Senator Bernie Sanders

The corporate greed never ends. Last year, the rail industry made a record-breaking $20 billion in profits after cutting their workforce by 30% over the last 6 years. Meanwhile, rail workers have ZERO guaranteed paid sick days. Congress must stand with rail workers.

1:55 PM · Nov 27, 2022

https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/statu ... 8832130048

DIRECTFLT wrote:

Senator Bernie Sanders

The corporate greed never ends. Last year, the rail industry made a record-breaking $20 billion in profits after cutting their workforce by 30% over the last 6 years. Meanwhile, rail workers have ZERO guaranteed paid sick days. Congress must stand with rail workers.

1:55 PM · Nov 27, 2022

https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/statu ... 8832130048

I agree with Bernie on this one. I suspect you will get a few progressives in the house to vote NO, such as AOC, but sadly this will be one issue that will breed bipartisanship.

Background on how the US Congress stuck it to the Unions after the strikes of 1945-1946...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_wave_of_1945-1946

Sometimes it is absolutely breathtaking how anti-worker US policy can be.

For those not familiar: am I correct in understanding that "Zero sick days" can be interpreted as:
1) you are a salaried full-time employee
2) you fall sick (e.g. hospital stay) and cannot work
3) the company is entitled to not pay you, while you were sick?

As a railroad employee, I hope the strike happens. The work rules and other bull…stuff has to change.

The reasons that Biden gave for not allowing the strike and insisting that Congress "force" the lame agreement the Union reps agreed to, was the damage to the economy, and national security concerns, etc....

Well, then, RR workers must actually be Federal Workers (without the Federal Benefits) and not know it, because practically speaking RR workers do not have a real option to actually go on strike, EVER.... because economy and national security, etc...

DIRECTFLT wrote:

Well, then, RR workers must actually be Federal Workers (without the Federal Benefits) and not know it, because practically speaking RR workers do not have a real option to actually go on strike, EVER.... because economy and national security, etc...

And profits, don't forget profits.

Sanders seems to be the only sensible senator on this issue. Well, at least from a worker's POV, the railroad companies' owners probably think otherwise.

They might not be allowed to strike, but could they not all just quit? Even if only 30-50% of the work force hand in their notice around the same time it will be devastating and filling the jobs will be very very hard.

Or can they even forbid that in the US?

FluidFlow wrote:

They might not be allowed to strike, but could they not all just quit? Even if only 30-50% of the work force hand in their notice around the same time it will be devastating and filling the jobs will be very very hard.

Or can they even forbid that in the US?

Wouldn't they abrogate their seniority by resigning?

Phosphorus wrote:

FluidFlow wrote:

They might not be allowed to strike, but could they not all just quit? Even if only 30-50% of the work force hand in their notice around the same time it will be devastating and filling the jobs will be very very hard.

Or can they even forbid that in the US?

Wouldn't they abrogate their seniority by resigning?

It be time to get rid of that anyway, this system is tying people to a company and promotes exploitation. Seniority should not be tied to your time at a company but your actual time in a profession. If the rail people really want to change something, they all should quit. I tell you at the moment if 10'000 people quit, the company will go bust. The amount of leverage you would have just to get rehired would be enormous.

Both sides can play this game. Mass terminations are a valid strategy for companies, so mass resignations should be for employees.

FluidFlow wrote:

Phosphorus wrote:

FluidFlow wrote:

They might not be allowed to strike, but could they not all just quit? Even if only 30-50% of the work force hand in their notice around the same time it will be devastating and filling the jobs will be very very hard.

Or can they even forbid that in the US?

Wouldn't they abrogate their seniority by resigning?

It be time to get rid of that anyway, this system is tying people to a company and promotes exploitation. Seniority should not be tied to your time at a company but your actual time in a profession. If the rail people really want to change something, they all should quit. I tell you at the moment if 10'000 people quit, the company will go bust. The amount of leverage you would have just to get rehired would be enormous.

Both sides can play this game. Mass terminations are a valid strategy for companies, so mass resignations should be for employees.

I guess there's a million of things that could go wrong. Also, there's this set of legislation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Labor_Act
Doesn't it have an implicit (or maybe even explicit?) mandate to seniority? At least as far as strikes/replacement labor is concerned?

Phosphorus wrote:

FluidFlow wrote:

Phosphorus wrote:

Wouldn't they abrogate their seniority by resigning?

It be time to get rid of that anyway, this system is tying people to a company and promotes exploitation. Seniority should not be tied to your time at a company but your actual time in a profession. If the rail people really want to change something, they all should quit. I tell you at the moment if 10'000 people quit, the company will go bust. The amount of leverage you would have just to get rehired would be enormous.

Both sides can play this game. Mass terminations are a valid strategy for companies, so mass resignations should be for employees.

I guess there's a million of things that could go wrong. Also, there's this set of legislation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Labor_Act
Doesn't it have an implicit (or maybe even explicit?) mandate to seniority? At least as far as strikes/replacement labor is concerned?

Laws can be changed.

It costs so much to replace staff in general: https://www.alight.com/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to-replace-employee

But this is for normal turnover rates. If a company would lose 30-50% of its staff in the same month, it is done for good.

So if the situation is so desperate, everyone should just hand in their notice. Good luck to the rail companies. No amount of federal help could keep them going. The only thing that prohibits that is Seniority. If Unions really want to help their members, seniority would have to go.

Now imagine 25% of all the Pilots at United had enough and would quit and just hire somewhere else on the same pay as before, because pay is based on experience and not company seniority. United would be done. The bargaining power of employees would become really strong.

For that to happen someone would have to make the first step though. It could be the rail people if they really feel it is too much, but they would have to quit in very large numbers at the same time.

FluidFlow wrote:

...
Laws can be changed.
...

True. In soon to be a century of Railway Labor Act, how many times was it changed? I count less than ten years, when amendments were passed.
A decade each time.
Not impossible. Just how likely?

Phosphorus wrote:

FluidFlow wrote:

...
Laws can be changed.
...

True. In soon to be a century of Railway Labor Act, how many times was it changed? I count less than ten years, when amendments were passed.
A decade each time.
Not impossible. Just how likely?

Thats always hard to say... the more people are unhappy about it and the more problems are caused by a law (as in the more expensive it gets to maintain it) the higher the chance it will be changed.

Not that there's ever necessarily an "ideal" time for a strike, and certainly not with the holidays approaching given how much the parcel carriers use intermodal rail, but... with the declining freight volumes across the world (including within the US) and that most holiday inventory is where it needs to be already, a rail strike in the next 2 weeks wouldn't be nearly as bad as it would've been a couple months ago. Still, not good, and it'd be much preferable to just not have one in the first place.

Perhaps this would be congressional overreach, but they could tie no strike to RRs hiring enough people that there is not a constant critical shortage of workers. The contract itself was not that bad.

The workers have lost the ability to challenge bad sick day and scheduling policies of the railroads with the Congress forcing the settlement on the unions to protect the economy. One day we will see a major deadly train crash due to an engineer who is working even if too sick or too tired to be on duty. Then maybe the government will back up the workers.

ltbewr wrote:

The workers have lost the ability to challenge bad sick day and scheduling policies of the railroads with the Congress forcing the settlement on the unions to protect the economy. One day we will see a major deadly train crash due to an engineer who is working even if too sick or too tired to be on duty. Then maybe the government will back up the workers.

Yep. It always takes a tragedy to get things changed.

DIRECTFLT wrote:

"A letter from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Democratic colleagues promised two votes, reflecting the consternation she was hearing from members. The first vote will be on adopting the tentative labor agreement. The second will be on a measure to add seven days of paid sick leave for railroaders to the agreement."

https://apnews.com/article/business-eco ... fccddff22b

The vast majority of workers in the USA do not get "paid sick time". Its usually all combined into "PTO" which includes vacation, Dr. Appointment time, sick time, etc. There is no federal law requiring sick time.

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

That’s what we had—PTO, a block of PTO plus various shirt and long term disability coverage. Taking time for doctor appts, etc was never a problem and usually not even accounted against PTO unless missing a whole day.

The problem for railroad employees is that PTO has to be "OK'ed" by management and as short-staffed as they are, it's often not allowed, even for Dr appts. If the employee still calls off, not only isn't he paid, but he earns "demerits".

DIRECTFLT wrote:

"A letter from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Democratic colleagues promised two votes, reflecting the consternation she was hearing from members. The first vote will be on adopting the tentative labor agreement. The second will be on a measure to add seven days of paid sick leave for railroaders to the agreement."

https://apnews.com/article/business-eco ... fccddff22b

Now that's micromanagement from the government, if there ever was one.
The right thing would be ordering railroads back to negotiating table, with HSE professionals involved. And no, the whole "we cannot release you from duty, just because you are too sick, and we insist on retaining this right" does sound like a very illegal nonsense. I guess it's somehow STILL legal in the US. Doesn't mean it's something that has a humanly acceptable merit to exist.

DIRECTFLT wrote:

"A letter from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Democratic colleagues promised two votes, reflecting the consternation she was hearing from members. The first vote will be on adopting the tentative labor agreement. The second will be on a measure to add seven days of paid sick leave for railroaders to the agreement."

https://apnews.com/article/business-eco ... fccddff22b

I highly doubt the 7-days sick will get enough votes to pass, our government tends to be much more business friendly. I cant seem to remember when the 30-day cooling off period ended.

FLYFIRSTCLASS wrote:

DIRECTFLT wrote:

"A letter from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Democratic colleagues promised two votes, reflecting the consternation she was hearing from members. The first vote will be on adopting the tentative labor agreement. The second will be on a measure to add seven days of paid sick leave for railroaders to the agreement."

https://apnews.com/article/business-eco ... fccddff22b

I highly doubt the 7-days sick will get enough votes to pass, our government tends to be much more business friendly. I cant seem to remember when the 30-day cooling off period ended.

This explains the procedure of what it will take to get both of the House Resolutions passed through the US Senate, and what roadblocks and delays there could be as the strike date approaches...

"Both House-passed resolutions—with resolutions having the same effect as legislation, and each applying to most Class I railroads and their 12 labor unions—now proceed to the Senate where passage will be trickier, owing to that chamber’s unique parliamentary rules."

https://www.railwayage.com/regulatory/s ... under-way/

Biden has demanded that the 1st Resolution be on his desk to sign by the weekend, with, or without the 2nd Resolution (with the Paid Sick Leave) being passed. See what they're doing there...

DIRECTFLT wrote:

Biden has demanded that the 1st Resolution be on his desk to sign by the weekend, with, or without the 2nd Resolution (with the Paid Sick Leave) being passed. See what they're doing there...

Yep, screw the workers by making them go back with a "promise" of something better in the future. Like I keep saying--when a politician runs for office, he says what the voters want to hear. Once he's elected, he does what the big money donors tell him to do.

“Unless Congress wants to become the de facto endgame for future negotiations, any effort to put its thumb on the bargaining scale to artificially advantage either party, or otherwise obstruct a swift resolution, would be wholly irresponsible,” said Ian Jefferies, head of the AAR.

On the other hand, the Transportation Trades Department labor coalition that includes all the rail unions praised the vote to add sick time and told lawmakers who voted against it they had “abandoned your working class constituents.”

The focus now turns to the Senate where the timing for a vote is unclear. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg will meet with Democratic senators Thursday to discuss the rail negotiations.

https://apnews.com/article/business-eco ... fccddff22b

LCDFlight wrote:

DIRECTFLT wrote:

Senator Bernie Sanders

The corporate greed never ends. Last year, the rail industry made a record-breaking $20 billion in profits after cutting their workforce by 30% over the last 6 years. Meanwhile, rail workers have ZERO guaranteed paid sick days. Congress must stand with rail workers.

1:55 PM · Nov 27, 2022

https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/statu ... 8832130048

Obviously this is false. Railroaders make high salaries and have paid time off. It is just not called “sick time.”

It makes me sad when people lie.

So if you are unwell does it count as part of holiday entitlement?.

bennett123 wrote:

LCDFlight wrote:

DIRECTFLT wrote:

Senator Bernie Sanders

The corporate greed never ends. Last year, the rail industry made a record-breaking $20 billion in profits after cutting their workforce by 30% over the last 6 years. Meanwhile, rail workers have ZERO guaranteed paid sick days. Congress must stand with rail workers.

1:55 PM · Nov 27, 2022

https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/statu ... 8832130048

Obviously this is false. Railroaders make high salaries and have paid time off. It is just not called “sick time.”

It makes me sad when people lie.

So if you are unwell does it count as part of holiday entitlement?.

Generally speaking yes, if you are unwell and unable to work, it would come out of a "holiday allotment" However, most companies do not call it holiday or vacation time. It is just personal time off. This could be for periods of sickness, holiday, time to attend to any type of personal business outside of work.

FLYFIRSTCLASS wrote:

bennett123 wrote:

LCDFlight wrote:

Obviously this is false. Railroaders make high salaries and have paid time off. It is just not called “sick time.”

It makes me sad when people lie.

So if you are unwell does it count as part of holiday entitlement?.

Generally speaking yes, if you are unwell and unable to work, it would come out of a "holiday allotment" However, most companies do not call it holiday or vacation time. It is just personal time off. This could be for periods of sickness, holiday, time to attend to any type of personal business outside of work.

My understanding that paid holidays are quite limited in the US already.

LCDFlight wrote:

[...] and have paid time off. It is just not called “sick time.”

It makes me sad when people lie.

Source?

Just want to know specifically which elements of their current contracts you are referring to that cover what you are stating since you are also stating others are lying regarding it.

As to the efforts by Congress to head off a rail strike, two bills have passed the House and are now under Senate review with hopes of passing something in the next few days (I don't think today is really possible). The main bill is the contract that included only "sick day" one and four unions had turned down and decided to strike over. The second bill, that had little House Republican support, added seven sick days to the contract.

While there is a fair amount of mostly Republican resistance to the added sick days, most in Congress (including Manchin) do not want to be seen as "being against allowing a worker sick days" so I think a compromise of 5 days will be brokered. With the revised contract imposed on the railway companies as much as on the unions.

https://news.yahoo.com/schumer-senate-n ... 48231.html

Tugg

LCDFlight wrote:

When I worked in the transportation industry, I remember my company gave me an additional week of PTO. This was meant to account for the loss of 2 weeks of official sick time.

An advocate would say that I had "no paid sick time." There are many people -- including very, very highly paid people with lots of time off -- who technically have "no paid sick days." This is a propaganda trick. The goal is of the propaganda to make money for the union, so the union leaders can buy bigger boats. Meanwhile, the workers actually do have time off, which is paid, available for when they get sick. If there is an operational block on sick leave, that's the real story, and it's not about "paid sick leave."

Anyway, so that's my personal experience.

OK, understood, thanks. Last question then, were you under the union contract?

Tugg

I'm annoyed, though not surprised, by the demonstrated bipartisan anti-worker politics. If rail workers are worth $2B each day, let them strike and negotiate appropriate working conditions. If they're essential to the state, turn them into federal employees. This current micromanagement by Congress is plain silly.

Where I work, we start off with 3 weeks vacation time, 5 days of sick leave, 5 days of bereavement days and 3 days for personal use which is in our Collective Agreement. Federal and Provincial Governments here in Canada are finally catching up to the 20th Century and coming up with plans to mandate sick days for all workers as it should be.

When I worked in Germany years ago, we, by law, you have 20 days of paid vacation (most employers give 30) and 6 weeks of paid sick leave, again, by law.

Grouping vacation, sick days, personal days into one lump category is beyond archaic.

ACDC8 wrote:

Where I work, we start off with 3 weeks vacation time, 5 days of sick leave, 5 days of bereavement days and 3 days for personal use which is in our Collective Agreement. Federal and Provincial Governments here in Canada are finally catching up to the 20th Century and coming up with plans to mandate sick days for all workers as it should be.

When I worked in Germany years ago, we, by law, you have 20 days of paid vacation (most employers give 30) and 6 weeks of paid sick leave, again, by law.

Grouping vacation, sick days, personal days into one lump category is beyond archaic.

I tend to agree. This whole "you are sick, so use your vacation time" just doesn't compute.
Beyond being patently unfair, it's also simply dangerous -- if a safety-critical position is short-staffed, and the company refuses your "vacation request" when you are down with something as simple as flu? You what? Show up, partly incapacitated, and also infect other folks?
Unfair, dangerous, and outright stupid, IMHO.

And to fix that, for one specific type of work (all others aren't affected), you need Congress calculating sick days -- whether one or five??

Everyone needs to take a breather every once in awhile to recharge, thats what vacation days are for - to use those up if you're sick is counterproductive.

LCDFlight wrote:

DIRECTFLT wrote:

Senator Bernie Sanders

The corporate greed never ends. Last year, the rail industry made a record-breaking $20 billion in profits after cutting their workforce by 30% over the last 6 years. Meanwhile, rail workers have ZERO guaranteed paid sick days. Congress must stand with rail workers.

1:55 PM · Nov 27, 2022

https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/statu ... 8832130048

Obviously this is false. Railroaders make high salaries and have paid time off. It is just not called “sick time.”

It makes me sad when people lie.

Point is that Paid Time Off combines holidays and sickness. In Europe (as an example) you get paid holidays (normally 20 days a year or more) and time off for sickness is on top.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-63829123

Interesting that Congress split this into 3 votes, and then voted 2 of them down.

Again - RRs need to hire enough people that existing workers can take needed sick leave, paid or not. Pilots are not only allowed, they are required to refuse to fly if they are sick. RRing is dangerous enough that workers should not report in if they are disabled by sickness.

frmrCapCadet wrote:

Again - RRs need to hire enough people that existing workers can take needed sick leave, paid or not. Pilots are not only allowed, they are required to refuse to fly if they are sick. RRing is dangerous enough that workers should not report in if they are disabled by sickness.

cannot disagree with that. The whole idea of "you are partly incapacitated, but gotta push it, go ride that train" or "go run those switches at that marshalling/classification yard" is ridiculous.
They don't allow people to work while under alcohol or on drugs. But a sick person can be similarly dizzy, and through no choice of their own -- and still is expected to work.
Doesn't compute.

bennett123 wrote:

FLYFIRSTCLASS wrote:

bennett123 wrote:

So if you are unwell does it count as part of holiday entitlement?.

Generally speaking yes, if you are unwell and unable to work, it would come out of a "holiday allotment" However, most companies do not call it holiday or vacation time. It is just personal time off. This could be for periods of sickness, holiday, time to attend to any type of personal business outside of work.

My understanding that paid holidays are quite limited in the US already.

I would tend to agree with the paid holidays as well. Some companies to offer this as a benefit, but most do not. You are expected to work holidays with no additional compensation.

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

There’s the fact, the RR unions haven’t for decades negotiated for sick time says a lot. It’s not the Congress, nor the company’s entire doing—the unions aren’t willing to fight the battle prefers g other compensation deals. Airline pilots have had sick time for years, ALPA fought for it in contracts.

Am I correct in understanding that it has become an issue recently -- because the sick time is not available in principle, due to understaffing?

The way I read it, of course workers would prefer paid sick time off, but compensation was good enough, that folks could forego some pay, while sick, or take days from PTO pool. Because somebody was out there to pick up the slack.

Now, with operation under-staffed, their "request for PTO" (which in reality is actually "calling in sick", but cannot be called that way because contract doesn't allow it) is routinely denied. Which means people showing up sick.

Or am I reading this whole "was - is" wrong?