Posted on 09/15/2022 3:37:27 AM PDT by FarCenter
Unions are awesome arent they. I always imagined union rail workers already made pretty good bank.
Plus money up front, though.
Maybe they’re betting on Trump getting back in and inflation falling below 4.8%, too.
And here’s one thing that I haven’t seen mentioned.
1. Mantle Ridge, a hedge fund owned by Paul Hilal, purchased controlling shares of CSX in 2017. He brought in a scumbag, Hunter Harrison and his crew, to begin taking the company apart. Firing thousands, lengthening trains and wreaking havoc on the company. Skeleton crews. Cutting pay. Not enough crews to operate. All in an effort to boost stock prices, where they’d run the company into the ground and then sell all their stocks.
They did the same things to two Canadian railroads, both of which are still recovering.
What they didn’t count on, because people like them never do, is that others would retire or resign. And, most importantly, the numbers of young men willing to go into railroading declines very year. The talent pool is getting real shallow.
2. Pretty soon the other Class 1 railroads started to mimic CSX, who is now ran by Harrison’s right hand man.
They all are dealing with the same issues.
So……where were the unions when all of this was happening? Where were the unions when 6-7000 people lost their jobs with CSX? NOWHERE.
Scheduling because all of the railroads have cut personnel to the bone and are working them like the saves that built the pyramids.
> I doubt the rank and file will have a say since I don’t think union elections are free and fair ... <
I was an involuntary member of a teachers union for decades. And yep, you’ve got a point there. I could tell you election stories that would make Stalin blush.
Here’s the bottom line: what the leadership wants, the leadership gets. One way or the other. Always.
They do.
And railroad pensions are privately funded. No public money. As a rail worker, you pay a lot of money into that pension fund, for you and your spouse, as you both get a pension check if you make full retirement
30 years, or more, of service…….60 yes old…..150% of your salary.
IE: engineer makes $130k(avg). Hits the numbers. He and his wife are bringing in $195k a year.
But they also know that most of them don’t get to enjoy a lot of it because they count on them dying.
I worked with a guy that did 35 years. Didn’t make it 3 months.
Plagiarism comes to mind.
I’m going on strike as a retiree. Hopefully a nationwide strike of retiree’s will follow.
Demands:
25% yearly raise for the next 10 years
Unlimited free food
Free electric car which requires..
Free utilities for life
Air lifts to all local voting with secret service security
And free beer of my choice
Right! They’re gambling that inflation will average less than that (actually less than about 4.4 percent with compounding).
1.044 (end of 1st year) x 1.044 x 1.044 x 1.044 x 1.044 = 1.2403 at end of 4th year.
No way they are getting a “raise”.
Where’s buttplug in all this? Recovering from monkeypox?
And the cost savings gets passed along to the paying customer. (Sarc)
Dunno. Betting on a Trump win in 2024 seems a weird bet for a Biden supporting union.
The way Biden is throwing money around doesn't seem likely to control inflation. (The Fed and the bond market might, but it will be painful.)
(At least there is toilet paper in the stores. For now.)
The Machinists’ union did not accept the contract and voted to strike, but they agreed to delay until Sept. 29. The other unions’ members need to vote.
Where did I say it was only the government that was buying votes?
Department of Labor negotiated the deal, not Transportation.
The whole thing was Kabuki Theater.
At this point in time this is a good thing.
Given their latest plot to destroy the nation, wonder why they didn’t just let it happen?
This has been my experience with the major railroads(CN, CPRS, CSXT, NS, BNSF, UP) for the last year. They cut their employees during covid to a minimum. Eventually they did not have enough bodies to run the trains. They were constantly behind moving empty rail cars to sawmills on the CN, UP and BNSF. This made carloads of lumber multiple weeks behind on contract orders. All the mills could claim was FORCE MAJURE.
(out of our control, act of God). Some of the smaller/lower volume mills could not get rail cars at all to ship their product. Therefore, they had to adjust their marketing strategy to selling by truckload only.
This exacerbated the price increases in lumber over the last two years because it added to the lack of supply with the increase in transit times. It also held prices up longer than they would have during the decrease in prices because extended shipment times.
They asked for 14%, but had to settle for 24%. Bummer
Railroads come under DOT and yes the department of labor gets involved with the Union BS and labor crap but Buttplug should have been involved.
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