Once Again, Rail Workers Lose

On Monday evening, President Biden called on Congress to pass legislation that ends the ongoing freight rail labor dispute. Although Biden's statement doesn’t officially do anything, it is a clear signal from the halls of power that, despite legitimate grievances and strong unions, freight rail workers will be prevented from striking and sent back to work under the terms of an agreement four unions rejected. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would fast track this legislation.

To many Americans, this will be welcome news. The plight of freight rail workers is complicated and distant, but the consequences of a strike are not. A rail strike would undoubtedly have profound impacts on the economy. As the coverage of the labor dispute never fails to point out, the U.S. barely functions without freight rail, and the "supply chain" is already "fragile" or "strained." Our water treatment plants rely on chemicals that arrive via freight rail. Much of our petroleum is transported via freight rail. Our food and fertilizer often goes by rail. Water, food, fuel. How can a strike be allowed? 

But focusing on the immediate crisis misses the bigger picture. This is not a traditional labor dispute between workers who want more money and management that doesn’t want to give it to them. The very fact that freight rail is so important is why the workers deserve our attention. By covering the labor dispute as a question of what would happen if the rails suddenly shut down, we have missed the more fundamental point, that workers want to strike precisely because the system that is so important to our everyday lives is already breaking down.

Freight rail workers have been sounding the alarm for years that this institution is crumbling. It is due to a management approach called precision scheduled railroading that prioritizes shareholder profits over running a good railroad. The basic philosophy goes like this: Railroads are publicly-traded corporations. Investors are impressed by profit margins. So it is best to run the railroads as cheaply as possible. Workforces have been slashed industry-wide by 30 percent over the last six years. Maintenance has plummeted. Service has deteriorated. The railroad’s customers, shippers who pay the railroads to move their goods, are just as angry if not angrier than the workers themselves because of the terrible but expensive service they get. And many shippers don’t have a choice to use trucks instead because their goods are either too heavy, too large, or are hazardous substances that need to go via rail. Due to decades of consolidation, the shippers rarely have a choice of which railroad to use. Meanwhile, all of the largest freight rail companies are reporting record profits. The Surface Transportation Board, a federal oversight agency, repeatedly finds the railroads make enough money to maintain high levels of service and make a decent return on investment. Railroads choose to not do the former so they can have more of the latter. Derailments are common and workers increasingly fear for their own safety and the safety of people who live in the towns and cities trains pass through. They cut corners and shrink workforces to improve operating margins for Wall Street interests. “It’s going to end up like Boeing,” one union president warned last year. 

These cut corners mean the entire railroad has to do more with less. Which brings us to why workers are so mad they are prepared to strike. The major freight rail companies are so short-staffed after years of cuts they had to introduce draconian attendance policies that are so demanding that workers are constantly tired, sick, and stressed. It is hardly the mindset any of us should want of the people operating vehicles that, with one mistake, become giant bombs or poison clouds. 

But it is also abhorrent on a human level, depriving workers of the basic elements of a normal, healthy life. Workers want to have the freedom to take sick days and the ability to schedule time off in advance for doctor appointments, vacations, and important family events knowing they will actually be able to take it, all of which they are currently unable to do in practice. I think back to what the wife of a BNSF engineer told me in September: “I have a shirt that says ‘I’m a railroad wife’ on the front and then on the back it says ‘Yes, he’s working. No, I don’t know when he will be home. Yes, we are still married. No, he isn’t imaginary.’ It used to be a joke shirt, but now it’s just a sad shirt.” Or when a conductor told me, “We have to parent our children via FaceTime.” Or what one former conductor for Norfolk Southern said, “By the end of my 10 years it didn't matter how much money they threw at me. That job changed me. I didn't feel like I was even a person anymore.”

Over the last 18 months, I have spoken to hundreds of freight rail workers and their families. Many of them saw this contract dispute as their last chance to force some change in how the railroads operate. But they were also, by and large, realistic about the slim chances of success. Thanks to a law whose roots date back to the railroad robber baron days, Congress can force railroad workers back to work under any terms it wishes to settle labor disputes. And, historically, Congress has used this power. Most of the workers and union officials I have spoken to over these months expected this. They know the railroads have sophisticated and well-financed lobbying efforts. They know there is little political gain to be won by supporting railroad workers, but much to be lost by supporting a strike that ruins Christmas.

This fatalism over the eventual outcome is clearly reflected in two votes by one of the main unions involved in the dispute, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET). The first vote was a strike authorization vote in August. It passed with 99.5 percent of the vote. The second was BLET’s vote on the tentative agreement two weeks ago. I have not spoken to a single worker who thinks this tentative agreement addresses any of their concerns. But that is a different question than whether to vote for it, since Congress could impose terms worse than the tentative agreement. In the end, the BLET voted to ratify by a slim majority of 53.5 percent. These votes reflect what I heard throughout the process, that workers want to strike but know Congress won’t let them. A fatalism set in.

Much ink will be spilled in the coming days on whether Biden is as “pro-labor” as he insists he is. But that is not the important question. If history is any guide, the vote to force the tentative agreement on workers will be lopsided with a large enough majority to override a theoretical presidential veto. 

The important question is, now that the thing everyone expected would happen has come to pass, what now? The freight rail industry is subject to all kinds of regulation. Congress can pass laws. The Federal Railroad Administration, overseen by presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg, can enforce existing rules or make new ones. The Surface Transportation Board can do likewise. The Federal Trade Commission can block new mergers or review past ones. The important question is, who is going to care now that workers no longer have a gun to hold to the country’s head in an attempt to make us care?

After Biden released his statement, the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, which rejected the tentative agreement, issued a statement of its own that accused Biden of presenting a false solution to a real problem. 

“Passing legislation to adopt tentative agreements that exclude paid sick leave for Railroad Workers will not address rail service issues,” the statement said. “Rather, it will worsen supply chain issues and further sicken, infuriate, and disenfranchise Railroad Workers as they continue shouldering the burdens of the railroads’ mismanagement. Indeed, the big corporations, the monopolies that control America—the robber baron railroads—have again profiteered from the problem they created and shifted the consequences of it onto the Railroad Workers, the customers, and the general public. This cannot continue. There must be a change.”