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Why America’s Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave

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Re: Why America’s Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave

#101

Post by skizm »

In the very unlikely event that the US (or any country in a similar situation) were to nationalize the railroads, what would happen to the labor unions and workers' ability to collectively bargain? If the railway were nationalized and the government said "PSR is here to stay, no sick days, it is illegal to strike" or something like that, would this be any different than exactly what is happening now?

Personally, I think nationalization is good for many reasons, but just wondering how government workers collectively bargain, if at all. How does this work with USPS for example?

Re: Why America’s Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave

#102

Post by nradov »

eecc wrote: post #80
matthewmcg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This approach is taken with regulated utilities and telcos as well--natural gas utilities design their systems with enough capacity to serve all firm customers on the expected coldest day of the year (called a "design day") and circuit switched telephone networks were designed to handle the traffic expected on Mother's Day.

Not in NL. Train schedules regularly go haywire whenever a track switch freezes or -- less funnily -- there's a "person collision". The infrastructure is so congested there's no slack; indeed WFH (or remote, perhaps a local professional setting cowork) would do wonders to reduce commute overhead.

It's a lot faster and cheaper to add more telephone circuits than to build more train tracks and stations. Our infrastructure in many places was just never designed for so many people.

Re: Why America’s Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave

#103

Post by bumby »

chii wrote: post #56
georgeplusplus wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>Fuck the shareholders. Strike. Yes, I am absolutely willing to pay more in the short term for things so that people are treated with a little basic human decency. Each day the rail industry strikes costs 2 billion dollars. This type of loss would most certainly have a permanent effect on prices. Given how bad inflation is currently, this would further drive inflation higher. This complicates the decision to strike…

it is not the worker's responsibility to sacrifice their own interests for the interests of the wider society (such as lowering inflationary pressure by not striking).

By that same logic, it's not the shareholders responsibility to sacrifice their own interests for the interests of larger society. Taking that approach is a prisoners dilemma.

Re: Why America’s Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave

#104

Post by dmitriid »

eecc wrote: post #80
matthewmcg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This approach is taken with regulated utilities and telcos as well--natural gas utilities design their systems with enough capacity to serve all firm customers on the expected coldest day of the year (called a "design day") and circuit switched telephone networks were designed to handle the traffic expected on Mother's Day.

Not in NL. Train schedules regularly go haywire whenever a track switch freezes or -- less funnily -- there's a "person collision". The infrastructure is so congested there's no slack; indeed WFH (or remote, perhaps a local professional setting cowork) would do wonders to reduce commute overhead.

In Stockholm we're joking that as soon as there's a singe leaf on the tracks in autumn, trains are screwed. Wet leaves on the tracks are no joke, and can be hazardous, but the commuter trains have been quite badly mismanaged

Re: Why America’s Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave

#105

Post by smileysteve »

forgetfreeman wrote: post #44
mjbeswick wrote: post #26

Rail companies are getting the blame here, but the real problem is that paid leave isn't a statutory employment right protected by law. Here in the UK full time employees are entitled to 28 day paid annual leave, although I have work for companies which offer more, while pay is seperate.

And yet you'd have a really tough time finding a white collar gig where paid leave wasn't a bog-standard part of the package. So nah, rail companies are getting caught out because they are absolutely fucking around with this.

Glares in "startup" "untracked pto" where it's white collar and paid leave isn't guaranteed but for the power of the worker.

Re: Why America’s Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave

#106

Post by treis »

bestcoder69 wrote: post #33
mauvehaus wrote: post #19

Fuck the shareholders. Strike. Yes, I am absolutely willing to pay more in the short term for things so that people are treated with a little basic human decency. Moreover, I'm more than happy to pay a little more for things in the long term to ensure that there's enough slack in the system to absorb the shocks that periodically come around. We've just spent almost three years slowly killing everyone in healthcare be…

Agreed on the strike. Hearing they have 0 sick days (plus penalties for missing) was unbelievable to me. Strike and make it so the rail company shareholders have to live with completely fucking the US economy over their profit margins. And if they do, we all have a duty to point the finger at them.

This is just a political talking point supported by a friendly media. From the union's mouth:

>Q: Why did the railroads reject proposals to add benefits on top of the framework recommended by the PEB?

>A: The request for additional benefits made by the few unions that have not ratified tentative agreements is similar to a proposal which was carefully considered and rejected by President Biden’s Presidential Emergency Board (PEB). It comes weeks after these same unions entered into tentative agreements that included the most generous wage package in almost 50 years of national rail negotiations.

>The health, safety, and wellbeing of rail employees is a top priority for all railroads, and any suggestion that rail workers cannot take time off when sick is easily disproven. Rail employees can and do take time off for sickness and have comprehensive paid sickness benefits starting, depending upon craft, after as few as four days of absence and lasting up to 52 weeks. The structure of these benefits is a function of decades of bargaining where 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.

https://raillaborfacts.org/news/bargaining-status-faq-2022/

What's happened is that the unions negotiated higher pay for worse benefits. Now some of them are leaning on friendly politicians to get the benefits they traded away back without having to give up the higher pay.

Re: Why America’s Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave

#107

Post by stuff4ben »

America needs to mimic Europe when it comes to mandatory vacation. Make it subsidized for small businesses. Minimum of 5 days would be a huge start even if it pales significantly in comparison to most of Europe. A more worker friendly nation would probably make us more productive in the long-term.

Re: Why America’s Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave

#108

Post by bumby »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #90
bumby wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong, but policy is often not crafted on just the concept of fairness, but also other considerations like the stability of society.

No, it is crafted on the stability of asset prices to benefit asset owners. If stability of society was the goal, then workers in the US would have a minimum wage tied to CPI, and minimum PTO, etc. The way events seem to unfold is that asset owners get to take societal stability to the brink to maximize profits, and then non asset owners are the ones forced to blink to prevent societal instability. Aka privatize the…

I tend to agree. It's unfortunate, but some of the primary ways we use to measure stability and health is strictly economics, both societally and individually.

Re: Why America’s Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave

#109

Post by lotsofpulp »

bestcoder69 wrote: post #71
mjbeswick wrote: post #26

Rail companies are getting the blame here, but the real problem is that paid leave isn't a statutory employment right protected by law. Here in the UK full time employees are entitled to 28 day paid annual leave, although I have work for companies which offer more, while pay is seperate.

Another possible causal factor is just that labor is weak in the US, and thus is unable to win sick days from their employers AND is unable to convince congress to pass universal sick days either. If that’s the case (I’m biased to say yes) these rail workers really need to strike. Voting for blues obviously isn’t cutting it.

> Voting for blues obviously isn’t cutting it.

But also only “blue” led states have minimum required paid sick laws, so at least they are trying. Given the option between red and blue, it seems obvious which one to support if you support paid leave for all.

Re: Why America’s Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave

#110

Post by p0pcult »

When you design systems so "efficiently" that there is no slack, you increase their working efficiency, but also their fragility.

We (in America) saw the costs of this "just in time" slackless logistics in the economic reboot as we rebounded from the first waves of COVID: logjams at the ports.

Good system design allows for the absorption of interstitial disruptions.

There's a reason tall buildings sway in the wind; if they were so rigid that they didn't sway, they'd risk breaking when there is strong wind.

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