CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – I have several family members who are retired railroaders. I know something about the industry. The long-debated freight railroad strike is of interest to me.
First, railroading is difficult work. The most challenging part are the work conditions. A new railroader works the extra board until they have seniority. You don’t have regular hours. You can be called to crew-up on 8 hours notice. So, imagine, once you get off your locomotive and go home, you have eight hours to clean-up, eat, be with your family, and rest – before you might be called back to work. And railroads have run leaner, being on the extra board means working almost constantly. Big overtime. Poor quality of life. And you don’t want someone who’s sleepy operating the train of chemical tanker cars through your town.
Jobs with passenger railroads are also demanding. Amtrak has more than 4,000 job openings. Crews are paid per trip, not for the time a train is late. An Amtrak conductor or engineer works from a crew base, a place like Pittsburgh or Buffalo or Toledo, where they sometimes wait for hours for their train to arrive. Onboard crew like sleeping car attendants, are on their feet almost constantly, and have quick turnarounds – usually the next day – after their overnight trip. They’re laid off for 3 or 4 days after a round trip.
What railroaders are looking for is better work conditions, not necessarily higher pay. The contract they’ve voted down called for a $25/hour increase over four years, but not enough on quality of life issues.
The Biden Administration, which outright lied to us that the strike was settled in September, is part of the problem. Already tight staffing was made worse by COVID vaccination requirements. Older railroaders who didn’t want to get jabbed retired instead. The incompetence of port management in California made freight railroad conditions even more unpredictable. Train crews wouldn’t know when their container trains would be loaded or unloaded. Crews that can’t pull into overcrowded yards run out of federally mandated work hours out on the main line. It causes more bottlenecks.
What are the solutions? Well, things would be better if we had a Transportation Secretary who actually knew something about transportation. Recall that Pete Buttigieg is a diversity appointee. And what the railroads really need is help recruiting, training, and hiring more workers. These are good paying jobs that you don’t need a college degree for. So how about government polices that encourage people to work? And how about no more government mandates, like COVID shots, that make the employment landscape worse?
Chris Conley
Comments