Republican Senators Roger Wicker and Richard Burr introduced legislation this week aimed at preventing a devastating nationwide rail strike by forcing companies and unions to accept the recommendations of a Joe Biden-appointed panel of experts known as the Presidential Emergency Board to resolve a years-long stalemate in negotiations.
“Despite a broad consensus on the PEB’s recommendations, two labor unions continue to stymie contract negotiations. Without an agreement, America faces a potential rail worker strike as early as September 16, which would cost an estimated $2 billion a day,” Burr’s office said in a press release.
All 12 of the US’ major rail labor unions have been negotiating with the National Carriers Conference Committee freight rail association since 2019, demanding improved working conditions and calling for more staff to be hired. Two major unions rejected the PEB’s recommendations last month, citing the compromise agreement’s failure to address employees’ frustrations over financial penalties for missed time caused by illnesses, crippling staff shortages, and 24/7, 7/7 on call status with no paid days off.
Windfall corporate profits and the payment of tens of billions of dollars in dividends to stockholders in 2021 have also played a role in incensing union organizers.
The PEB’s proposed recommendations include a 24 percent wage hike, $1,000 annual bonuses paid retroactively, including for the year 2020, and increased health care and other benefits. 78 percent of employees of SMART-TED, a massive union representing nearly half of the industry’s workers, rejected the proposed deal as it stands. 99.5 percent of employees of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, another major union, voted in favor of authorizing a strike in July.
Although private automobiles and buses squeezed trains out as a major means of transporting passengers across the country decades ago, freight rail continues to serve as a strategic means for the delivery of goods from coast to coast, with a 30-40 percent of all freight estimated to be moved by rail. A disruption of freight rail due to a strike would have a near-immediate impact on gasoline and food prices, as well as industry and a broad variety of consumer goods, according to economists.
“A rail worker strike would be catastrophic for America’s transportation system and our already-stressed supply chain,” Burr said in the press statement. “The Presidential Emergency Board recommendations are a fair and appropriate solution to a years-long negotiation process, but labor unions are continuing to hold the entire nation’s rail system hostage as they demand more. The Biden Administration should reject labor unions’ bullying tactics,” the lawmaker said.
Senator Wicker echoed his colleague’s sentiments, saying a rail strike would be “counterproductive for everyone involved” and that it “would have devastating impacts on our entire economy.”
Burr and Wicker are expected to introduce their bill as soon as later on Wednesday, depending on whether the Democrat-controlled Congress allows for a debate on the matter.
The deadline for the rail strike will run out on 12:01 am Eastern Standard Time on Friday, after which virtually the entirety of the US’ network of freight railways could be affected by industrial action. The country has not experienced a major rail strike since 1992, when industrial action launched by the International Association of Machinists caused 40 railroads to halt their operations in solidarity, sparking immediate government intervention banning strikes and lockouts outright.