A report released on Sept. 8 by the Association of American Railroads (AAR) has found that a nationwide rail shutdown would “dramatically impact economic output” and could cost more than $2 billion per day.
The Transportation Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART-TD) and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), along with the other 10 unions involved in national bargaining, met on Aug. 22 via Zoom, followed by in-person meetings held on Aug. 25 and Aug. 26 in Chicago, to “determine if Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) No. 250’s recommendations could serve as a basis for a tentative agreement,” SMART-TD President Jeremy Ferguson and BLET President Dennis Pierce announced in an Aug. 27 joint statement.
Railroads represented by the National Carriers Conference Committee (NCCC) resumed negotiations Aug. 22 with a coalition representing all 12 rail labor unions following release Aug. 18 of Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) No.
My name is Michael Paul Lindsey II. I am a 17-year employee of Union Pacific in Pocatello, Idaho. I would like to humbly contribute my opinion on the recommendations of Presidential Emergency Board 250, and to also thank you for clarifying a few critical industry stances that employees and regulators will use when they inevitably bring your industry to heel in the upcoming months and years.
Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) 250 on Aug. 16 issued its report with non-binding recommendations regarding wages, benefits and work rules, among numerous considerations, in the now more-than 2½ year old dispute between most major railroads (and many smaller ones) and their 12 labor unions representing some 145,000 unionized rail workers.
When I began my railroad management career in labor relations, I had been working the brakemen’s extra board at Proviso Yard in Chicago for the Chicago & North Western Railway. At that
Robert DeNiro, playing Al Capone in The Untouchables, pontificates on the balance between individual achievement and the need for teamwork on a baseball field. It is an engaging story until (big spoiler
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?”
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.
