Joe Biden is taking credit for rail contract deal which hasn’t been made yet. The thing he can legitimately claim credit for is kicking the can down the road until November. We could still see a freight strike, just in time for the elections.
Rail workers say no deal
Joe Biden came out of the meetings grinning like he just had three scoops of his favorite ice cream and hailed the rail deal he “brokered” as a solution to the whole problem. Nobody solved anything.
All they have is a tentative deal. That’s good enough to drag things out for a while. Maybe even until after the election, they hope. The suits made the deal with the union bosses. Now that workers “are finally seeing the details of the deal,” they don’t like it.
Many rank-and-file rail workers, Star Telegram writes, “say it doesn’t address the most critical issue at hand: quality of life for railroad workers.”
Yesterday we got details of the rail workers deal that averted a strike last week. Some rail workers say they're very concerned about a few provisions buried deep inside of it. I unearth them here. https://t.co/WgddpXiaod
— Noam Scheiber (@noamscheiber) September 23, 2022
They aren’t dying to save their jobs. On Thursday, September 22, the Star-Telegram got a glance at the draft version hammered out for SMART Transportation Division.
Everyone expected the “cumulative 24% raise over five years” and “yearly $1,000 signing bonus.” The rail workers weren’t surprised to learn that their medical insurance premiums will get a 2.4% bump. Workers will pay 15% of the premium cost. Things get dicey from there.
On the surface, a couple provisions look better than they really are. “The agreement provides one additional personal leave day. It also allows members to attend three annual routine or preventive health care visits.”
That won’t work
The big problem with that doctor visit clause is that rail workers have to schedule appointments “at least 30 days in advance,” and they “must take place on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.” If they can’t cope with that, they’ll simply have to work with their particular illness until they drop. Half the time, the train crews don’t know what city they will be in a month from now on a particular day. It’s a start but not a good one.
“Note that this is the first time the carriers have ever agreed to bargain over attendance policies on a national scale, and it opens the door for future negotiation over these issues!” The agreement even included the exclamation point.
Conductor Jon Hauger calls it “a complete joke.” He works for BNSF out of Houser, Idaho. When it comes to doctor’s appointments, you “can’t plan out 30 days in advance. It’s offensive.”
On September 17, the Washington Post wrote “about a BNSF worker who put off a medical appointment and died of a heart attack weeks later on June 16.” Rail worker Aaron Hiles, age 51, “went to work when he was unexpectedly called in, causing him to miss his appointment.”
Hauger isn’t the only rail worker not happy with what he’s reading. “This was 100% a way to avert a strike by an industry that is the very backbone of this nation’s economy prior to the midterms,” he said. “It would have been an absolute death knell for the Dems had we gone on strike.”
The calendar is on autopilot for a while. He plans to vote “no” but won’t get to do it yet. They have waiting and question periods that drag things out to at least the end of October. They’re hoping to stretch that into mid-November.
