(Source: NBC News, July 19, 2022)
NBC News talked to more than 10 current and former workers about the conditions on the rails. All of the current workers said they supported a stoppage. Workers, who support a system that moves some 20 billion tons of goods a year, roughly 40 percent of long distance goods transported in the U.S., complain that the rail companies are enhancing their profits by cutting labor costs to the bone, and raising prices, even as service has suffered. “These are the employees that worked every day during a pandemic and helped these folks make record profits,” said Dennis Pierce, the National President of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. “To go three years without a raise when inflation is running at 8 to 10 percent right now, and then force them to work more, because you can’t hire. The employees are angry. It’s a level of frustration amongst the workforce unlike any I have seen in the 45 years I’ve worked at the railroad.”
Full story: NBC News