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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

#61

Post by thesuitonym »

FranchuFranchu wrote: post #25
tecleandor wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, this sounds crazy, at least looking from Europe: In February 2022, BNSF Railway implemented a points attendance system named "Hi Viz" that a union president called, "the worst and most egregious attendance policy ever adopted by any rail carrier." In the system, each worker starts with 30 points and loses points for taking a day off. Workers can accrue 4 points by being on-call for 14 straight days, but any tim…

Here in Argentina, the right to strike is granted by our constitution. A restraining order preventing unions from striking would be seen like a restraining order preventing voters from voting.

The right to strike is granted in the US as well, however laws mean nothing to the oligarchs.

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

#62

Post by thesuitonym »

mynameishere wrote: post #15

Sickness is kind of a red herring in the discussion. Everyone uses sick days as surprise vacations and that is more disruptive for railroads than, say, my desk job.

People who have enough vacation days don't use sick days that way.

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

#64

Post by markus_zhang »

treis wrote: post #45
AlexandrB wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions already do something economically useful - increase wages. How would you have a consumer economy if no one had any disposable income?

That's shifting where the pie goes. It's not making more pie.

Shifting pie can be very useful. Consider the situation: One super rich gets 100 million and 100 ordinary people get 100k. The super rich has an upper limit for expenditure because he is still a human being. However if all 100 ordinary people get extra 10k which is paltry, they will probably spend it all to boost economy.

$$ is useless if not flowed through economy.

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

#65

Post by laweijfmvo »

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.

It's not the railroad workers' fault that half of Americans can't afford food and basic necessities.

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

#66

Post by avidphantasm »

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. This is a huge opportunity to reset employment terms, and not just in this industry. Also, allegedly many current railroad workers started in 2004 and will be eligible to retire in 2024. If we don’t fix this now, we’ll be in a worse position in a year or so. All who can will retire, and recruiting new hires will be even harder. Long term, we probably need to bust up the railroads and create a nationalized and/or worker owned/controlled ownership structure. Else we’ll end up here again eventually.

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

#67

Post by ragingrobot »

danielvf wrote: post #35
rowls66 wrote: post #18

This problem does not seem unique to railroads. Any business that depends on human labor to deliver a service would have this problem. Airlines, restaurants, theatre companies. The way to deal with this is to have excess labor available (slack in the system). Are railroad profit margins so small that paying for excess labor will bankrupt them? Maybe labor in the railroad industry is so highly regulated that labor fle…

From stats I can look up, the average US railroad worker earns $130,000 year in total comp in 2021. Railroad retirement begins full strength at age 60, and looks to be $4,838/mo for an ex railroad employee and spouse. In contrast, Social Security on $130,000 earnings would be $1,919/mo if you retired at age 62. The railroads pay for the retirement expense via tax. So yes, by US labor standards, railroad employees are…

"Total Comp", which typically is more than wages. This includes health benefits, which can be a significant part of the figure. So like another said they get the bare minimum but these figures seem inflated and make the employees exactly as said, "overpaid." So, all the public sees is "130K," with no clue where it all comes from.

As well, I have no clue what their benefits are like. It is quite possible they contribute to their benefits as well as most people do, which means their take home may be even less than you'd expect. I for one have employer provided health coverage where the employer contributes, as well as a portion comes out of my paycheck, with co-pays upon an office visit.

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

#68

Post by lotsofpulp »

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.

FYI, many, many millions of people in America that work low paying jobs have zero paid sick days (or paid time off in general).

As evidenced by the fact that there is no federal law about it, and only a handful of states required a small number of paid sick days.

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

#69

Post by datavirtue »

gz5 wrote: post #31

>Four of those companies collectively control more than 83 percent of the freight market. And the vast majority of train stations in the U.S. are served by exactly one railroad. Monopoly behaving like a monopoly. The only real power the employees have in this situation is to leave, especially when the government's interests are also not aligned with employee interests. Numbers tell us there are 10M open jobs in the U…

They could all move to construction with minimal, if any, training and be happier for it. People outside of tech don't change jobs very often and are very weary of doing so. Changing jobs is a skill and experience they do not have. I would love to work for the same company for thirty years...just not feasible.

My cousin is a tree guy who runs a crew. He has been with the company more than twenty years and just now started getting a fair cut. They didn't have a choice but to cave to his demands (which were quite modest) because they simply can't run their business without him. They also promised something in the deal that never came through (a $300k piece of equipment to make his job easier).

I had been screaming at him for years that they had no viable business without him and that he should be getting a bigger cut. He just didn't have the business sense to believe it or leverage his power. He got fed up and had a much better offer from a startup and handed in his resignation. They panicked and started pitching better deals to him. Which he took.

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

#70

Post by JohnFen »

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…

Wow. That's even worse.
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