern.

A rail shutdown could freeze almost 30% of U.S. cargo shipments by weight, stoke inflation, cost the American economy as much as $2 billion per day and unleash a cascade of transport woes affecting U.S. energy, agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare and retail sectors.

Last week, more than 300 groups including the National Retail Federation and National Association of Manufacturers on urged President Joe Biden's involvement to help avoid a potential rail strike.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Jonathan Oatis; editing by Grant McCool)

RAILROADERS DESERVE PAID SICK TIME

No rail strike until after the midterm elections
by Jeremy Lott, Contributor |

WASHINGTON EXAMINER

October 28, 2022 

The midterm election season's waning days brought bad news for the freight railroads and President Joe Biden's administration. A second rail union voted to reject the agreement that had been hammered out between the railroads and the 12 unions representing their workers, making an eventual strike more likely.

This bad news from Oct. 26 was tempered, however, by an agreement between the railroads and the latest union to say no to the deal, the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen. It stipulated that there would be no work stoppage until December at the earliest. The same is likely true for the other holdout unions as well.

The hope of the railroads had been that the first failed vote was essentially a fluke. The vote by members of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division on Oct. 10 had been followed by two more union memberships voting to accept the deal, bringing six of the 12 railroad unions on board.

But half the unions are not the “all aboard” the railroads were hoping for.

"Railroaders do not feel valued,” Tony Cardwell, BMWED union president, told the trade publication Progressive Railroading at the time of the first “no” vote. “They resent the fact that management holds no regard for their quality of life, illustrated by their stubborn reluctance to provide a higher quantity of paid time off, especially for sickness."

The paid time off demand seemed, to many observers, like moving the goalposts, but the railroads tried to persuade workers that this issue had been addressed in negotiations.

Association of American Railroads spokesman Ted Greener pointed the Washington Examiner to a statement from the industry group touting both more money and time off for railroad workers.

According to the new contract, the AAR explained, railroad workers would see a “24 percent wage increase during the five-year period from 2020 through 2024, including an immediate payout on average of $11,000 upon ratification ... $5,000 in performance bonuses [and] total average annual pay” of $110,000. They would also have good healthcare coverage and “employees would receive an additional paid personal leave day per year.”

The rail lobby emphasized that under the new agreements, “Employees will continue to have multiple options for time off and, for those employees who operate trains, the agreements include enhanced abilities to schedule time off and local agreements to be finalized after ratification of the national agreement will further enhance quality of life and the predictability of schedules.”

What the railroads were not willing to do, however, was reopen negotiations with half of the unions left to ratify the new contracts. A second “no” could change the railroads’ willingness to deal, or it could lead to more threats of strike, and a possible intervention by the lame-duck Congress.

In negotiating the new contracts, the railroads and their unions had followed the recommendation of the Biden-appointed Presidential Emergency Board to increase worker pay substantially. Other things were on the table, but compensation was the biggest issue.

The railroads quickly acceded to that demand. It’s possible either that the rank-and-file workers and union negotiators did not see eye to eye on the time-off issue or that unions are currently using the issue to push for greater concessions from the railroads.

Most political rail watchers agree that the Biden administration has managed to dodge at least one bullet with no rail strike before the midterm elections. If so, the administration is dodging a bullet that it fired in the first place.

It is difficult for rail workers to get into a position in which they can legally strike because of the vital nature of their work to America’s supply chains. It can take six months or more to hammer out a new contract, with unions and railroads working things out in front of the National Mediation Board.

Yet at the behest of Biden NMB appointees Linda Puchala and Deirdre Hamilton, the board released the unions and the railroads from “statutory mediation” in June. At that point, negotiations had been ongoing for only two months, which is about as long as it usually takes the two sides to clear their throats.

Over 300 Groups Urge Biden to Help Avoid Rail Shutdown

The Associated Press Oct 27, 2022

Freight train cars sit in a Norfolk Southern rail yard in Atlanta on Sept. 14, 2022. 

(Danny Karnik/ AP Photo)

OMAHA, Neb.—A coalition of 322 business groups from a variety of industries signed off on a letter to President Joe Biden Thursday urging him to make sure the deals he helped broker last month get approved because a railroad strike would have dire consequences for the economy.

All 12 rail unions must approve their agreements to prevent a strike next month and two unions have rejected their deals.

“It is paramount that these contracts now be ratified, as a rail shutdown would have a significant impact on the U.S. economy and lead to further inflationary pressure,” wrote the group, which includes nearly every major trade group and quite a few state business associations.

Biden has been watching the contract dispute closely and appointed a special board of arbitrators this summer to try to help resolve it, but the White House hasn’t said whether he will get personally involved again.

The railroads have offered 24 percent raises and $5,000 in bonuses in the five-year deal, which would be the biggest increases in more than four decades, but the negotiations hinge on quality-of-life concerns. The unions that represent the conductors and engineers who drive the trains want the railroads to ease the punishing schedules that they say keep them on call 24-7, and the other unions want the railroads to add paid sick time.

A strike isn’t imminent because the two unions that voted down their deals agreed to retry negotiations before considering a walkout, but the railroads face a Nov. 19 deadline with one of those unions. Six smaller unions have approved their deals while four others are set to vote over the next month, including the two biggest ones and the engineers and conductors in those two unions have the most quality-of-life concerns.

The head of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division union that rejected its agreement earlier this month said if the railroads won’t consider adding sick time he has no choice but to prepare for a strike next month. Union President Tony Cardwell said railroad executives continue to “bow to Wall Street’s continued desire for more than its fair share” as they report billions in profitRail Strikes.

Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, BNSF, Kansas City Southern, CSX, and the other railroads want any deal to closely follow the compromises recommended by arbitrators Biden appointed, so they have rebuffed all pleas for paid sick time. The industry also argues that the unions opted to forego paid sick leave over the years in favor of higher wages and strong short-term disability benefits that kick in as soon as four days into an absence and can continue up to a year.

Ian Jefferies, who leads the Association of American Railroads trade group, said Thursday the “BMWED’s recent proposal was not a realistic offer” because the union “simply demanded more—and they did so with full knowledge that the railroads would not agree.”

If both sides can’t agree on a deal, Congress may step in and block a strike. The American Fuel and Petrochemical Makers, which endorsed Thursday’s letter, is already lobbying lawmakers to make sure they’re ready to act because refineries rely on railroads to deliver more than 300,000 barrels of crude oil and other chemicals every day.

“We’re heavily stressing the need to avoid a strike at all costs—not just for our industry. It’s going to affect every industry” said Rob Benedict, vice president of midstream for the AFPM.

By Josh Funk

A reply to BMWED President Tony Cardwell: Who has the right to “sanction” a strike—the bureaucracy or the workers?

The Railroad Workers Rank-and-File Committee

WSWS.ORG

Informational picket by railroaders in Kansas City, Kansas [Photo: WSWS]

Dear Mr. Cardwell:

We are writing to respond to your open letter of October 26 to the BMWED membership, in which you attacked “anonymous” “fringe groups” with “dangerous ideas of unsanctioned work stoppages.” We feel all the more obliged to respond because your letter sums up the bureaucratic arrogance of the officials at all 12 unions, not just at the BMWED.

You did not mention who you were referring to, but it is obvious that the target of the letter is the Railroad Workers Rank-and-File Committee. We have been organizing and campaigning among our coworkers to build democratic structures to give railroaders the means to countermand your endless bureaucratic delays of our right to strike. This includes your extension of the “status quo” until “five days after Congress reconvenes”—approximately November 19—following members’ rejection of your tentative agreement two weeks ago.

First of all, let us say that even though you refuse to identify us, there is nothing “anonymous” about us. We conduct our work publicly, holding well-attended online public meetings, organizing informational pickets and distributing and discussing our statements with our coworkers. This is in naked contrast to you, Mr. Cardwell, and the officials in all 12 unions, who conduct your business outside of the view or control of the rank and file.

In your letter, you declare: “Not only is an unsanctioned work stoppage illegal, but an uncoordinated strike is short-sighted and will not produce the result that at least one anonymous group is claiming.” You continue: “Unions that have engaged in illegal strikes have been hit with catastrophic financial penalties. … BMWED will not support or condone an illegal work stoppage and our bylaws prohibit strike wages or other benefits for an illegal strike.”

We condemn this statement in the strongest possible terms. This is nothing more than a naked attempt to scare our coworkers back into line, that you felt the need to say it indicates that the sentiment for strike action is overwhelming, and that workers are tired of being told what they can and can’t do by unaccountable officials.

Your statement is an open declaration that you and the BMWED leadership are prepared to act as strikebreakers, siding with the companies and the government against us. You threaten legal and financial penalties and the withholding of strike pay for any “unsanctioned” strike—unsanctioned because you, Mr. Cardwell, will refuse to sanction it. You then try to cover your tracks by claiming the union is prepared to sanction “coordinated self-help”—i.e., not necessarily a strike—at some point in the future, but the rest of your letter makes clear you are determined to make sure that this never occurs.

What gives you the right to claim sole authority to “sanction” a strike? Workers have already “sanctioned” it long ago. BMWED workers voted by 99 percent in favor of a strike; in BLET, 99.5 percent; in the IAM, 80 percent. Workers have spoken again and again with one voice that we are prepared to strike for what we need and deserve. But you and the bureaucracy in the other unions have simply ignored this. In the IBEW, there is even evidence to suggest that the contract was “passed” through fraud. It is not up to you and your fellow bureaucrats to override us and tell us what to do.

What you say about a strike being “illegal” is a flat-out lie. For three years, you have had the anti-strike provisions of the Railway Labor Act as a convenient cover for your inaction. But all of that went away on September 16, with the end of the last “cooling-off” period. There are, at present, no legal limits to striking or any other form of “self-help” which workers are under. We repeat, for the benefit of our coworkers: We can now legally strike at any time.

It is true that Congress would try to intervene with anti-strike legislation. But that has not happened yet, and we should be putting ourselves in the strongest possible position to answer this threat. The ideal period to strike is right now, in the final weeks before the midterm elections, when Congress is in recess and the political cost of congressional intervention would be greatest.

By extending the strike deadline to “five days after Congress reconvenes,” you are doing the exact opposite, putting Congress in the strongest possible position to answer our strike threat. All of the other unions are also delaying until after the midterms. The BLET even invited Nancy Pelosi, who already drew up anti-strike legislation in the House, to its national convention in early October. There is no other explanation for this except that you want the threat of Congressional intervention hanging over our heads, to give yourselves ammunition to ram this deal through and frighten workers with the threat of “illegality.”

You make the significant confession in your letter that the extension of the strike deadline is not due to any legal reason at all, but a secret agreement which you worked out with the carriers. This “stipulation,” you write, was a condition of the carriers’ agreeing to the TA which workers voted down. To our knowledge, this is the first time this has ever been admitted publicly. Your announcement of the extension on October 10 declared only that the rejection “results in a ‘status quo’ period” and that “there could be no ‘self help’ until after the 19th,” without explaining why or on whose authority. You wanted to create the impression among workers that it was due to some obscure legal requirement, perhaps under the terms of the RLA.

Mr. Cardwell, no genuine workers’ representative ever would have agreed to this, much less concealed it from us. Little wonder this has dragged on for three years. Why would the carriers ever budge if the other side of the table was prepared to make such concessions? The NCCC [National Carriers’ Conference Committee] said on October 19 that it refuses to consider any changes to sick leave or anything else that deviates from the framework set by the Presidential Emergency Board. And why would they, if they know you will never “sanction” a strike, and you are allowing them and Congress to dictate what workers can and can’t do?

We have to give up all of our demands, while the carriers give up virtually nothing. What “stipulations” did you require from the carriers? Nothing. If the negotiating process were controlled by rank-and-file workers, it would go something like this: “Give us our sick days, COLA, lower the years of service for vacation, leave our health care alone. ‘Stipulate’ to that, and we won’t walk out.”

If your arguments that it is “illegal” for us to strike were true, then that could only mean that America is a dictatorship where workers have no rights, with yourselves acting as policemen. We cannot deny the fact that the government is controlled by the rich and has always sided with them against workers, but we still have First Amendment rights, whether you recognize it or not.

In conclusion, Mr. Cardwell, we inform you that workers’ patience is at an end. We are tired of being bureaucratically denied the rights entitled to us by the Constitution and that every other American enjoys.

You accuse the RWRFC of being a “fringe” group. You are the fringe, Mr. Cardwell, not us. We have voted to strike and to reject your garbage contracts. We, the workers, outnumber you 1,000 to 1. The RWRFC was formed to give voice and organization to railroad workers against the attempts to bureaucratically silence us.

You say in your letter: “Workers must be wary of a group throwing disruption grenades from behind a wall of secrecy.” We agree wholeheartedly! Only that applies to you, not to us.

Mr. Cardwell, on behalf of our 120,000 coworkers, we give you the following instructions: If you are not willing to abide by the will of the membership, then get out of the way.

But if there is one thing your letter did, it makes the following crystal clear: We, the rank and file, must take control of this situation ourselves. Brothers and sisters everywhere, organize your own networks, get your rail yards on the same page, share this letter and prepare to fight.

Sincerely,
The Railroad Workers Rank-and-File Committee