More than three weeks after Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) No. 250 issued its recommendations on the stalled contract negotiations between 12 rail labor unions and the carriers, the National Conference of Firemen & Oilers, SEIU (NCFO) has reached a tentative agreement with the National Carriers’ Conference Committee (NCCC), which represents most major railroads (and many smaller ones) in national collective bargaining.
Increasingly likely on Sept. 16, or shortly thereafter, is a rail labor strike or management lockout creating a nationwide rail shutdown that almost certainly will elicit from Congress back-to-work legislation and third-party determination of wage, benefits and work rules amendments to end this almost 33-month-old round of collective bargaining.
More than three weeks after Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) No. 250 issued its recommendations on the stalled contract negotiations between 12 rail labor unions and the carriers, the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division (BMWED) of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers (IBB); and the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers-Mechanical Department (SMART-MD) have reached tentative agreements with the National Carriers’ Conference Committee (NCCC), which represents most major railroads (and many smaller ones) in national collective bargaining.
Two weeks after Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) No. 250 issued its recommendations on the stalled contract negotiations between 12 rail labor unions and the carriers, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers announced on Sept. 1 that it has reached a tentative agreement with the National Carriers’ Conference Committee (NCCC), which represents most U.S. Class I freight railroads in national collective bargaining.
Two weeks after Presidential Emergency Board 250 issued its recommendations on the stalled contract negotiations between 12 rail labor unions and the carriers, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) Rail Division has reached a tentative agreement with the National Carriers’ Conference Committee (NCCC), which represents most U.S. Class I freight railroads in national collective bargaining.
The recommendations of Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) 250 regarding wages, benefits and work rules are “a vast improvement over the carriers’ previous proposals,” SMART Transportation Division President Jeremy R. Ferguson said in an Aug. 18 statement, but they “do not go far enough to provide our members with the quality of life that they have earned, and that both they and their families deserve.”
With release Aug. 16 of non-binding Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) recommendations for voluntary settlement of a 31-month simmering labor-management dispute over amending national wage, benefits and work rules contracts on most Class I and many smaller freight railroads, the question is, “What next?”
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) President Dennis Pierce and SMART Transportation Division (SMART-TD) President Jeremy Ferguson on Aug. 1 released a joint statement to their members, providing an update on the hearings of Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) No. 250, which within weeks is slated to make non-binding recommendations in the now more than 2-1/2 year-old dispute between most major railroads (and many smaller ones) and their 12 labor unions, including BLET and SMART-TD.
Razors cut two ways, as is evident among Wall Street analysts who encourage share-price haircuts for railroads not lowering operating ratios, but themselves fear from railroads a different sort of trimming—loss of access to senior officers and financial data should these analysts have the audacity to suggest the likelihood of a nationwide rail shutdown.
It is more than two years since the rail industry’s 12 labor unions and management (representing most Class I railroads and some smaller ones) commenced bargaining to amend contracts defining wages, benefits and work rules.