Rail unions negotiating new national contracts with Class I railroads have again requested arbitration as talks remain stalled.
Labor and the National Carriers Conference Committee have been working on joint mediated negotiations under the direction of the National Mediation Board. The talks had resulted from the unions’ request to be released from mediation after more than two years of bargaining.
“Although all of the involved unions would prefer to reach a voluntary agreement, it has become quite clear at this point that the rail carriers will not bargain in good faith to that end,” the Coordinated Bargaining Coalition and Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way/SMART Mechanical Coalition said in a statement on Thursday. “For that reason, all of the involved rail unions are again requesting that the NMB put forth a proffer of arbitration to move our contract dispute through the remaining steps of the Railway Labor Act.”
The unions said the railroads “still refuse to make a comprehensive settlement proposal that our members would even remotely entertain. In fact, the carriers continue to advance proposals that insult the hard-working union members who have carried our nation through the pandemic.”
The unions comprising the Coordinated Bargaining Coalition are the American Train Dispatchers Association (ATDA); the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen / Teamsters Rail Conference (BLET); the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen (BRS); the International Association of Machinists (IAM); the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers (IBB); the National Conference of Firemen & Oilers/SEIU (NCFO); the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW); the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU); the Transportation Communications Union / IAM (TCU), including TCU’s Brotherhood Railway Carmen Division (BRC); and the Transportation Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers (SMART–TD).
The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division (BMWED) and SMART Mechanical Division (SMART-MD) are also bargaining as a coalition.
Collectively, the unions represent approximately 140,000 railroad workers covered by the various organizations’ national agreements.
Oh goodness I know…these poor corporations with their record profits – heaven forbid they should have to share any of their wealth that they’ve accumulated on the backs of the workers that they’ve driven into the ground 😢 – working for the last 2 years without an up-to-date contract
Whine, whine, whine…the process is going according to the Railway Labor Act, the unions can request arbitration all they want…the carriers aren’t ready for arbitration, and I wouldn’t be either. Unions are being too stubborn, but so are the carriers.
So if you work mr. McFarland and you asked your boss for a raise or promotion because of the kind of dedicated and hard work you have done and he said nope he can’t afford it the day after he showed up from the Ferrari dealership with his new car you could never tell me or anyone on here you wouldn’t be insulted by that? Well welcome to railroading and what the carriers are doing. It’s in everyone’s best interests for the railroads to succeed because many lives depend on them to, but to flaunt the money they make to the public and then tell their workers they’re going broke or will if they give them a raise is just as insulting. Top that with the railroads telling them to work even more or else they’ll fire them then you get what we have. The consensus is just this if you want us to do what we do at this point we want a massive raise and time off to boot, and settling at this point for something mediocre is not in the cards.