Of particular note:
The Association of American Railroads, which represents freight railway operators, said its members have been hiring in recent years to address staffing needs and recognize employees' desire for better scheduling. The group said the number of overtime hours worked by BMWE union members increased to 4.7 hours per week in 2022, compared to 4 hours in 2016.
Cory Ludwig, who works as a machine operator repairing railway tracks in Iowa, said he’s been working Saturdays and some Sundays along with 10- to 12-hour shifts since September. Recently, he worked 13 days without a day off. With the mandatory Saturday work, he’s had to rely on friends and relatives to take care of his five-year-old and nine-year-old kids. He said the overtime demands have increased as he’s seen the number of workers assigned to his crew go down.
“You fall asleep and then you wake up in the morning and you go right back to work. It can really break a person down, it gets really wearing on a person after a while,” Ludwig said. “With less people trying to do the same amount of work, working long hours, working multiple weeks in a row without one day off, you get irritated and you get burnt out.”
Recently one of the union’s members had been working 22 hours straight when he fell asleep on the job, an error that could have put his colleagues’ lives at risk but also could have been avoided had the employee had a rest period, said Ballew. Another member was recently disciplined for refusing to work through his scheduled days off on short notice so he could care for a family member having health issues, Ballew said.
“The stress it puts on marriages and parenting and the things you leave behind for your spouse to deal with or the things you miss, that kind of stress builds up,” said Ballew. “In the rail industry, we have noticed recently a spat of suicides and I can’t help but think there is a correlation there.”
Thank God Biden stopped the railroad strike!
I swear if I hear another fucker say that the railroad workers got everything they wanted because Biden helped them negotiate I'll lose it.
Good thing I voted for the lesser evil in 2020! Gosh if I had stuck to principles we'd have had a genocide or something 😒
80 hour weeks? Damn, you guys over the pond are crazy 😬
36 hours is 1 more than the standard work week in France lol.
I'm on 37,5 hours per week, and that includes lunch breaks. During the summer months, the hours per week is shorter: 32
And yet I've got a boss for a French company that tells us we have to work 45...
I'm jealous of my French colleagues, shorter work weeks, more vacation time, etc.
I work at a coal mine and did 112 hours last week plus travel time which is unpaid. Its a 40 minute drive. Some days i just shower at work and sleep in my car.
There are only 168hrs in a week. Do you feel like a human being?
Yes but time moves very quickly. Weeks dissappear. I feel like i make more money than i do because i have no time to spend it.
I suspect he doesn't. Pretty sure the boss would prefer it stay like that.