National Contract Negotiations
The Tentative Agreement and Agreed Upon Q&A’s are available in the Member’s Area
News
BMWED provides national freight rail bargaining update
BMWED-IBT National Division officers, General Chairpersons, and staff met in Washington, D.C. this week with the National Carriers Conference Committee for three days of continued bargaining in the wake of the Presidential Emergency Board 250’s recommendations. No tentative agreement was reached.
BRS publishes collective bargaining update
The Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, which represents more than 6,500 members working on the nation’s freight railroads in national collective bargaining, issued the following statement today regarding PEB 250 recommendations:
A U.S. freight rail crisis threatens more supply chain chaos
Federal regulators and the White House have been scrambling to prevent poor service and a possible strike from jamming up a vital but often overlooked network.
Update on PEB 250 recommendations to national agreement negotiations
On Monday, August 22, the SMART TD and BLET, along with the other remaining United Rail Unions, met with the Rail Carriers via Zoom to determine if PEB 250’s recommendations could serve as a basis for a tentative agreement. In-person meetings were then held on Thursday and Friday in Chicago, Illinois. Unfortunately, the meetings did not result in any tentative agreement language that operating crafts would accept, or that could be presented to our members for ratification.
PEB 250 issues recommendations
INDEPENDENCE, Ohio, August 17 — The recommendations of Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) No. 250 were published on Tuesday, August 16. Officers of the BLET National Division, along with legal counsel and the BLET Wage Team, are continuing to analyze the report and...
Why the labor dispute doesn’t seem to matter to railroads
The railroads are most certainly watching midterm elections that will alter current congressional majorities, and they have their eye focused on the U.S. Supreme Court. It is virtually impossible to believe that the lineup of a conservative-leaning SCOTUS will support reregulation, price controls or more rail service oversight.
Freight rail unions and carriers running out of time to avoid strike that could cripple national supply chain
Currently, The United Rail Unions and a group representing the seven Class 1 freight carriers (National Railway Labor Conference) are waiting on a non-binding recommendation from a Presidential Emergency Board, summoned by President Biden in an attempt to hold off a strike.
Rail workers rally to demand new pact
As the nation’s railroad worker unions presented their details for a new contract with the freight railroads to a Presidential Emergency Board, rank-and-file workers rallied with their leaders in Galesburg, Ill., to demand one. And they picked up wide labor and political support.
Fed up rail workers rally in Galesburg as potential national strike looms
Last month, for The Real News, I reported on the egregious working conditions that rail workers on Class I freight railroads are facing, including punitive and inhumane attendance policies, chronic understaffing (after rail companies collectively laid off 30% of their workforce since 2015), stagnant wages, and dire safety threats as trains have gotten longer and heavier while rail carriers have simultaneously sought to reduce crew sizes down to one person.
Railroads get off track in obsessing about profit margins
In pushing those margins over the past five years to a level that analysts most likely would have thought were unobtainable, the railroads have angered their customers with high prices and poor service and have alienated their workers, who complain they’re being overworked after the railroads cut their ranks as much as possible.