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

361–370 of 388 posts

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

#361

Post by ohiovr »

vannevar wrote: post #324
bcrosby95 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking with one of these on call workers working for BNSF, and calling it on call doesn't do the terribleness justice. They are 8 hours on, and 8 hours off. The on call call is also 90 minutes ahead of time. So more like 6.5 hours off. Many end up sleeping in the parking lot. There's an alarm that rings every minute on the train - a dead man's switch. Oftentimes this is the only thing keeping them awake. To to…

>Congress backing these companies in any way is absolutely disgusting. Just to be clear, Congress is not backing them, the Republican Party is.

thank you talking points memo

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

#362

Post by notch656a »

bumby wrote: post #359
notch656a wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets imagine what you say is true. The workers are under "monopolistic employment" asymmetrically and any tax is absorbed by the worker (thus their employment is inelastic with respect to wage). Theorize to me what their wages will go down to if the railroads are the unethical and greedy barons which they no doubt may be. >way of socializing the risk of shareholders at the expense of labor. The strike would socialize…

> Theorize to me what their wages will go down to If the companies are backstopped by the govt prohibiting a strike, they will go down to the absolute lowest level tolerable, until people retire and nobody is willing to take on that job. Likely, we'd see what happens in other industries that create a bimodal tiered system, where the grandfathered employees are still paid well while the newer tier are paid a fraction.…

How does 130k in comp compare to a "tolerable" compensation? Do you anticipate someone earning above 130k USD is representative of the general public of Americans who would be punished for the railroad strikes?

As a matter of imperfect pragmatism I would support a bill that equally collects from the employees and employer as it would still be some way of extracting rent from land provided freely by public for a service they were cut off from.

>Your solution is that the government tax you for the privilege to continue to mine

No my solution isn't to tax for the privelege to mine, it's to tax for damages for loss of use of public lands that were only given up conditionally so they could be used productively by employees and employers of the railroad.

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

#363

Post by chii »

bumby wrote: post #359
notch656a wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets imagine what you say is true. The workers are under "monopolistic employment" asymmetrically and any tax is absorbed by the worker (thus their employment is inelastic with respect to wage). Theorize to me what their wages will go down to if the railroads are the unethical and greedy barons which they no doubt may be. >way of socializing the risk of shareholders at the expense of labor. The strike would socialize…

> Theorize to me what their wages will go down to If the companies are backstopped by the govt prohibiting a strike, they will go down to the absolute lowest level tolerable, until people retire and nobody is willing to take on that job. Likely, we'd see what happens in other industries that create a bimodal tiered system, where the grandfathered employees are still paid well while the newer tier are paid a fraction.…

i dont understand the proposal to tax the employee.

Taxing an activity makes it happen less. If the gov't want fewer railroad workers (or in your hypothetical example, mining equipment operators), they'd tax them like this! there'd be fewer operators as a result, and any shortage of them will cause problems. These operators aren't slaves - they can quit the industry.

The gov't would instead tax those employees _less_, in order for them to keep more of their wages, and thus encourage more of them to exist.

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

#364

Post by cratermoon »

Eumenes wrote: post #63

We need self driving trains ASAP

FYI the part of the railroad system involving sitting in the cab at the front of a train moving from point A to point B is a very small part of the job. Most of the work happens at the yards, where trains are made up, cars are dropped off and switched, and all the maintenance happens.

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

#365

Post by bichiliad »

If you're curious about learning more about PSR as it was intended to be implemented, I can't recommend Justin Roczniak's writing (and podcasting) around it. He wrote essentially the same article for the New York Times not too long ago[0], and his longer-form podcast discussion is even better if you have the time[1].

In his telling (and I'm paraphrasing heavily here), PSR — as it was originally designed — was meant to get everything on precise scheduling (surprise), thereby allowing you to better predict when and where you'd need workers well in advance. That would let you better optimize not just your trains but also your workforce. If you have a schedule, you can make optimizations that keep train cars from sitting around, and your workers reap the benefits of a fixed schedule (time off, less on-call time, things like that).

In practice, getting things to run on a schedule often meant capital costs that a of these companies balked at, like upgrades to rail yards and track maintenance to keep things running on schedule. The only real part of P.S.R. that ended up getting adopted, as this article points out, is the optimization part. But without the capital investments, you don't get a precise schedule, nor do you get any of its implied benefits.

Optimizations ended up meaning things like pulling more cars with fewer trains. I don't think the article mentions this in explicit terms, but these longer trains are often a few miles long. This length means the trains don't fit in rail yards, nor do they fit in the sidings that allow Amtrak trains to pass them (which in turn keeps Amtrak trains from running on time). Since trains don't fit in the yards, they have to leave as soon as possible, and since there's no fixed scheduling, "as soon as possible" ends up meaning any time at all with little notice, meaning engineers are on call almost all the time. Plus, when you have a train that's almost 3 miles long, they're more likely to derail on curves, and staff have to walk literal miles to fix problems along the train.

There's a whole lot more to this than I can repeat off-hand on a Friday afternoon, but this issue isn't going to go away. The rail industry is untenable, and given how scared everyone is of a rail strike, it also isn't going away any time soon.

[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/09/opinion/business-economic... [1]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69A_UCdikE8

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

#366

Post by bumby »

notch656a wrote: post #362
bumby wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Theorize to me what their wages will go down to If the companies are backstopped by the govt prohibiting a strike, they will go down to the absolute lowest level tolerable, until people retire and nobody is willing to take on that job. Likely, we'd see what happens in other industries that create a bimodal tiered system, where the grandfathered employees are still paid well while the newer tier are paid a fraction.…

How does 130k in comp compare to a "tolerable" compensation? Do you anticipate someone earning above 130k USD is representative of the general public of Americans who would be punished for the railroad strikes? As a matter of imperfect pragmatism I would support a bill that equally collects from the employees and employer as it would still be some way of extracting rent from land provided freely by public for a servi…

1) you asked for a forecast of where I thought wages would go. The $130k mark is not what I predicted it would remain at.

2) already addressed this once, but that is $130k in total compensation. I don’t have enough information to fully gauge their fringe benefits, but it’s not uncommon for them to total as much as 50% of total compensation. Additionally, rail engineers are often on call 24/7. So is, say, $75k in salary luxurious given no sick days, 24/7 on call, physically demanding job, and lots of travel, for what the country is saying is a critical role? It doesn’t seem so to me. That’s in todays dollars that will be eroded in the future if the companies have their druthers. It doesn’t seem like the great deal you’re painting it as when ignoring the total picture.

3) again, the land easements are to the company, not the employee. So it doesn’t follow that you want to tax the employee for a right given to the employer. It’s such odd logic that it comes across as a trolling effort

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

#367

Post by cratermoon »

tomrod wrote: post #99
cratermoon wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except in Texas, of course. But then, one might argue that utilities in Texas aren't meaningfully regulated.

They are, actually. The PUCT has historically done a great job. But, legislation (outside PUCT) has allowed the utility (generators and transmission/distribution asset owners) to cut the system to the bone and defer maintenance and expansion despite a new city's worth of people (~100k) relocating each month to Texas.

So you're saying that except for the laws the control what PUCT can regulate, regulation is working fine?

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

#368

Post by inferiorhuman »

vannevar wrote: post #337
SQueeeeeL wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is blatantly wrong. The Democrats have been EXTREMELY compliant in this destruction of workers rights, from Biden pushing through the contract to all members of the squad turning their back on them. The Republicans are dogshit because they want 14 year old girls to have to get coat hanger abortions, but almost every establishment Democrat does not give a single fuck about the working class/poor. (You should stil…

It is not blatantly wrong. Virtually all Democrats supported paid leave for rail workers, and virtually no Republicans did.

It's very easy to vote for something you know won't pass. I've nothing civil to say about the republican party but the democrats absolutely dropped the ball here. The rank hypocrisy from Pete the choo choo secretary who had the benefit of months of paid family leave. The so-called squad who are all being curiously silent…

It's pretty damning that the only politicians making noise about how awful this legislation is are the republicans looking to find a wedge issue and Bernie Sanders.

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

#369

Post by inferiorhuman »

retrac wrote: post #299
ALittleLight wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market is perfectly capable of fixing the problem. The employees should quit, strike, or slowdown work until their employers give them what they want.

> should quit, strike, or slowdown work I'm not sure how it goes down in the USA, but here in Canada, federal transport workers are de facto prohibited from striking or other job action. Every time they go on strike, the next day the government passes legislation declaring the strike illegal because they are essential workers and a disruption poses a threat to infrastructure of national interest, and a new binding la…

If the annual tax forms are any indication railroad workers in the US have all sorts of separate rules and whatnot. In the US the right to strike is something that can be bargained in most industries which is why, in the Bay Area, BART workers can and have struck while Muni workers resort to "wildcat strikes". Muni workers bargained away their right to strike in exchange for something I've since forgotten. As far as port workers, they are not prohibited from work action. The ILWU (the dominant West Coast longshoreman union) has a loooooooong history of work action to support various political causes from anti-war to police brutality. Before the sanctions kicked in ILWU refused to unload cargo from Russian ships in solidarity with Ukraine.

Realistically the rail workers almost certainly don't need to strike to cause pain. They can likely slow things down dramatically by following rules and regs to the letter. Perhaps we'll start to see infrastructure sabotaged. Maybe dockworkers will refuse to handle rail cargo. Maybe Teamsters will refuse to do last mile for rail cargo. Who knows.

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

#370

Post by inferiorhuman »

stephen_g wrote: post #153
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.

Yeah, coming from a country with strong labour laws, it's mind boggling that this is legal in the US. I think the realist view has to be that the market ain't ever going to fix it, companies are always going to try to get away with as much as they can, and the people have to force the Government to bring in minimum standards.

  Yeah, coming from a country with strong labour laws, it's mind boggling that this is legal in the US.
As an American I'm not surprised, but I am disappointed. Certainly Biden looks like a fucking jackass. Currently the Zodiac Killer is bemoaning Biden's anti-worker sentiment. Obviously Cruz is wholly incapable of doing anything with a modicum of integrity but if the republicans run with this through the 2024 election cycle and they get someone with savvy on the ticket (like good ol' governor death sentence) things could get dicey for the democrats. Legal or not it sure seems like the democrats are trying real hard to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Post reply on HN