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this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2023
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Cool.
Can we treat rail road workers like people too? Or are we still building all of this on the backs of people sacrificing their health and their families?
Not to downplay anything but passenger rail employees are treated significantly better than freight. The majority of employees have set schedules including conductors and engineer. It's different from crew base to crew base but between 15% to 30% are extra board working on call.
I wonder if the fact that Amtrak is nationalized and freight are private corporations has anything to do with how the employees get treated… Something to think about when it comes to freight railroads
It's more so because moving freight vs passengers are a fundamentally different challenge. There are a handful of class one freight railroads that hold the operation contract for some commuter lines and those employees still have a significant better quality of life.
According to the unions and Biden administration worked behind the scenes to pressure the rail companies to capitulate and give rail workers the sick days they were going to strike for -- and it was successful. So there'll be no sacrifices here.
Yes that was what the news reported. The rank and file however were everywhere trying to be heard that it wasn't what was needed. They can get 4 days off with pre clearance. It's still a case of showing up or getting fired if you get sick. The points system is still there as well. Biden forced them back to work and then depended on the media to give him a victory lap.
Everyone except actual labor is patting themselves on the back. That's not a good thing.
Do you have sources where I could read more about the rank and file opinion? Or surveys/polls?
No he's just talking out of his ass, because if Biden is doing good things he can't argue for his accelerationist nonsense.
FWIW my next door neighbor is literally a low level freight rail worker and we have discussed this in depth
What's their opinion on things?
And yeah it's very convenient that news reporting has skipped over all the dissenting opinions. The same news reporting that goes out of its way to show both sides to an issue. And the same reporting that isn't a monolith, and has some outrightly stated leftist publications.
I don't think it's possible for there to be absolutely no news coverage of widespread worker dissent. That kind of news drives sales, and plenty of publications have ideological reasons to cover them too.
Their opinion is that yes, Biden did fight off-camera to get them the lions share of what they wanted. The job is still hard, because that's the job.
What a lot of people miss in this discussion is that being a freight rail worker is just a job they wouldn't do. All the workers know the game when they sign up. They know the attendance policy, they know the serious bodily harm risks, and they know the hours. They then look at the pay and decide it's worth it, or they don't become rail workers.
My best friend is a lineman, and it's a similar thing there. You're going to get electrocuted. You're going to get bit by enormous spiders. You're going to get injured, sometimes seriously, and you're absolutely going to work sick because there aren't enough linemen and electricity is important. By embracing that risk, you can get a 6 figure income in rural wherever without any education.
All of the arguments like the dude above makes involves taking away the agency of the actual workers, and imo infantilizing them, to try to score some shitty "but Biden isn't a god who can magic into existence exactly what I want" kind of thing
I think that has to be part of the discussion, education. These workers are "unskilled laborers", and that means companies can push them around however they'd like. There isn't a limited pool of workers that requires them to offer comprehensive benefits, like with more technical positions. There's also a very high chance some of the job hazards will be eliminated with automation -- while also eliminating jobs. We need to prepare for that.
In the meantime, we should create formal education programs for these positions so the workers have more leverage if they desire.
This really isn't true. Laborers have the advantage in the unskilled market right now because there are more jobs than people post-covid. Education is overrated for most unskilled positions.
The Lineman union is using that leverage to kick wholesale ass.
That's a fair point. More jobs than people inherently gives the laborers the advantage. I'll need to look into the Lineman union too -- nothing's more heartwarming than a union successfully kicking execs to the curb.
First, and I am not assuming you meant it this way it just has to be repeated over and over again, “unskilled laborers” is mostly just a phrase the rationalizes treating people who do difficult jobs like shit. It’s like the phrase “flipping burgers”, it takes what is an extremely difficult job both mentally and physically and hand waves it away as a cakewalk. Working in food service is basically being an athlete that has to pretend to be happy and pleasant the entire time while performing an endurance sport while also constantly having working memory and task management skills tested to an extreme degree.
Second, there is most definitely a limited pool of workers if those workers are organized and the president doesn’t step in to shut down said organization in favor of a deal that basically was written by the massive rail corporations….
Absolutely, that's why I put it in quotation. I couldn't think of a better way to describe them at the time. You're spot on too that food service isn't trivial work. Both it and working retail are brutal, and I don't wish that on anyone except those who truly deserve it. There's nothing wrong with those jobs, but they put up with way more than they should have to.
Judging people for their job is one of those shitty conservative boomer things, and it makes absolutely no sense. When I order out for dinner, I'm not necessarily looking for a chef whose culinary skills exceed my own. I'm looking for someone to make me food so I don't have to. I'm exchanging money for someone's time and effort so I don't have to spend time nor effort. Skill and talent don't matter. If I don't want to do something, that something is going to be nontrivial effort, and I owe gratitude and compensation to whoever does it for me. All labor is precious and valuable under this viewpoint.
Also -- I'm all for unionization. If it isn't enough collective power to affect change, then we can try something else. But we should try first.