Rail Union Extends ‘Cooling Off’ Period

One of the railroad labor unions that rejected an amended contract has agree to extend its cooling  off period to be in line with other unions that also rejected the contract.

The Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen and the National Carriers Conference Committee, which represents railroad management, agreed to maintain the status quo through midnight Dec. 9.

That same date has been agreed to by three other unions who members rejected the contract. Eight other railroad labor unions voted to ratify the contract.

A national railroad work stoppage could begin as soon as 12:01 a.m. on Dec. 9 unless the two sides agree to a different contract, they extend the cooling off period to allow for more negotiations, or Congress steps in to foreclose a work stoppage.

A Primmer on What Lies Ahead in the Coming Weeks in the Rail Labor Contract Dispute

Writing on the website of Railway Age, Frank Wilner said predicting what will happen in the next phase of the contract talks between railroad labor unions and management is akin to trying to find a black cat in a dark room.

It’s an apt description because neither side is going to reveal what it is willing to give up and what it absolutely must have in the negotiations to amend the contract that governs wages, benefits and work rules at most Class 1 railroads and many smaller ones. Tipping your hand is not a good negotiating strategy even if bluffing and posturing might be.

The major talking point of most stories to date is that a national railroad work stoppage looms as early as Dec. 4, the date one of the unions rejecting the contract has said is the earliest it might strike. Other stories have given Dec. 9 as the most likely date a work stoppage could begin.

At this point the railroad contract negotiations have become a contest of wills with each side seeking to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their adversary and how best to exploit those.

Under the federal Railway Labor Act contracts in the railroad industry never expire but can be amended, which is what is going on now.

Talks to amend the contract began in early 2020. It is typical for contract talks to drag out for years before reaching an agreement.

What we know at this point is that members of four of the 12 railroad labor unions involved in the negotiations have rejected the proposed amended contract.

Those unions and the percentage they represent of the approximately 115,000 railroad workers they represent include the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees (19 percent), Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen (6 percent), International Association of Boilermakers and Blacksmiths (1 percent) and SMART-TD, excluding yardmasters (30 percent).

The eight unions that have ratified the tentative agreement and the percentage of the total their members represent are the American Train Dispatchers Association (1 percent), Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (20 percent), Brotherhood of Railway Carmen (7 percent), International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (5 percent), International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (5 percent), Mechanical Division of SMART (1 percent), National Conference of Firemen and Oilers (2 percent), and the Transportation Communications Union (3 percent). 

Although it remains to be seen how the contract dispute will eventually be resolved, there are a number of directions it could go.

The four unions that rejected the contract could reach a different – and presumably from their standpoint better – agreement than the one they turned down. If so, those provisions would be applied to the contracts already ratified.

There is widespread agreement on both sides that this is the best option. But is it the most realistic one?

The carriers have issued public statements saying they will not offer any more concessions and that any changes in the proposed contract amendments must be in alignment with the recommendations of a presidential emergency board tissues its findings for a new contract back in August.

That statement was posturing even if it probably reflects generally how the carriers view the negotiations.

That is bad news for the unions who through their own public statements have said the sticking point is not how much money their members will make in wages – the two sides have agreed on that – but a demand for paid sick time off from work.

Another avenue is the leaders of the unions rejecting the contract could override the will of their members and agree to submit the contract dispute to binding arbitration.

This doesn’t happen often, but it has occurred, most recently in 1996 when officers of the United Transportation Union overrode member rejection of a tentative agreement in favor of binding arbitration.

If negotiations fail, there are several ways the dispute can go but all of them lead back to Congress imposing a settlement.

It would be a matter of how lawmakers choose to do that. Congress has stepped in before, most recently 1992, the last time a national railroad work stoppage occurred.

Congress could impose terms of a settlement, it could order the appointment of a new presidential emergency board or it could direct the parties to submit to binding arbitration.

Lawmakers could also order workers to go back to work and the two sides to return to the bargaining table. In such an event there will be a long “cooling off” period imposed in which a strike or lockout would be prohibited.

All of those courses of action carry risks which is why both sides would prefer to reach a negotiated settlement.

The risk is getting stuck with an “settlement” that contains one or more provisions you consider unpalatable.

For unions that could mean having imposed on them a contract that is less generous than the one some of them voted to reject.

As for what happens in early December if no negotiated agreement has been reached and Congress has not acted, that remains to be seen.

That deadline only means that by law union members are legally able to strike and railroads are legally able to lock out their employees.

It doesn’t necessarily mean there will be a work stoppage on that day even if that seems likely given the heated rhetoric being tossed about. The timing of when to strike or when to lock out your workers is critical and involves a calculation of when is the most advantageous time to actually go to war.

That might be sooner, it might be later. What might you be better positioned to gain now that you might be less likely to gain later and vice versa?

The unions and carriers have signaled that no work stoppage will occur if Congress is not in session. That suggests no one wants a work stoppage to last any longer than “necessary,” whatever that might ,mean.

In the past unions have sought to conduct limited strikes by targeting one carrier while still working at others.

The carriers have foiled this strategy by locking out workers in the belief that a strike again one railroad is strike against all of them. Likewise, if one union strikes, the remaining unions will honor picket lines.

In the past, railroad strikes and lockouts have been of short duration, usually a few days with the longest since World War having been four days.

The conventional wisdom is that the adverse effect of a railroad work stoppage is something the nation’s economy can’t tolerate.

That is still true and is, in fact, something the unions are counting on to force the carriers to give in on the sick days issue.

But there are other considerations that come into play, including political calculus.

The most recent mid-term elections have preserved the Democrats paper-thin margin of control of the Senate. The House will be in control of Republicans starting in January.

No one may want an economy-disrupting railroad work stoppage, but there are still gains to be had if one were to occur.

Republicans in Congress will see a work stoppage as an opportunity to inflict political damage on President Joseph Biden – at least for a time.

Democrats will see an opportunity to burnish their reputations or perceived reputations of being pro-labor — at least for a time.

It would take at least 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a potential filibuster of any proposed contract settlement. That could get dicey because it will put members of Congress into a position to have to vote on something they would rather avoid.

But at some point Congress faces the prospect of having to act lest the economy continue to suffer intolerable damage.

Another reality is that a strike would affect millions of Americans and they are not going to remain passive as they suffer economic harm and inconvenience.

The involvement of other audiences in the dispute is going to play a major role in dictating how the fight will be resolved.

Each side will be taking its best shot at influencing how those audiences view the dispute. In fact that process has been going on for several months now.

If a work stoppage occurs and if Congress does not immediately act to end it, the calculations change yet again.

Striking railroad workers will immediately see their health care insurance benefits cut off and although they will receive strike pay and, eventually, unemployment benefits, those would be just a portion of what they normally earn in wages. That will plunge some railroad workers into an economic purgatory and bring financial hardships to all of them.

Railroads will lose revenue and that will hurt them financially. Yet today’s Class 1 railroads are well positioned to weather a long work stoppage. They are not Penn Central, Erie Lackawanna, the Rock Island or the Milwaukee Road, all of which in the 1970s were strapped for cash and ended up in bankruptcy court.

Class 1 railroads today may be having customer service issues, experiencing work shortages, and losing market share to trucks, but they are not losing money. Today’s Class 1 railroads have never been financially stronger.

It is noteworthy that the margin of SMART-TD members rejecting the contract was barely over 50 percent. The percentage of BLET members voting in favor of the contract was just over 53 percent.

This is significant because it shows a split in thinking among unionized railroaders that could potentially come into play in the current dispute.

The unions are not as united as the front they are seeking to put up. Internal strife could become a factor in the dispute as those missed paychecks begin to take their toll on the household budgets of railroaders.

It also could hold longer-term implications. The railroads have not sought to hide their desire to reduce the number of conductors assigned to trains. The unions have managed to thwart those efforts for now, but the conductor issue is not going to go away.

Fissures within unions that break open during a strike and/or work stoppage could weaken unions longer term and that is something railroad management will look to exploit and union leadership fears.

For that matter the continuous relationship between railroad labor and management will continue to linger beyond whatever “settlement” is reached in the current round of contract talks because the working conditions issue that railroadrts talk a lot about these days isn’t going away either. But that is a discussion for another day.

In the meantime, railroads are likely to begin curtailing as soon as Nov. 28 shipments of certain commodities as the early December work stoppage date approaches if no new settlement is reached.

Trains magazine reported that a work stoppage would complicate the shipping of agricultural commodities due to record low water levels that have halted Mississippi River barge traffic.

There is only only so much that trucking companies can do to pick up the slack due to a shortage of trucks.

Still, shippers are likely to divert freight to highways in advance of the strike deadline. They took similar action in September when another strike/ockout deadline loomed.

However this current dispute is “resolved,” a lot of folks are going to come away displeased if not angry. Some of them are going to get a harsh lesson in the realities of labor-management relations. It will be but one chapter in an ongoing novel and a nice, tidy ending.

2 Largest Rail Unions Give Contract a Split Decision

The last votes on ratifying a new contract are now in and the tally shows a split decision that could result in December in a national railroad work stoppage.

Members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen voted to ratify the contract while members of the Transportation Division of International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers narrowly voted to reject it.

What happens next is unclear. Most news reports have indicated that a work stoppage – if one were to occur through either a strike, lockout or both – would not occur before Dec. 9.

BLET and SMART-TD were the last of 12 railroad labor unions to release results of ratification voting.

Members of four of those unions voted to reject the contract while members of the other eight unions voted to accept it.

Technically, union members were not voting on a new contract as such but on amendments to the existing contract. Under federal railway labor laws labor contracts in the railroad industry never expire but are instead amended on a schedule of roughly every five years.

However, it can take years to go through that process with the latest talks having begun before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in early 2020.

The amendments that unionized railroad workers voted on involve wage benefits and work rules at most Class I railroads and some smaller railroads.

BLET members, who constitute 20 percent of the unionized railroad labor force, voted to accept the contract by a margin of 53.5 percent in favor to 46.5 percent opposed.

A narrow margin of 50.87 percent of SMART-TD members voted against the contract.

SMART-TD members constitute 30 percent of the unionized railroad labor force affected by the contract amendments.

Notably, railroad yardmasters who are represented by SMART-TD voted to ratify the contract agreement.

What happens next remains to be seen. Statements issued by the unions that rejected the contract indicated they planned to return to the bargaining table.

Statements issued by the entities representing the carriers have said they will not agree to any more contract changes that are not covered by the recommendations of a presidential emergency board that issued its non-binding findings in late summer.

The PEB recommended higher wage increases than the carriers had offered during negotiations but was largely silent on the issue of time off for workers who are ill or need time off to attend medical appointments.

Potentially, Congress could step in and impose a settlement of the labor dispute as it did during the last railroad work stoppage in 1992.

Rail Stoppage Won’t Happen Before Early December

A possible national railroad work stoppage won’t come before early December.

The National Carriers Conference Committee and Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters have agreed to extend a cooling off period until Dec. 4. It had been set to expire on Nov. 19.

The maintenance workers union’s members earlier rejected a tentative contract agreement and the two sides have yet to reach another pact.

Members of another union, the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen, also also voted to reject the tentative agreement, which has been ratified by members of seven other unions.

The two largest railroad labor unions, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and the SMART-Transportation Division are still voting on ratification and expected to announce results later this month.

Machinist Union Members Ratify Contract

A seventh railroad labor union has ratified a contract with management.

The International Association of Machinists (District 19) said on Saturday that 52 percent of its members ratified the contract agreement.

It becomes the first union whose members ratified the contract after previously voting to turn down an earlier contract agreement.

Thus far members of two unions – the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, and the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen – have turned down the contract.

Both of those unions continue to negotiate with the National Carriers Conference Committee, which represents railroad management.

Three other unions have yet to complete the ratification process, including unions representing locomotive engineers and conductors.

A work stoppage could occur as early as Nov. 19. The maintenance of way union has said it would not strike before that date.

The next union to announce ratification results will be the International Association of Boilermakers and Blacksmiths on Nov. 14.

“We are confident that this is the best deal for our members,” the IAM rail division said in a statement announcing the results of the ratification process.

“District 19 leadership worked day and night to communicate the agreement’s benefits and what would happen if it was rejected.”

In the meantime, numerous trade associations representing railroad shippers have urged Congress to step in and legislate a settlement before a work stoppage can occur.

Railway Age reported that Senators Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) and Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) are expected to sponsor legislation heading off a work stoppage.

They plan to make that effort shortly after the Nov. 8 elections. Earlier, Burr and Wicker introduced a resolution to impose the recommendations issued in August by a presidential emergency board.

That resolution was cited by IAM leadership as a example of what could happen if union members rejected the contract reached with the NCCC.

The PEB recommendations did not include some additional benefits pertaining to time off and sick days that the contract contains.

The presidents of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, and the SMART Transportation Division are expected to make similar arguments during a town hall meeting to be held Nov. 9, Railway Age reported.

Both presidents, Dennis Pierce and Jeremy Ferguson respectively, had initially refrained from heartily endorsing ratification of the contract, but of late have begun to urge their members to approve it.

The Railway Age report said rail union leaders and labor-friendly members of Congress are increasingly fearful that President Joseph Biden, who has often called himself the most labor friendly president of all time, will not be so labor friendly should a work stoppage occur and it begins to damage the nation’s economy.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh said on Friday in an interview with CNN that he expects Congress to block a work stoppage later this month.

Walsh, who was instrumental in brokering a tentative contract agreement in September, said he prefers that the two sides work out their differences at the bargaining table.

But if that doesn’t happen, “Congress will have to take action to avert a strike in our country,” Walsh said.

Other unions that have ratified the contract include the American Train Dispatchers Association, Brotherhood of Railway Carmen, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, National Conference of Firemen and Oilers, SMART Mechanical Division, and Transportation Communications Union.

Union Had Demanded More Paid Sick Days

The negotiating team representing railroad management said on Thursday that a railroad labor union whose members rejected a tentative contract offer is seeking additional paid sick days.

The National Carriers Conference Committee told negotiators for the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters that the railroads would not agree to that demand.

On Thursday the NCCC, which represents railroad management, issued a statement saying the demands made by the union were similar to those considered and rejected by a presidential emergency board, which in August had issued recommendations for a new contract.

The PEB had been appointed after the talks for a new contract had reached an impasse.

The NCCC statement describes the wage and benefits recommended by the PEB and included in the tentative contract offer rejected by the maintenance workers as “the most generous wage package in almost 50 years of national rail negotiations.”

The NCCC statement went on to say that the union has taken the stance that railroaders are not allowed to take sick leave, which the NCCC said is a premise that is “easily disproven.”

“Rail employees can and do take time off for sickness and have comprehensive paid sickness benefits starting, in the case of BMWED-represented employees, after four days of absence and lasting up to 52 weeks,” the NCCC statement said.

The statement went on to say that past collective bargaining agreements reflected the agreement by union and management alike that “short-term absences would be unpaid in favor of higher compensation for days worked and more generous sickness benefits for longer absences.”

In ratification voting, 43 percent of the maintenance workers favored accepting the tentative agreement.

Members of six other railroad labor unions have voted to accept the contract while the ratification process continues at five other unions. The ratification process is not expected to be completed before Nov. 17.

The maintenance workers union leadership has suggested that its members might strike on or after Nov. 19.

Railway Age magazine reported that the maintenance workers union leadership has recommended that its members contact their members of Congress to express the need for more paid sick days.

“The push for paid sick time off could potentially lead to Congressional action,” the union said. “While we hope the carriers will acknowledge the concerns of their employees and negotiate with us, it is important that we are prepared for their unwillingness to address quality of life concerns.”

A report written by the magazine’s Washington correspondent Frank Wilner said the Nov. 19 date for a strike would fall during a time when many members of Congress will not be in Washington to vote on legislation to end a work stoppage.

Wilner said it may also be a transition time with control of Congress set to change in early January as a result of the early November elections.

“Many members who were defeated or are retiring will be negotiating new employment with lobbying and law firms—a Washington ‘revolving door’ tradition,” Wilner wrote. “There will be incentive for many to double-down on pro- or anti-labor images, or avoid choosing sides and not vote. In short, lame-duck sessions are the worst of times for such a rail work stoppage to occur.”

Trains magazine reported on its website that railroads and their unions are still completing the details of a clause in the tentative agreement requiring railroads to pay some job-related travel expenses.

That report quoted Union Pacific CEO Lance Fritz as saying that once union members have more details on how travel expenses will be handled that it is likely union members will approve the tentative contract.

2 More Rail Labor Unions Ratify New Pact

Members of two more railroad labor unions have ratified new labor contracts.

The latest to approve the new pacts are the SMART Railroad, Mechanical and Engineering Department, and the National Conference of Firemen & Oilers.

They are the fifth and sixth labor unions to ratify the contracts. Five other unions are in the ratification process while a 12^th union has rejected its pact and returned to the bargaining table with the National Carriers Conference Committee, which represents railroad management.

The SMART MD said 54 percent of those voting favored ratifying the new contract.

The ratification process among the other unions is expected to play out through late November.

Rail Unions Heads ‘Neutral’ on Contract Vote

Both letters indicated that their purpose is to provide information about the agreement so members can decide for themselves how to vote.

Ferguson, however, engaged in some inflammatory rhetoric, telling members, “I understand the desire amongst many of you to strike. I know the contempt the carriers treat you with at work and have faced it in negotiations.”

BLET and SMART-TD are the largest of 12 railroad labor unions that reached tentative labor agreements with the National Carriers Conference Committee on the eve of a potential national rail work stoppage on Sept. 16.

Three of those unions have since voted to ratify those contracts. Another union representing mechanical workers rejected a tentative agreement, but its leadership agreed to another contract in subsequent negotiating. That second tentative agreement is now in the ratification process.

Leaders of the BLET and SMART-TD have said they don’t expect to announce results of the ratification voting until mid-November.

Unions Tout Gains, Carriers Resume Accept New Shipments With Work Stoppage Averted

The tentative labor contract reached early Thursday morning that averted a railroad work stoppage was reached after both sides made concessions during intense bargaining that occurred after midnight as U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh intervened.

The concessions largely dealt with work rules and the 24 percent compounded wage increase over the five years of the contract that the parties agreed upon largely mirrors the recommendation of a presidential emergency board.

A statement issued by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, and the SMART Transportation Division, indicated that workers will receive “the largest wage increases in more than 45 years while holding the line on insurance costs and co-pays and addressing scheduling issues.”

The union statement said the latter includes providing for time off. “For the first time, our unions were able to obtain negotiated contract language exempting time off for certain medical events from carrier attendance policies,” the statement said.

Another hot button issue, crew size, was somewhat addressed in the tentative agreement, although the unions sought to frame that as a matter of taking “the crew consist issue off the table.”

Railroads want to restructure the jobs of conductors by making most of those positions ground-based jobs in which individual conductors would be responsible for multiple trains over a defined geographic area.

Unions have adamantly insisted that every road train have a conductor and engineer onboard.

The tentative agreement will now be submitted to BLET and SMART-TD members for ratification.

The Railway Age report noted that the contract “sweeteners” reached by BLET and SMART-TD also will be applied to other tentative agreements.

This would apply to contracts already ratified by two unions, the Transportation Communications Union/IAM, and the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen, and rejected by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 19.

Presumably the latter will submit the amended agreement to another ratification vote by its members.

Six unions that had reached tentative agreements with the NCCC were still in the ratification process and the “sweeteners” will apply to there contracts.

Yet another union, the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, was still at the bargaining table along the BLET and SMART-TD

One report indicated that the signal workers union’s negotiating team had agreed to a tentative pact with NCCC, but the union’s leadership refused to endorse it or submit it to members for ratification.

Ratification by any of the unions of the latest tentative agreement is not a sure thing, thus the threat of a strike and/or lockout could re-emerge several weeks from now.

In a statement, the Association of American Railroads said upon ratification of the contract union members will be paid, on average, $11,000 per worker in back pay because the contract terms are backdated to 2020.

The tentative contract, if ratified, will extend through 2024. Under federal labor law, railroad contracts never expire, but can be amended.

The BLET and SMART-TD statement said the tentative agreements provides for voluntary assigned days off for road train crews and an additional paid day off.

“Most importantly, for the first time ever, the agreement provides our members with the ability to take time away from work to attend routine and preventative medical [appointments], as well as exemptions from attendance policies for hospitalizations and surgical procedures,” the statement said.

The unions claimed they were able to block the desire of railroad management “to fast-track arbitration on crew consist agreements.”

This will mean two-person crews will continue for the indefinite future, the unions said.

However, the unions conceded on the demands that railroad drop attendance polices that unions had described as “draconian.”

Nor were the unions able to achieve their goal of creating predictable work schedules.

These two issues will instead be subject to “local handling.”

Aside from the involvement of Labor Secretary Walsh, President Joseph Biden also made calls to both side to apply pressure to reach an agreement.

Also participating during the overnight bargaining were Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese, and National Mediation Board member Linda Puchala.

The last railroad work stoppage occurred in the early 1990s.

In the wake of the announcement of a tentative agreement, railroads began cancelling freight embargoes and again accepting intermodal, security-sensitive, and hazardous cargo shipments.

Norfolk Southern sent a notice to shippers that it has reopened all gates effective immediately.

To read more about the tentative agreement visit https://www.railwayage.com/freight/class-i/no-work-stoppage-for-now/

and https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/freight-railroad-strike-averted-thanks-to-tentative-contract-agreements/

Tentative Deal Will Head Off Rail Strike

A national railroad strike has been averted for now after railroad labor unions and management reached a nearly 11^th hour tentative agreement on a new contract.

The tentative agreement was announced by President Joseph Biden early Thursday morning.

Details about the agreement are not yet available but a statement issued by the Association of American Railroads indicated that the pact adopted the recommendation of a presidential emergency board of a 24 percent compounded wage increase over the five-year length of the contract.

This includes an average of $11,000 in back pay per worker upon ratification of the agreement, AAR said.

The tentative agreement runs from 2020 through 2024.

The AAR statement said nothing about work rules, particularly time off. A report on the website Politico quoted House Transportation Chair Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) as saying unions were seeking an additional five unpaid sick days.

The Biden administration had been working throughout the week to head off a potential strike and/or lockout that could have occurred as early as Friday morning.

In announcing the agreement, Biden said it, “will keep our critical rail system working and avoid disruption of our economy.”

The tentative contract would still need to be ratified by the unions involved and it is not clear if the rank and file will do so.

On Wednesday members of the Transportation Communications Union/IAM, and the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen said their members had approved tentative agreements reached earlier with the National Carriers Conference Committee, which represents railroad management.

However, on that same day the The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 19 said its members rejected a tentative agreement with NCCC.

Through Wednesday, nine labor unions had reached tentative agreements with NCCC and statements issued by both sides indicated that those agreements generally adopted the recommendations of the presidential emergency board that Biden had appointed earlier this summer to investigate the contract dispute.

Contract negotiations have been dragging on for more than two years with the two sides stalemated over wages, benefits and work rules.

In recent days, the president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, Dennis Pierce, had said that work rules and not wages were the primary sticking point preventing an agreement.

The unions have for months been bitterly complaining about what they termed “draconian” attendance policies imposed by Class 1 carriers, particularly BNSF and Union Pacific.

In announcing the tentative agreement, Biden said, “these rail workers will get better pay, improved working conditions, and peace of mind around their health care costs: all hard-earned.”

He added that the agreement “is also a victory for railway companies who will be able to retain and recruit more workers for an industry that will continue to be part of the backbone of the American economy for decades to come.”