Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nymag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 388 posts

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

#131

Post by Mo3 »

ragingrobot wrote: post #49

Hey, something maybe for one here I can shed some light on, for those who want a little more than the article gives. ;) I am a supervisor on a commuter rail, and in this respect they operate in a similar fashion. Like any other business, profits are key. Someone figures out staffing. Pretty much cut and dry. For a line from terminal A to B, there is one train per hour in each direction, 48 trains in a day. We need fo…

Yeah, no wonder workers are striking. This is absolutely insane and at some point one has to wonder if creating a good working environment and healthy, happy employees would do the profit line even better than this fascist structure.

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

#132

Post by treis »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #128
treis wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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. They didn't negotiate anything with the current contract being imposed on them. The contracts have been voted down by membership, hence the union does not agree with the terms. The group who has "leaned on…

Tell me you didn't read my link without telling me you didn't read it.

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

#133

Post by bumby »

scottLobster wrote: post #115
bumby wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Household debt in the U.S. is at 20 year highs. Isn't the largest share of household debt a home mortgage? Implying that talking about the rail strike is a distraction from the root cause. There are still real consequences to Americans from the rail strike, but (very much like the student debt crisis) it seems like tap dancing around the root cause doesn't really fix the problem.

Perhaps largest in aggregate, but credit card debt has spiked in the last year and is continuing to climb higher, close to a Trillion dollars. https://www.lendingtree.com/credit-cards/credit-card-debt-st... A large chunk of the population is clearly dealing with inflation through credit cards. More inflation for them just means more CC debt, and if everyone is getting as many "free balance transfer no interest for th…

Both of these can be true. All I’m saying is it makes more sense to focus on the biggest issue for the biggest impact.

Average credit card debt is roughly on par with pre-pandemic levels. Dipping during Covid is probably an artifact of the govt stimulus (speculatively). Without digging further, it’s not clear to me that it’s not a return to normal. If that normal is still bad, my guess is there are more deeply rooted issues.

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

#134

Post by mikedelago »

ragingrobot wrote: post #119
ckolkey wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When an employee calls out sick, a Special Inspector may be sent to their home to check if they are really sick and at home. If the employee doesn't answer the door (They're sleeping and don't hear the door? Doesn't matter), they're charged with falsely calling out sick, and face suspension or termination. I'll never understand why people think it's alright to infantilise other adults like this. If they're sick and…

My intent was not to advertise this as an alternative, and I do not see how you came to that conclusion. I was pointing out that this is not unique to the freight railroads to intimidate employees into coming to work on a regular basis.

I got a similar implication from the line "My agency uses a different tactic, but just as effective."

To help convey your meaning here, it may be better to change it to "My agency uses a different tactic, but just as exploitative and just as effective."

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

#135

Post by nradov »

l72 wrote: post #94

It is time for the government to step in and do more than force a contract agreement. They need to threaten the Railroad companies and side with America workers. Some suggestions: - Take back the railroads that the public built and maintained. Then charge commercial rail for the use of them. This is a huge issue since it currently is a major limitation of passenger rail in the US, and once again, having these be publ…

Rail transport should be treated the same as other cargo transportation modes like trucking, airlines, and ships. Government should own the tracks and stations. Private companies should own the vehicles, and pay a fee for using the tracks.

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

#136

Post by p0pcult »

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.

Agree, and furthermore, I'd argue that the blue "Third Way"[1] ushered in by Bill Clinton in the US is what hugely screwed labor, and 20 years later leads to the election of DJT.

Why can't Biden/congress make the agreement that the unions want and ratify that? There are multiple ways to avoid the strike; I don't understand why this has to be on ownership's terms. Long term, (or at least in 2024, which is about as long term as we get in American politics anymore) this is going to let team Red claim to be the pro-worker team.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way

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

#138

Post by lotsofpulp »

actionfromafar wrote: post #129
lotsofpulp wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an employee and an employer, I like having only one type of paid leave. It should not matter to the employer why an employee is not working. If the issue is insufficient time off for illnesses, then the negotiation should be for more paid time off (PTO) in general. This eliminates all the resources wasted on catching fraudulent use of sick days.

Wouldn't that create an incentive to run your employees so hard they develop health issues? No skin off your back, just get a new employee when the first gets permanently broken. I'm cheeky, but I think that is one of the rationales for having sick leave at all.

How would they run you hard if you have sufficient PTO?

California requires overtime after 8 hours of work per day and on the 7th consecutive day.

If that is not enough, make overtime cost 2x.

Lots of ways to ensure employers do not run employees hard without getting into details of sick days and whatnot.

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

#139

Post by JohnFen »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #74
JohnFen wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. That's even worse.

As an employee and an employer, I like having only one type of paid leave. It should not matter to the employer why an employee is not working. If the issue is insufficient time off for illnesses, then the negotiation should be for more paid time off (PTO) in general. This eliminates all the resources wasted on catching fraudulent use of sick days.

I agree. My employers over the last couple of decades have just had a general PTO amount. But for that to work, two other things have to go with it: the PTO amount has to be enough time to cover both uses, and there still has to be a mechanism that allows for unplanned time off.

The true cruelty of "no sick days" isn't that employees have to burn vacation days, it's that vacation days have to be scheduled in advance and approved. Neither of those things leave room for sudden illness or injury, and prioritizes company schedule needs over things like scheduling doctor's visits.

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

#140

Post by soupfordummies »

thathndude wrote: post #42
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…

I agree with the sentiment of your post. I can absorb a 10% bump in prices without really blinking. But the bottom 50% of Americans cannot. I wish it was as cut and dry as telling them to just strike, but I don’t think it’s that simple.

I haven't followed this super closely (as an aside, it's also really discouraging how little I've seen this story talked about. Buried in the newspapers, etc) but am I off base in thinking that gov't could have just sided with the workers and req'd the railroads to give sick days rather than just siding with the RRs and saying "no sick days"?

Wow what a run-on sentence! :P

Post reply on HN