WASHINGTON — Two unions involved in the negotiations for a new national rail labor contract have asked to be released from mediation with the coalition representing railroads, instead requesting to move to arbitration.
In a letter dated Feb. 23, the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division of the Teamsters Rail Conference, and the Mechanical Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers made the request to the National Mediation Board, saying negotiations between the unions and the railroads represented by the National Carriers Conference Committee “are at impasse and that further mediation is not likely to result in agreement.”
The Coordinated Bargaining Coalition, which represents those two unions and eight others, said in a Monday press release that it supports the request and agrees they should “move the contract dispute to the next steps of the Railway Labor Act’s negotiation process.” The coalition said it made it clear to the National Mediation Board at the beginning of mediation “that there is little if any hope of reaching a voluntary agreement in light of the rail carriers’ refusal to bargain in good faith” with the unions.
The 10 unions in the coalition represent more than 105,000 rail workers, more than 80% of the workforce affected by the current negotiations.
The unions declared an impasse in January, leading to the start of mediation [see “Railroads say they welcome unions’ request …,” Trains News Wire, Jan. 24, 2022]. The two sides began negotiations in February 2020, with the railroads’ desire for one-person crews a major issue. In their letter seeking arbitration, the two unions said railroads have proposed “significant” employee concessions on health and welfare benefits.
I am not surprised by any of this. SPTO main line freight operation has been the target since 1996. Full freight train automation is next unless all the unions merge into a single bargaining unit and remove all craft distinctions. If they do not the railroads will cut them to pieces one at a time by farming out most of what they do, if not all of it, to contractors, individual and large conglomerates, that will force workers into cut-rate hourly jobs while depriving them of Railroad Retirement Act Pension coverage and hand back their hard-won pension contributions to the railroads. Individual employee retirement accounts outside the current system as proposed currently will relieve the railroads from any contributions, fattening their bottom lines, and hand increase profits to the retirement fund managers. There is nothing new under the sun, unfortunately…
Retired as a NS machine operator with 32 years service in the BMWE in 2013, and at that time it had gotten to the point where you hoped that you didn’t lose anything that you had gotten in the previous contract.