FORT WORTH, Texas – BNSF Railway has reached a paid sick time agreement with the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, the railroad announced today.
BNSF said the deal was part of larger ongoing discussions about modernizing the work environment.
Seven of BNSF’s 12 labor unions are now covered by paid sick leave agreements.
Building upon existing BNSF paid time off and sickness benefits, IBB members will receive an additional four paid days off to use as sick days and gain the ability to convert up to three personal leave days to sick days each year.
BNSF says it remains committed to continued dialogue, including the potential addition of paid sick days for those crafts that did not already have individual paid sick days prior to the recent national bargaining round.
Left out is HOW the rail industry and its unions have managed to NOT put short-term sick days into a contract almost a century after it became standard in contracts in almost every other industry. I suspect there was a trade-off long long ago on very generous coverage for longer-term injuries in return for no short-term sick time–which often gets abused in other industries.
Disability benefits for railroad workers are paid out by the Railroad Retirement Board and are not particularly generous. Obtaining the benefits is not easy. When i worked at Conrail some carried private disability insurance at their own expense. This may have changed, perhaps allowing SSDI. Railroad workers are not covered by workman’s comp and in the event of a work related injury or death must sue the employer in federal court (domestic maritime is the same). There is no other avenue for compensation.
How many BNSF unionized workers have received sick pay thus far? How many BNSF unionized workers do NOT receive sick pay?
Trains Newswire is great about publishing these PR news releases about class 1s negotiating sick pay in the past few months. But it omits the fact that train and engine crews have NOT received sick pay. What percentage of workers are covered in the recent agreements? How many sick days have been granted in these agreements?
To quote the article: “IBB members will receive an additional four paid days off to use as sick days and gain the ability to convert up to three personal leave days to sick days each year.”