Last month, everyone in corporate media clapped their hands when President Biden
helped negotiate a tentative agreement between rail unions and
railroad companies.
Then everyone just promptly forgot to check in
on that story to see how things are going.
Turns out that while the rail union and
the rail employers came up with an agreement,
the actual rail workers weren't so happy with what had been negotiated.
And so there is still some likelihood that a strike could happen, and there's also
some likelihood that Congress could intervene and stop them from striking.
Now, what they conveniently ignored in the corporate press
is that the union workers needed to vote on the agreement that was
agreed upon by the union and the rail employers.
And it seems like the workers actually are not happy with the meager concessions
they got.
So on Monday, the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees,
which is a division of the Teamsters, voted on a tentative agreement, and
they voted no, they voted to reject it.
Here's what happened.
Just under 12,000 of BMWE's 23,900 freight rail workers voted,
the union announced October 10th with 56% voting against the deal.
Leader said they're hoping to return to the bargaining table.
The union is delaying any potential strike until November 19th at the earliest.
Now the implications of this vote happens to be pretty massive, okay?
So as Jonah Furman tweets, this alone is a huge deal since
a BMWE strike would shut down the national rail freight system.
But also makes me wonder if it'll affect the two bigger union votes.
Ballots for BLET and SMART-TD rail workers mail out on October 15th and
are due back November 17th.
By the way,
you wanna talk about our economy just like effectively shutting down.
Rail workers striking would lead to just that.
So I don't know, I would venture to say that giving them what they're asking for,
which is incredibly reasonable, should just happen.
And what they need is time off to deal with medical emergencies.
If you look at what was negotiated upon, what they agreed upon,
it'll blow your mind how meager it is.
So let me go to that.
So after the tentative deal was reached, SMART-TD, which is another rail union,
of course, pulled their workers.
And they actually found out that 78% wanted the union to reject the agreement
and ultimately let Congress decide the National Rail Contract.
Which, I don't know, it's unclear to me why they think Congress would look out for
them considering how awful Congress is.
But nonetheless, they would prefer that over just
accepting what the deal is as it stands currently.
Workers are rejecting the contract because of the meager concessions.
And here's what I mean by that.
Press reports made it sound like the deal would create three sick days for
railroad workers.
But once the actual language came out,
what was created turned out to be something less than sick time.
Get a load of this, heavily circumscribed unpaid time for
routine or preventative medical appointments.
Either on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday with at least 30 days
notice plus no attendance penalties for hospitalization or surgery.
Because I don't know about you guys, but when I have a medical emergency,
I usually know 30 days ahead of time.
And I can usually coordinate the situation so
it's on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.
Hey, how about these rail companies hire more workers?
Like here at TYT, we trade hosts to fill in.
So if Cenk is sick, if I'm sick,
were able to take a day off to recover from our illness.
That's what a company usually does when they wanna plan ahead.
But my read of this whole situation is they don't wanna hire more people.
They don't wanna spend more money because they have a profit motive, of course.
They wanna increase their profits knowing full well that what they're doing to their
workers, the very people who generate the profits in the first place is
incredibly cruel and inhumane.
Not allowing people to take time off for a medical emergency is insane.
And the fact that the Biden administration brokered this deal between the rail
employers and the rail union and is proud of it is insane as well.
But let me continue.
The deal also gave workers an immediate 14% raise, which sounds so
great, right, with backpay dating back to 2020,
except raises totaling 24% during a five-year life of the contract.
But over five years, that's around half, half of the current rate of inflation.
So their raises wouldn't even come close to keeping up with inflation
based on this current deal.
Can you guys understand why they would reject this deal?
I certainly would.
I don't blame the rail workers at all.
They would get cash bonuses of about $1,000 a year.
There would be a cap on healthcare premium payments to just under $400 a month,
which is pretty pricey if you ask me.
And insultingly, just one,
just one additional paid day off, not per month,
but per year, one additional paid day off per year.
So these half ass provisions won't do much for the rail workers,
which is why they rejected it.
I wanna read you some quotes from anonymous workers who spoke to
the World Socialist Website.
They probably spoke anonymously because they don't wanna be retaliated against.
They say, we have horrible working conditions, pretty much 12 hours a day.
And if you're lucky enough to get a day off, they call you constantly.
We get no rest.
They constantly break Federal Railroad Administration rules and
try to force us to do the same.
We can't get days off for doctor's appointments or anything.
Another worker said this, they lie, cheat, and steal.
They cut jobs and dump the work on other jobs, pushing us to do more.
Seems like they really don't wanna hire more workers.
Seems like that's the heart of the issue here.
One guy at my workplace passed out from the heat and
had to be taken to the hospital.
All they care about is the price of their stock.
I've had enough.
Meanwhile, the robber baron railroad companies are sitting pretty, real pretty.
In fact, let's take a look at this graph because it'll show you the amount of
spending these railroad companies have done on dividends and stock buybacks.
As you can see from the graph, it has shot up considerably.
I mean, compared to 2004, it's night and day.
So year after year, they spend more and
more of their revenue on dividends and stock buybacks.
And who does that benefit?
Does it benefit the workers who are being crushed right now,
the very workers who generate that revenue in the first place?
Or does it benefit the shareholders?
Obviously, the shareholders cuz that's all that matters in this country.
The system is set up this way.
They have what, what do they have?
What kind of responsibility, guys?
There's a special little F word I like to use on this show.
They have fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders.
They don't care about their workers.
They wanna crush them.
And what makes this story particularly sick is that their union in this case,
their unions agreed to this horse crap deal.
No, I'm glad that the actual workers rejected it.
We'll see how it plays out, though,
because I don't think that Congress is gonna look out for them.
So while the railroad workers toil away, their union leadership is actually
partying in Vegas with corporate Democrats, doesn't make me feel so
good about this situation.
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, which is another division of
the Teamsters, began their annual convention this Monday in Las Vegas.
On that day, Nancy Pelosi spoke to the convention.
And let me remind the BLET how Pelosi responded to the threat of a rail strike.
Pelosi had threatened to issue a congressional injunction against
railroaders if they went on strike.
And admitted that House Democrats had legislation ready to go if
they walked out at the original deadline on September 16th.
It's really important to remember that with the unlimited spending of corporate
money toward Democrats and Republicans in their elections, in their campaigns.
We're having this two-party system really meld into one.
Where you have Republicans and Democrats just endlessly engaging in the culture
war, right, to give you the illusion of governance, of governing on your behalf.
When in reality, because of their corporate donors,
because of that corporate influence.
They are in cahoots in crushing workers who are demanding the most
reasonable thing in the world, which is time off to deal with life.
And I'm pretty sure Nancy Pelosi values the six months out of
the year she has to do whatever she wants, including fund raise.
She's got unlimited time off.
Sure she values that.
I wish that she would afford that same privilege to other workers who
might need that time off for actual medical emergencies.
Democrats make me sick because while for the most part,
Republicans tell you how heinous they are,
Democrats pretend like they represent the common working man.
But in example after example, corporate Democrats prove otherwise.