(Source: New York Times, July 15, 2014)
NEW YORK — The workers navigate trains and test signals, repair aging cars and scan moldering stretches of track on the nation’s oldest rail system still operating under its original name: the Long Island Rail Road, chartered in 1834.
Many have worked for the railroad, alongside friends and often relatives, for decades — long enough to know that occasional saber-rattling between management and union leadership is to be taken in stride. It has been 20 years, after all, since employees last walked off the job. So when workers voted several months ago to authorize a potential strike, it was still possible to view the action as a distant concern.
Not anymore.
Full story: New York Times