Railroad workers and Railroad Corporations are now in the midst of a fierce
contract negotiation and a board that was appointed by President Joe Biden
has actually just sided with the corporations, I mean is not shocking.
Now this is a story that we're updating you on TYT had covered
the initial reports on this.
But just to give you a refresher before we get to the latest news
the railroad workers have been without a contract for almost three years,
three years no contract.
And you know what that means, that means that they have not gotten a pay increase.
And that's a big problem especially when you consider the inflation that we're
experiencing right now.
And that's pushing workers to quit because they're like I can't make do with
the money I'm getting paid for this work and I don't wanna do this anymore,
I'm done.
So some of these workers quit and the ones that remain end up working
punishing hours in some ways they're on call on their days off,
and it's just been a complete utter disaster.
The conditions aren't good, the pay isn't good.
And so last year I'm sorry last month,
the brotherhood of locomotive engineers and train men,
voted 99% nearly unanimous in favor of going on strike.
And the day before the union was legally able to strike,
the White House got involved, Biden stepped in and
he created what's referred to as a Presidential Emergency Board or PEB.
Okay, and he did this by executive order which prevented the unions from
being able to go on strike.
And so the it prevents them from going on strike for at least 30 days.
And understand why he did that.
Okay if the railroad workers go on strike, any supply chain issues
that we've already experienced will be exacerbated considerably.
And that puts the White House in panic, puts the corporations in panic.
This is why organized labor is a powerful thing.
But unfortunately, biden decided to step in and
prevent them from legally striking for 30 days.
Okay so even more contact context you might be wondering,
well does biden even have the executive authority to do that?
He absolutely does the authority to create a presidential emergency
board was established in the Railway Labor Act of 1926.
So Biden's executive order is not without precedent.
Okay but here's here's my argument was instead of preventing them from striking.
How about you apply pressure to the corporations that
are doing real well to share that revenue.
You know, just just pay the workers, please just pay the workers and
they just won't do it right.
So now we're in this disastrous situation where the workers are unable to
strike legally And the negotiations have not been going well.
So let's get let's get to what we know from the latest round of negotiations.
Number one, profits for these railroad companies on the rise.
Let's take a look at this graph by blue using Bloomberg intelligence,
it was put together by the Washington post.
It shows that the average profit margin for
the top five US railroads has more than doubled.
So they're doing well and they could share that wealth with the workers but
they're refusing to do it.
So yesterday biden's pe be released its recommendations for a new contract.
Okay so this is the group that biden put together.
Okay this isn't even the corporation that's making the proposal.
The PEB report proposes a 22% cumulative pay increase over five years,
retroactive to 2020.
The proposal which works out to an average 4.4% wage
increase per year is little more than half half the current
rate of inflation of 8.5% entailing a major cut in real pay.
That's what they came up with.
We're gonna give you a raise but
it's not gonna be enough to even mitigate inflation.
So it's it's not a it's not a raise.
It's still a pay cut when you consider inflation, it's just a disaster.
Even worse the PEB did not recommend any changes to the punishing attendance
policies that railroad railroad companies have implemented.
I'll get to those details in a moment.
But first was I want to give you an opportunity to jump in.
>> I mean you pretty much said everything there is to say here.
There was a lot of you know tough talk.
I think I was even on the show when biden did his tough talk to amazon and we're
unionizing and we're coming for you and blah blah blah a lot of lip service paid
to the labor movement in the country, in this country, a putrid as it already is.
And so you know to see him do this and
just basically punch the working man in the face is just disgusting and
you know, symbolically I'm not one who cares about symbolism too much but
like the reason why a labor movement was even started was because of
the freaking railroads like just the punishing conditions, The amount
of people who literally died laying down the railroads in this country right?
Like the conditions were so just unacceptable and inhumane like this,
this is the the industry that galvanized a labor movement in this country.
And so to see joe biden, you know, 100 something years later,
just be a complete corporate flack and hack it's quite disgusting again.
And it's beautiful that you said it was like this is just joe biden executive
order.
He didn't need to go whip up no votes in congress.
This is just by fiat he could do this and what he chooses to do with this power
is just punch these these workers in the nose, which is just shameful and awful.
>> You know, and I can't help but think about how he is very much willing
to flex his executive muscle when it comes to preventing workers from striking.
But when it comes to other executive privileges, like the ability to,
with the stroke of a pen cancel student loan debt, it would take no effort really.
He pretends like he doesn't know whether he has the ability to do that through
an executive order.
He absolutely does.
These are federal government loans and
the education secretary with biden's blessing can cancel the debt.
I mean it's, it's such a lay up.
That's the thing that I don't get so many easy things that biden could do.
Like canceling the debt is one thing, taking marijuana off the schedule.
One drug list is another thing he could do easy layups, layup after layup.
But he just, he misses every time.
So I want, I want to give the workers a voice here.
Let's start with one of the railroad workers from Virginia who says I work for
North Norfolk Southern.
We have a long pool in which the conductors get no set days off.
They leave their home terminal and can spend up to 36 hours or
more in a hotel waiting for their next train.
And I don't know for sure.
But I would venture to say that as they're waiting for
that next train in a hotel when they would probably much rather be at home.
They're not getting paid for those hours.
I'm not sure.
I'm just suspecting that that's the case.
He continues to say or she, I'm unsure because this person
gave the quote anonymously often that will be their day off.
So they're like on call or waiting for
their next job on their day off in a hotel,
waiting on their train back home when they get back home to their home terminal.
They're often back to work after their 10-hour mandatory rest period,
depending on how quick the pool is turning.
Here's another worker from Texas.
I was forced to take stimulants to stay awake and sleeping pills to sleep.
Then more stimulants to wake up from the pills I took to go to sleep.
It got to where I couldn't sleep at all.
Then I would fall asleep for way too long and couldn't wake up.
I literally felt like I was going crazy.
I mean the torture that these workers are going through both physically and
mentally is insane and again to see biden taint.
The one thing that I I felt the need to give him credit on, which is,
you know, his NLRB has been pretty good, standards are low.
Let's keep that in mind right?
But good relative to other administrations.
But he has now soiled that One positive thing in his administration by stepping in
and basically preventing these workers from striking to ensure that they
get better working conditions and better pay.
Finally let me just tell you what happens next.
We've entered another 30 day period in which the unions cannot strike and
the negotiations are ongoing.
Now, if an agreement is not reached at the end of the 30 days
then unions would be able to strike.
However, there's something else to keep in mind.
Congress would likely take initiative there.
They would intervene As they did in 1992 there's precedent for that.
So that was when the International Association of
Machinists struck against a single railroad, a CSX.
And so Congress stepped in and Congress and the White House moved with rare speed.
They're always so fast when it comes to these issues right rare speed to end
a crippling two day nationwide nationwide rail shutdown that already had begun to
threaten the economy by forcing layoffs at coal mines and auto assembly plants.
The House and Senate passed emergency legislation borrowing strikes and
lockouts by large margins,
setting up a last best offer arbitration system to resolve the three major
union management disputes that had idled virtually all US railroads.
So the one there's two things that I think Congress is very
speedy with number one defense spending.
They'll pass that bill right away and anything that allows for the crushing
of workers, certainly workers who might strike so that there you have it.
That's where we're at with that railroad worker negotiation situation and
we'll fill you in as we get more details.
But yeah put that in your pipe and smoke it