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Railroads Must Be Brought Under Public Ownership

By General Executive Board - United Electrical Workers, January 30, 2023

Statement of the UE General Executive Board

Railroads are a crucial part of our nation’s infrastructure. Nearly every sector of our economy depends on goods shipped by the railroads, which haul forty percent of all long-distance freight in the U.S., measured by ton-miles. A third of all exports travel by rail. Furthermore, the greater fuel efficiency of using rail to move both people and freight means that moving more of our transportation onto the railroads will be necessary to address the existential threat of climate change.

Yet the private owners of our nation’s Class 1 railroads have shown themselves utterly incapable of facing the challenge of the climate crisis, dealing fairly with their own workers, or even meeting the most basic needs of their customers. The railroad companies cannot even be said to be in the business of moving freight; they are merely in the business of using their monopoly control over the nation’s rail infrastructure to squeeze as much profit as possible from customers and workers at the behest of their Wall Street shareholders.

Therefore, we demand that Congress immediately begin a process of bringing our nation’s railroads under public ownership. Public ownership of part or all of their rail systems has allowed many other countries to create rail systems that can move people and goods quickly, affordably, and in an environmentally sound way. With public ownership, governments can take the long view and make crucial infrastructure investments — and prevent price-gouging.

Railroads are, like utilities, “natural monopolies.” The consolidation of the Class 1 railroads in the U.S. into five massive companies over the past several decades has made it clear that there is no “free market” in rail transportation. With most customers having no other choice, and no central authority mandating long-term planning, each individual railroad company has little incentive to make investments in infrastructure and every temptation to take as much of their income as possible as profits. Even Martin Oberman, chair of the Surface Transportation Board, the federal agency that regulates rail, has called the railroads “monopolists” who are cutting services and raising prices because “that’s the easiest way for them to get rich.”

In their endless thirst for profit, the railroads have implemented a system called “precision scheduled railroading,” which simply means operating with as few staff as possible — speed-up by another name. Shippers have been complaining about the resulting poor service for years, and during the pandemic our entire economy paid the price with snarled supply lines leading to shortages and price hikes. The railroads do not even seem interested in expanding their share of the freight market, instead seeking to extract more and more short-term profit out of customers for whom rail is the only feasible way to ship their products.

The effect on railroad workers has been even more severe. In order to implement precision scheduled railroading, the companies have imposed draconian attendance policies which make it virtually impossible for railroad workers to take any time off, even for medical reasons. This intolerable state of affairs almost led to a railroad strike at the end of last year, until President Biden and Congress — clearly willing to intervene in the “market” when workers threaten to withdraw their labor — imposed a contract on the workers that did not even contain the workers’ bottom-line demand of adequate sick leave.

Here’s How Rail Workers Are Fighting On After Biden Blocked a National Strike

By Jeff Schuhrke - In These Times, January 18, 2023

Politicians may have headed off their strike, but rail workers haven’t stopped organizing for paid sick leave and safe staffing.

While the high-stakes labor dispute on U.S. freight railroads has receded from headlines since President Joe Biden and Congress imposed a new contract last month, rail workers are continuing their fight for dignity and better conditions — albeit without the threat of a national strike on the table.

“The American people should know that while this round of collective bargaining is over, the underlying issues facing the workforce and rail customers remain,” the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department said in a statement.

The major underlying issue remains precision scheduled railroading (PSR), the business model adopted in recent years by Class I rail carriers like Union Pacific, BNSF, Norfolk Southern and CSX. Designed to maximize shareholder profits by cutting costs to the bone, PSR has been blamed for a dramatic reduction in the freight rail workforce, increased supply-chain congestion and deteriorating safety — all while investors rake in record profits.

As a potential railroad strike loomed late last year, the absence of guaranteed paid sick leave in the rail industry came to symbolize the immense strain PSR puts on workers. Without sick leave, and with the railroads implementing draconian attendance policies to deal with understaffing, workers face discipline for missing work due to illness and have to burn through their vacation time if they or their family members get sick. 

The tentative agreement between rail carriers and unions, brokered by Biden last September, did not include any guaranteed sick days — prompting a majority of the union rank and file to vote against ratifying the deal. 

Late last year, when Biden called on Congress to override union democracy and impose the contract anyway, progressive Democrats attached a separate resolution mandating seven paid sick days, without the president’s public support. The measure passed in the House of Representatives, but failed in the Senate, where all but six Republicans voted against it. 

“President Biden campaigned on a week of paid sick leave for all working people, and then he had the opportunity right here but didn’t take action. He favored the corporations,” said Matt Weaver, a rail worker and member of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division (BMWED) in Ohio. 

Sam Seder is RIGHT: Rail Workers DESERVE Support, Even If Some Are Conservative

Were Sick Days Not a Big Deal to Rail Workers?

Statement of Solidarity with Railroad Workers

By Staff - Industrial Worker, December 23, 2022

The Industrial Workers of the World stands with U.S. rank-and-file railroad workers as owners and politicians collude to strip them of their most basic rights. The right to withhold our labor is inviolable and cannot be prohibited. Further, we believe that an injury to one is an injury to all. We are disgusted by the hypocrisy of so-called leaders in the U.S. government, who enjoy the luxury of virtually unlimited paid sick leave while legislating against any paid sick leave at all for railroad workers, and we are unsurprised when even the progressive wing of the Democratic Party ultimately aligns with their class over the workers. IWW members throughout the country are prepared to support railroad workers in every way possible as they lead this fight.

We hold that the failure to reach an agreement is undeniably the fault of the owners, who have enriched themselves and their shareholders at immediate cost to the workers generating the profits. One study of financial reports and internal communications for all the major rail carriers shows their unbridled avarice and total disregard for their workforce. They are well aware that wages have been stagnant for years. This was by design. They know that workers have fled the industry due to its destruction of workers’ quality of life and the carrot-and-stick system that prevents their use of promised benefits. They know that injuries on the job have reached record highs in recent years due to understaffing and impossible demands placed on workers.

The agreement being imposed by Congress is unacceptable. Wage increases to compensate for the lack thereof in years past, as well as skyrocketing inflation and cost of living more recently, are inadequate. Workers have univocally demanded more predictable scheduling and safer working conditions. Paid sick leave was a compromise many workers may have been willing to accept. It is the owners and their lackeys in government who refuse to compromise. It is despicable.

We in the IWW encourage workers from all industries to stand together with railroad workers. United we are strong. Together we can win.

For more information on Railroad Workers United, please contact RWU General Secretary Jason Doering, via email or at 202-480-0587.

For anyone who faces detainment for exercising their right to strike, or who knows someone who does, the IWW’s Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee conducts public pressure campaigns and facilitates empowerment through solidarity. They can be contacted at IWOC@iww.org.

Additional statements of solidarity from members and local branches of the IWW throughout the U.S. are being prepared and issued even as mainstream media declares the “crisis averted.” For workers, the crisis only deepens. These conditions can be changed only when we stand together as one. Workers of the world: unite!

Workers Are Standing Up Against Railway Unions’ Raw Deal

By Shuvu Bhattarai - The Progressive, December 15, 2022

Biden forced railway workers to accept an agreement that lacked paid sick days; now rallies against the deal have spread across the country.

On December 7, outside of New York City’s Grand Central Terminal, a crowd of more than 100 Metro-North Railroad workers, airline pilots, construction workers, teachers, and activists held a solidarity rally in support of railway unions. 

The rally is the latest in a string of protests that have taken place across the country after President Joe Biden and the U.S. Congress imposed a tentative agreement on Class I freight rail workers, an agreement that had been voted down the membership of four rail unions representing a total of around 60,000 workers. The agreement grants only one additional day of paid sick leave, which was a major concern for the rail workers, many of whom are on call virtually 24/7. 

Five days before the Grand Central rally, on December 2, about 200 protesters held a demonstration outside of Boston’s JFK Museum, while Biden was visiting. They called the President a “scab” and a “strikebreaker,” chanting “striking is a human right,” and demanding sick leave for all. On December 5, around 30 people demonstrated outside of the Brooklyn home of Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer. Schumer had voted for the tentative agreement. 

On December 6, a small protest was held at the University of California, Berkeley, where striking UC Grad Workers spoke about how their struggle was connected to that of the rail workers. The next day, a group of twenty-five union members and activists in Baltimore, Maryland, gathered with similar demands.

At the Grand Central rally, which was partly coordinated by the December 12th Movement, a Black human rights organization based in New York City, organizer Omowale Clay echoed the feeling of betrayal by the Democratic establishment that’s been driving these outpourings of solidarity: “To take away the right of our brothers and sisters to strike is a violation of their human rights. To take away their right to be sick so that they can speed up and exploit us more is a violation of their human rights.” 

Justine Medina, a worker organizing with the Amazon Labor Union added, “We won our election on April 1, eight months ago, and the bosses refused to recognize Amazon Labor Union, refused to come to the table to negotiate a contract, just like the railroad workers.” 

Similar messages of support were echoed by teachers, construction workers, and others during the protest. A member of Railroad Workers United, a cross-union solidarity caucus of railroad workers, spoke of how the conditions in the job deteriorated especially over the past few years. 

Railroad and UC Workers Solidarity

By Steve Ongerth (with suggestions from Baltimore Red)- IWW Environmental Union Caucus, December 6, 2022

I gave the following speech at a rally on the UC Berkeley Campus (a video of the rally follows)

Fellow Workers, Comrades, and Friends:

My name is Steve Ongerth. I am a union mariner of over a quarter century (I am a member of the IBU, an ILWU affiliate, and the IWW); I grew up in a railroad family, and I graduated from UC Berkeley in 1994.

I am here today to deliver a message on behalf of Railroad Workers United (of which I am a solidarity member):

The Class One freight railroad bosses:

  • Have been reaping record profits for 25 years, and yet...
  • they are moving less freight than at any time since 2006;
  • they are swimming in money, while industry is contracting when it should be expanding due to its efficiency, and its potential as a major climate solution;
  • meanwhile, during that time, 30% of workforce has been lost in the last 4-5 years;
  • in spite of the potential for rail as a climate solution, the freight bosses are hostile to expansion of passenger trains;
  • in fact, the greed of the capitalist railroad bosses has grown so egregious, that the Class Ones have possessed off every major shipping group with their BS, thus even turning much of the capitalist class against them;

The "deal" brokered by Biden and rammed down the throats of the working class by the Republicans and Democrats alike won't solve the problem.

This is not only naked class war, it's a recipe for the complete implosion and meltdown of the nation's rail system.

Railroad Workers’ Lives Revolve Entirely Around Their Jobs

By Andrew Perez - Jacobin, December 5, 2022

We spoke with a longtime BNSF conductor about the labor agreement recently imposed on railroad workers by President Biden. He says he feels betrayed by a president he thought was pro-labor and explains how his job has gotten worse over time.

Rob Kufalk is “always at the mercy of the railroad,” as his wife Mona puts it. “Our life only functions around the railroad.”

A longtime conductor for BNSF Railway, Kufalk is virtually always on call. He must be ready to get to work within ninety minutes from when the company says they need him — which can happen any time, day or night. The family lives forty-five minutes away from the terminal in La Crosse, Wisconsin, that serves as his home base. He spends a lot of time away in hotels in Chicago and Galesburg, Illinois.

Kufalk said the demands on his time have gotten worse over the years, with the industry shedding jobs to cut costs as part of its so-called “precision scheduled railroading” strategy. The situation, he said, has become unbearable since BNSF implemented a new points-based attendance policy, under which employees can be disciplined or fired for missing a call to come into work or taking an unplanned day off.

“They want us available for duty 95 percent of the time now — 24/7/365,” said Kufalk. “I try to plan for doctor’s appointments and other things and it’s almost impossible. Sometimes you just have to lay off and take the hit on the points.”

The lack of paid sick time afforded to workers was at the center of the high-stakes labor dispute between unions and giant railroad companies that came to a head last week. Through more than three years of contract negotiations, the railroads flatly refused to budge and give workers any paid sick days. The companies knew they didn’t really have to negotiate, because politicians in Washington wouldn’t risk allowing rail workers to strike and slow shipments — especially now during the holiday season — at an estimated cost to the economy of $2 billion per day.

The Case for Public Ownership of the Rails in the US

Congress Must Respect Rail Workers’ Rights

By Carl Rosen, Andrew Dinkelakr, and Mark Meinster - United Electrical Workers, November 30, 2022

Statement of the UE Officers

The current move by President Biden and Congress to impose a contract on our nation’s 115,000 railroad workers — a contract that the members of rail unions representing the majority of those workers have rejected — is an unconscionable attack on rail workers, the labor movement, and the entire U.S. working class.

The right to strike is a fundamental human right, and one of the only effective tools working people have to win justice from the corporations and capitalist oligarchs who increasingly seek to control not only our economy and our government, but every aspect of our lives.

Railroad workers are fighting for a basic human freedom — the right to stay home or see a doctor if they or their family members get sick.

The railroad companies are enormously profitable, and have seen their profits only increase during the pandemic. They can easily afford to settle a fair contract.

In addition to forcing their workers into conditions that approach involuntary servitude, the railroad companies’ endless thirst for profits has snarled up our country’s supply chain, contributing to the inflation and cost-of-living crisis that all working people are facing. Their old, polluting locomotives, which they refuse to upgrade to modern, cleaner versions, are poisoning communities near rail yards, which are primarily working-class communities of color. And they consistently oppose efforts to address climate change, putting their short-term profits above the long-term health of society, or even their own industry.

Instead of using government edicts to force railroad workers to work against their will, the President and Congress should be using the power of government to push the railroad companies to straighten out the supply chain, clean up their poor environmental record, and settle a fair contract through the collective bargaining process.

We stand in full solidarity with railroad workers and their unions, in whatever steps they take to defend their right to a decent work life, and urge all working people to do the same.

Carl Rosen
General President

Andrew Dinkelakr
Secretary-Treasurer

Mark Meinster
​Director of Organization

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