With one week to go until freight-rail strikes become legal, seven out of twelve unions have still not reached deals, and one of the largest has rallies planned for tomorrow.
In addition to the three smaller unions that had together struck tentative agreements with employers over a week ago, two more have since joined. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the American Train Dispatchers Association (ATDA) made deals based on the recommendations from the presidential emergency board (PEB).
The carriers have said they will accept deals based on those independent recommendations, and they stuck to their word again, just as they did with the three unions earlier. The deal includes the 24 percent pay raise over the five-year life of the contract that the PEB recommended. The ATDA was one of the unions that had voted to approve a strike, but that was before the PEB report came out, and union leadership is now praising the pay increase as a win for its members during a time of high inflation.
But the two largest unions, SMART-TD and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), have still yet to agree to deals.
In a Labor Day message, SMART-TD president Jeremy Ferguson and BLET president Dennis Pierce said, “We will continue to concentrate our efforts on obtaining Tentative Agreements for our members that are worthy of their consideration.” They acknowledged that there is a wide range of opinions among the membership about what an agreement should look like. They said, “While we know that many SMART-TD and BLET members would like to strike their carriers for any number of reasons, it should not take a job action to reach an agreement worthy of their consideration.”
Tomorrow, SMART-TD has scheduled rallies in Nebraska and Ohio. The rallies are promoted as a way to “demand a fair contract that preserves our quality of life & dignity at work.”
People holding rallies are not usually the kind of people on the verge of accepting a deal, but at the same time, union leadership is signaling that it doesn’t think a strike should be needed. The tension has been amplified by a recent attempt by union leadership to debunk false claims circulating on social media among membership about the contents of the PEB report. The correct information the leadership was circulating was in an effort to portray the PEB’s recommendations in a more positive light.
After years of whipping up members over the deal, it seems that some of the leadership of the largest unions is having second thoughts. A 24 percent raise over five years with $1,000 bonuses each year and near-complete preservation of extremely generous health benefits is nothing to sneeze at.
Union leadership is also fully aware of the possible next step: Congress writing a deal. Pressure on Capitol Hill has been increasing, with various industry groups telling members of the dire consequences that would result from a rail strike. Democratic members of Congress could want to write a sweetheart deal for their union supporters, but Ferguson and Pierce said in their message that they do not want the government to get involved, preferring prolonged negotiations instead. That could indicate they feel that the wind is not blowing their way, and Congress could be more distraught by the economic consequences of a strike ($2 billion per day, according to the American Association of Railroads) than by the supposed plight of workers who have been offered a 24 percent raise over a five-year span.
September 16 is the deadline, after which striking becomes legal. It is also an option to lengthen the cooling-off period again, further deferring the possibility of a strike, but that would require an agreement from both sides. The carriers have already said they’d accept deals based on the independent recommendations, and they’ve kept their word with the five unions that have already made tentative agreements. The ball remains in labor’s court to avoid a strike.