When you talk about corporate greed, the rail industry is a perfect manifestation
of that making huge profits, not giving their workers one day of guaranteed
paid sick time that is an outrage that is an issue we're going to deal with.
>> Well, luckily a Union Pacific employee who was fired by that very same
rail company wants to deal with them and wants to deal with them now.
And has done so by filing a new lawsuit against Union Pacific,
which accuses the rail company of literally hiring private investigators
to spy on their employees while they're out on medical leave.
Now, the lawsuit alleges that the company fires workers if they're on leave,
but they leave their homes as they're enjoying sick leave I guess.
The argument here is that, the company doesn't trust their employees so they hire
spies to spy in on them, to see if they're actually sick or in need of medical leave.
Now, Nick Thompson who is the lawyer who filed this lawsuit last month,
notes that this is the first lawsuit like this in the state of Texas.
And he is representing a specific employee who apparently had a very serious
back injury that took him out for about eight months his name is Ron Rutledge.
So after the back injury,
Rutledge needed the eight months off in order to recuperate and to get better.
But because of the severity of the back injury ever so often he will experience
some flare ups, and when the flare ups happen, he's a mobile, he has difficulty
moving around, he has difficulty doing his job so he needs to rest at home.
Well, the lawsuit alleges that he ended up getting fired because
Union Pacific hired private investigators to check in on him and
see if he was really staying home.
So Nick Thompson the attorney representing Rutledge says ultimately this has
an effect Union Pacific wants.
It scares people from using family medical leave or the family medical leave act.
So the lawsuit again centers on De'Ron Rutledge,
Union Pacific says it didn't do anything wrong,
but let's give you the accusations in detail and you can judge for yourselves.
In the Texas case De'Ron Rutledge had worked various jobs at Union Pacific
over 11 years leading up to working as a conductor before he was fired last year.
According to his Lawsuit, Rutledge had to take eight months off to
rehabilitate after the back injury in 2017.
But after returning to the job, he would occasionally need to take additional time
off when his back condition flared up ,seems like that makes a lot of sense.
So, what happened next?
Well according to the lawsuit, the railroad fired him after a private
investigator saw Rutledge, drive to the grocery store and
gas station near his home in Fresno Texas and walk for short periods.
And Rutledge said his bosses wouldn't listen when he tried to explain
that even if he was well enough to run a few errands,
he didn't feel up to helping operate a train.
Now, keep in mind that Union Pacific much like other rail companies wanted to
maximize their profits by cutting down on labor as much as humanly possible, okay.
So at the very height of the rail industry, they had about two
million rail workers today that number is down to 700,000.
And the calculation they made was all right, we'll have less workers, but
we'll make the trains much longer.
So they're about 25% longer which makes them less safe,
of course they didn't ever upgrade their braking systems,
they have not invested in making their trains safer.
And they have far fewer employees to essentially follow
the proper protocols to make sure that everything is being done safely.
And since they have less employees,
workers are expected to not take any time off if they get ill, if they get sick.
And when it comes to conductors, they deal with a special kind of help because they
are not offered any sick leave, okay?
So let's get to those details.
So Nick Thompson and again the attorney says,
the fact that you're on FMLA doesn't mean that you have to lay in bed all day.
The fact that you can't work a 12 hour shift
is different than whether you can do other things.
And so, so far the conductors and all of the engineers who work in locomotives,
representing more than half of the rail workers,
don't have a single paid sick day off, okay.
And that was what led to a possible strike,
congress intervened under the leadership of Biden and under the demands of
the Biden administration, to prevent the strike from happening and
to essentially force a union contract on the rail workers who just wanted
some time off to deal with things like family, emergencies or illnesses.
So this is what we're dealing with here, I love that the now former Union Pacific
employee has decided to press charges, we'll see how it plays out.
Curious what you think Emma.
>> Well, I think this is one of the many reasons I love you Anna,
I really think this is an incredibly important story.
So thank you for
highlight it, highlighting it on TYT because I'm glad to comment on it.
This is a massive problem.
This is the problem with efficiency and
lean labor models as likely advocated to these rail companies
by consulting companies like, the one that Pete, but
the judge used to work for McKenzie where they come in as mercenaries.
They essentially say here's where we can trim the fat, and
the easiest way to trim the fat is labor.
And we have some redundancy, we can hire and get by with this
amount of people so long as they don't take any sick leave.
And so someone watching this might say, well does it cost we like a lot?
Isn't it kind of ridiculous for
the rail company to hire a private investigator to follow one worker around,
and make sure that they're not buying food or getting gas and living.
They need to be dying on a sick bed for them to get sick leave,
that's not really what's at issue here.
They see that as the cost of doing business, because it's pennies and
comparison to their commitment to a lean labor model,
as I mentioned earlier, where as Anna laid out perfectly.
They try to cut down on costs for
labor to an extent that the people at the top their shareholders as well
because these companies don't have a fiduciary duty to their workers.
They only have it to their shareholders that's a problem of capitalism,
to maximize the profits at the top end.
And that means employing the least amount of people possible with
the worst conditions possible for them.
When Mitt Romney came out and was speaking to Howard Schulte and said,
none of these people have ever created a job in their life.
These capitalists at the top of these companies, they're not job creators,
they're job gatekeepers.
>> Yes. >> They are making sure that they have the
fewest amount of jobs possible to maximize the profits for their shareholders.
And that's only exacerbated by the fact,
that these rail companies are regional monopolies that have no competition.
So these conductors who work at railroads,
if this is their line of work, they have nowhere to go unless they move thousands,
potentially of miles away from their home or change their line of work.
And so that creates more leverage on these workers so
that you can have API going after them.
And this is why there are only two avenues forward, by the way unbelievable that
Biden was so afraid of any disruption that he broke the strike but regardless.
It's unconscionable, there are only two options going forward.
We nationalize these railroads which I'm in favor of and labor is as well,
except that's more of a long term goal.
But in the short term, antitrust, antitrust now break these regional
monopolies up so they cannot do this to their workers.
>> I totally agree with you on that.
And I think that's a good short term goal, and a good long term goal as well.
And I leave you all with this, just to buttress, the great points that Emma made.
I wanna add some numbers to it because if you're wondering, well,
why don't they just hire more workers?
Isn't it more costly to have this private investigator follow a worker around?
Well, as Nick Thompson the attorney says hiring more people is expensive,
mistreating the employees you have costs nothing, and
it really is nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Union Pacific,
one of the major freight railroads that successfully fought off union demands for
paid sick days for workers, reported another year of record earnings in 2022.
The company's employee pay and benefits rose about $500 million or
12% that sounds like a lot to 4.6 billion.
But that's far less than the 6.3 billion that union Pacific
spent repurchasing shares of stock, for the year the company's
net income rose to a record $7 billion up about 500 million or
7% from the previous record profit it posted in 2021.
While overall operating expenses for 2022 rose 2.5 billion that was
outweighed by revenue rising 3 billion to a record 24.9 billion for the year.
They decided to fire a bunch of employees because they wanted to maximize profits.
The proof is in the pudding, you see it in the numbers and the people who suffer
the most are local communities dealing with the hazardous waste being spilled
into their environment, into their water, into the air that they breathe.
The workers who can't take any time off, even if they're dealing with severe
injuries, ordinary people are the ones who suffer, right.
Socialize the losses, privatize the gains and
that is what we see with these rail companies, so
I agree with Emma 100% in what the short term and long-term goals should be.
The only problem is we need elected lawmakers who wanna do the right thing,
and represent the best interest of ordinary people.
We gotta get money out of politics, and
we gotta ban members of congress from investing in individual stocks.