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DESCRIPTION:10/22 Bay Area Solidarity Rally For Railroad Workers!  \nDefend The Right 
 To Strike!\nAn Injury To One Is An Injury To All!\nRepeal The Anti-labor 
 Railway Labor Act\n\nSaturday October 22, 2022  3PM\nPort Of Oakland 
 Shoreline Park \n2777 Middle Harbor Road, Oakland\n\nUS railroad workers 
 are continuing to mostly vote against a proposed contract that does nothing 
 to defend their health and safety condition on he job with long dangerous 
 hours.\n\nUsing the Railway Labor Act as a union busting tool which it is,  
 workers are being told they really don’t have the right to strike and 
 have to accept a contract that destroys workers lives and 
 conditions.\n\nWorking people and unions need  to rally to defend  railroad 
 workers and all other unions and working people who are under attack from 
 striking NUHW Healthcare workers,\nOEA OUSD teachers, UTR WCCSD teachers 
 and all public workers. We also need to defend Amazon, Starbucks and all 
 worker who are fighting to get organized and have a union. \n\nThey face 
 union busting billionaires that flagrantly violate weak US labor laws that 
 are not even enforced by Biden & his "union" Secretary of Labor Marty 
 Walsh. We have to fight the closures of public schools and privatization of 
 public services, privatization of the Port of Oakland and defend all public 
 services and fight systemic racism.\n\nWith 750,000 unionized workers  
 whose contracts expire next year, we need to build a united\nworking class 
 movement of all unions and working people to back each other up and fight 
 together. Business unionism will not defend working people, our unions and 
 worker rights.\nJoin us in a solidarity rally for Railroad workers and 
 their right to strike and all\nworkers in this country and around the 
 world.\n\nDefend The Right To Strike, \nStop Union Busting With General 
 Strikes!\nAn Injury To One Is An Injury To All!\n\nInitiated By\nUnited 
 Front  Committee For A Labor Party\nEndorsed by Transport Workers 
 Solidarity Committee, Workers World Party, Amazon Workers Network Bay 
 Area.\n\nFor more information\ninfo@ufclp.org\n\nWorkers must be constantly 
 on call to work, making it impossible to live their lives.\n\n“People are 
 sick of being treated like garbage. And they’re ready to go out there, 
 ready to go out on strike and, and the railroads know this,” says 
 Lindsey.\n\nhttps://prospect.org/labor/potential-rail-worker-strike-caused-by-erratic-scheduling/\n\nBY 
 MIKE ELK SEPTEMBER 14, 2022\nA Norfolk Southern freight train passes a 
 train on a siding as it approaches a crossing in Homestead, Pennsylvania, 
 April 27, 2022. It’s Hugh Sawyer’s 65th birthday, and he is pissed off. 
 A 35-year veteran of Norfolk Southern, he had spent the day before working 
 12 hours, driving a train from Chattanooga to Atlanta. When Sawyer started 
 his career in the mid-1980s, the average train trip between Chattanooga and 
 Atlanta took five to six hours. Due to understaffing and negligence of rail 
 infrastructure, today it often takes 12 hours to make the same 
 journey.\n\nWhen Sawyer got home around 7:30 Monday morning, he was able to 
 sleep for only five hours. Now, he is spending his 65th birthday evening 
 constantly refreshing his computer, to see if he is being called into work. 
 It’s 8 p.m., and if Sawyer makes it to midnight without getting called 
 in, he will get a day off. “It’s just impossible to do anything, even 
 on your birthday, when you have no idea when you are going to work,” 
 Sawyer tells me.\n\nSawyer’s frustration is at the core of why 57,000 
 railroad workers are threatening to strike this Friday, unless a deal is 
 reached to address quality-of-life issues. If the two large rail 
 unions—the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and 
 Transportation Workers, Transportation Division (SMART-TD), and the 
 Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET)—decide to walk 
 out, it would be the first mass railroad strike since 1980. Friday is the 
 end of a 60-day “cooling off” period triggered the first time the 
 unions threatened to strike back in July.\n\nMore from Mike Elk:\nUnder the 
 federal Railway Labor Act, railroad workers like Sawyer aren’t covered by 
 the federal overtime protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Instead, 
 they are only guaranteed ten hours off from work every 24 hours—barely 
 enough time for most railroad workers to sleep.\nScheduling is chaotic, 
 with most workers expected to be on call on their off days to see if they 
 get called into work. “You miss birthdays, you miss your kid’s plays, 
 you miss doctor’s appointments because you never quite know when you are 
 going to have one day off,” says Sawyer, who serves as the treasurer of 
 Railroad Workers United.\n\nFor decades, many railroad workers were forced 
 to put up with this chaotic lifestyle, because the Railway Labor Act gave 
 the power to Congress to block any strike by workers. Time and again, when 
 railroad workers have moved to strike, Congress has stopped them, in the 
 name of ensuring the free movement of commerce across the country.\n\nSome 
 of the 12 rail unions have accepted a wage deal that would increase wages 
 by 21 percent over five years (which would amount to a wage cut, since 
 inflation is at 9 percent). The deal was based on recommendations from an 
 expert panel put together by the Biden administration to monitor the 
 negotiations. However, SMART-TD and BLET have balked at the proposal, and 
 are holding out for better terms.\n\nThe unions are getting additional 
 pressure to strike from groups like Railroad Workers United, a 
 rank-and-file organization of union members from across the different 
 railway unions. A new survey of 3,162 railroad workers released by Railroad 
 Workers United revealed that 96 percent of railroad workers are prepared to 
 strike.\n\nUnder the federal Railway Labor Act, railroad workers aren’t 
 covered by the federal overtime protections of the Fair Labor Standards 
 Act.\n\nThis time, the main issues aren’t wages, but time off from work. 
 Scheduling deficiencies have been a point of contention since earlier this 
 year, when BNSF, the Warren Buffett–owned rail company, instituted a new 
 scheduling policy that workers said punishes them for taking time 
 off.\nBNSF tweaked its policy in May, but not to the satisfaction of those 
 who say it hampered public safety and damaged worker rights.\n\nRailroads 
 have found themselves under capacity to deal with an uptick in demand for 
 goods during the pandemic, thanks to years of deliberate understaffing to 
 maximize profits. Critics claim that the scheduling policies are an attempt 
 to squeeze as much out of existing workers as possible, rather than hire 
 new ones.\n\nSawyer has seen a real sea change in how people feel about 
 time off work in the last few years. “I don’t know what happened during 
 the pandemic that woke everybody up, and I’m talking about all of 
 America, but yeah, they had a big effect,” says Sawyer. “People are 
 saying now, there’s something more to life than wasting it on the 
 railroad or at my job. And that’s true across the board. I think it’s 
 helped people re-establish different priorities in their 
 lives.”\n\nThirty-five-year-old Union Pacific railroad engineer Michael 
 Lindsey is representative of that new culture of young workers unwilling to 
 put up with the conditions of the past.  “The strike absolutely needs to 
 happen,” says Lindsey. “This is not about money. This is about quality 
 of life. This is about getting time off with your family.”\n\nAs the 
 railroads have laid off more and more staff, they have forced workers like 
 Lindsey to regularly work 80 to 90 hours a week, leading to an exodus of 
 staff.\n“In some ways, a strike has already been going on,” says 
 Lindsey. “A lot of people that are calling it quits, just saying I 
 can’t handle it anymore, not necessarily just because of the work 
 schedule. But also because they realized that these are companies that 
 really don’t care about you.”\n\nWith support for a railroad strike 
 running high, the railroads have taken to playing hardball.\nRail 
 management appears to be preparing for the possibility of a strike. On 
 Friday, the nation’s largest rail companies began informing shipping 
 companies that they would not be loading certain types of shipments for 
 rail transportation as they prepared for a strike.\n\nUnder the Railway 
 Labor Act, Congress can stop any rail strike by voting to impose a contract 
 unilaterally on workers who haven’t accepted one. (This was last done in 
 1980.)\nHouse Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told Bloomberg on Monday 
 that if the rail union strikes, Congress would act to stop it. The Biden 
 administration has also been working to try to avert the strike, but 
 Hoyer’s comments, stepping in on the side of blocking a strike, take 
 things to another level.\n\nUnion leaders feel that the decision to stop 
 shipping specific types of freight was designed to pressure lawmakers to 
 settle any strike quickly. Both Jeremy Ferguson, president of SMART-TD, and 
 Dennis Pierce, president of BLET, issued a joint statement denouncing the 
 move.\n“The railroads are using shippers, consumers, and the supply chain 
 of our nation as pawns in an effort to get our Unions to cave into their 
 contract demands knowing that our members would never accept them,” said 
 the union leaders in a joint statement issued on Sunday. “Our Unions will 
 not cave into these scare tactics, and Congress must not cave into what can 
 only be described as corporate terrorism.”\n\nCurrently, both sides are 
 negotiating over a deal that would allow workers to take guaranteed paid 
 days off to go to the doctor. However, the deal would need to be voted upon 
 by the BLET and SMART-TD membership. It’s unclear if the deal would pass, 
 as many workers on the railroad want more freedom to have lives in their 
 off-hours.  “People are sick of being treated like garbage. And they’re 
 ready to go out there, ready to go out on strike and, and the railroads 
 know this,” says Lindsey.\n\n\nWarren Buffet’s BNSF Murder On The 
 Rails:\nDeath on a train: A tragedy that helped fuel the railroad 
 showdown\nOne engineer put off a doctor’s visit, his family said, and 
 died of a heart attack weeks 
 later\n\nhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/17/railroad-strike-attendance-workers/?itid=hp-top-table-main\n\nBy 
 Lauren Kaori Gurley\nSeptember 17, 2022 at 12:51 p.m. EDT\nAaron Hiles and 
 his father in an undated photo in Eureka Springs, Ark. (Family 
 photo)\nAaron Hiles, a locomotive engineer, told his wife he “felt 
 different,” though he couldn’t say exactly how. He made an appointment 
 to see a doctor, his family said. But then his employer, BNSF, one of the 
 largest freight rail carriers in the nation, unexpectedly called him into 
 work.\nFailing to show up would invite penalties under a new attendance 
 system BNSF had adopted just a few months earlier, a policy that unions 
 have decried as the strictest in the nation. So Hiles, 51, delayed his 
 doctor’s visit, his family said, and went into work.\n\nA few weeks 
 later, on June 16, Hiles suffered a heart attack and died in an engine room 
 on a BNSF freight train somewhere between Kansas City, Mo., and Fort 
 Madison, Iowa — a tragedy that helped fuel a labor standoff that last 
 week nearly shut down the U.S. economy.\n\n\nRailroad attendance policies 
 were at the heart of the dramatic showdown between the nation’s largest 
 rail carriers and railroad workers, who did not strike after President 
 Biden and other top administration officials brokered a last-minute 
 agreement early Thursday. The deal includes a 24 percent pay increase by 
 2024 — the largest for railroad workers in more than four decades — and 
 new flexibility for workers to take time off when they are hospitalized or 
 to attend routine doctor’s appointments without penalty.\n\nBut 
 discontent among rail workers is still brewing. They say few details have 
 been made available about the agreement, which leaves the points-based 
 attendance policy in place for other types of emergencies. And some say 
 they doubt the deal will address their fundamental concerns about quality 
 of life amid painful labor shortages and the continued spread of 
 covid-19.\n“This policy is pretty cruel. Everybody is worried about 
 points,” said Joel Dixon, a BNSF conductor and Hiles’s best friend of 
 more than two decades. “It’s always a question whether Aaron would 
 still be around if he made that doctor’s appointment. Him and I talked 
 everyday. We were brothers.”\n\nBNSF would not discuss the details of 
 Hiles’s death but pointed out that employees receive generous vacation 
 packages and are able to take time off when needed without fear of 
 retribution. The company said that it is committed to working with 
 employees when “extenuating circumstances” arise but that the 
 points-based policies are necessary to keep the trains running during a 
 challenging worker crunch.\n\nBiden scores deal on rail strike, but worker 
 discontent emerges\nStill, reaction on social media has been outraged since 
 union leaders walked away with a deal that guarantees rail workers only a 
 single additional paid day off. Some workers said they weren’t sure how 
 the negotiators arrived at these policies, in their tug-of-war of proposals 
 in closed-door talks over some 20 hours at the Department of Labor 
 offices.\n\n\nMore specific contract language will be distributed to 
 workers in the coming weeks and explained in educational sessions intended 
 to persuade workers to ratify the agreements, union leaders say.\n\nThe 
 stakes are high. Unless union leaders persuade 115,000 workers across 12 
 unions to vote to ratify contracts, a nationwide rail strike is still 
 possible — and could snarl much of the nation’s supply-chain just ahead 
 of the midterm elections.\n\nPoints-based attendance policies date to 2020, 
 when Union Pacific, one of the country’s largest carriers, rolled out new 
 rules to help ensure staffing during the pandemic. Under these policies, 
 employees are granted a certain number of points, which are deducted when 
 they miss a request to come into work or call out of work unexpectedly. If 
 their point totals fall too low, penalties can apply up to and including 
 termination.\n\nBNSF adopted its own points-based attendance policy in 
 February 2022. Unions called BNSF’s policy “the worst and most 
 egregious attendance policy ever adopted by any rail carrier.” \nBNSF 
 said that the policy was implemented to “incentivize consistent and 
 reliable attendance” amid increased demand for smooth-running services. 
 Employees can gain points by agreeing to be on call for 14 days straight. 
 \n\nRail carriers have been dealing with high turnover and labor shortages 
 over the past two years. Rail transportation is down 12,500 jobs since the 
 pandemic began, according to the Labor Department.\n\nWorker shortages are 
 fueling America’s biggest labor crises\nUnder these policies, union 
 leaders say workers have lost points or faced penalties for calling out 
 sick with covid, suffering a heart attack, and getting into a severe car 
 accident. Another employee lost points after missing work when his mother 
 died.\n\nBNSF spokesman Benjamin Wilemon denied those claims, saying that 
 the system may automatically assign points for absences but that employees 
 can explain the situation to their supervisor and regain their 
 points.\n\nWilemon said that BNSF’s attendance policy is designed so that 
 “employees can take time off when needed” and that “employees are 
 encouraged to use their points without fear of retribution.” He noted 
 that points are available to use for doctor’s visits and that employees 
 have at least three weeks of vacation and 10 personal days available to 
 them.\n“It is unfortunate that some would use the death of Mr. Hiles to 
 further their agenda while ignoring the facts of this tragic situation,” 
 Wilemon said. “Out of respect for his family, BNSF will not discuss the 
 circumstances around his passing.”\n\nWilemon also noted that workers 
 received a 25 percent increase in personal days this year and that 
 employees cannot work more than six days in a row under federal law.\nUnion 
 leaders say the federal law allowance is misleading, because time spent 
 stranded in a hotel, after working a long shift, waiting to be called back 
 to work, does not count as a work day.\nJust missing a phone call from BNSF 
 to come into work results in a 15-point deduction, BNSF confirmed. \n\nMany 
 conductors and engineers live in rural parts of the country with limited 
 cell service. Once called, workers have 90 minutes to two hours to report 
 to work, regardless of the time of day and how far they live from their 
 station. Failing to show up for work on weekends, holidays and other 
 ‘high impact’ days, such as Super Bowl Sunday and Mother’s Day, 
 result in the largest deductions. Although employees can win back points by 
 being available to work 14 days in a row.\n\nMore than 700 BNSF employees 
 have quit their jobs since the policy was rolled out in February, union 
 officials say, exacerbating the workload for those who remain.\nBNSF’s 
 Wilemon said the company has seen more workers taking planned vacation days 
 since rolling out its attendance-based policy. He said that workers take 
 off 24 hours, on average, between each shift and that that number has 
 increased since the attendance policy kicked in. He added that the policy 
 has resulted in fewer attendance-based discipline actions.\n\nBNSF 
 employees say the points-based attendance system has worsened a difficult 
 occupation that already weighs on their mental and physical health. Many 
 railway workers suffer chronic health conditions, such as obesity and sleep 
 apnea, according to union officials. Workers regularly stay in motels for 
 days on end, unsure when they’ll be able to return home, exacerbating 
 tensions in already strained marriages and relationships with their 
 children.\n\nJordan Boone, 41, a BNSF conductor in Galesburg, Ill., has 
 five kids at home. Since the policy went into effect in February, Boone 
 said, he misses most sports games, birthdays, recitals and vacations. If he 
 is lucky, he can squeeze in a few hours with his family a week.\n\n“BNSF 
 came up with this policy, because of all the cuts they’ve made, and 
 they’re trying to do all they can to get us to pick up the slack. They 
 haven’t hired enough,” Boone said. “The time away from family has a 
 big impact on our mental health. I know people that have missed doctor’s 
 appointments for months and months because of this policy.”\n\nAaron 
 Hiles signed up for a rail job at BNSF in Galesburg after serving in the 
 Marines in Desert Storm and Somalia. The job was prestigious, but life on 
 the railroad was tough. Hiles spent weeks away from home, living out of 
 motels, working through Christmas and other holidays, and collecting coins 
 and reading about current events to pass the time. But things took a turn 
 for the worse when BNSF adopted its updated points policy in February, 
 Hiles’s parents said. They noticed Aaron looked “tired and really run 
 down.”\n\n“When he told us about the mandate, I said, ‘Someone’s 
 going to have a heart attack and die,’ and he said, ‘Yes, they 
 will,’” recalled Donna Hiles, his mother.\nOn the day Hiles died, two 
 BNSF representatives traveled to his home in Lee Summit, Mo., to inform his 
 wife. She called his parents to let them know their son had passed.\nBNSF 
 paid for Hiles’s funeral expenses, but his parents never heard directly 
 from them.\n“It’s devastating,” Donna Hiles said. “He was larger 
 than life. He was kindhearted. I dare you to find one person who disliked 
 him. He had hundreds of friends.”\n\nBMWED Membership Votes Against 
 Ratification of Tentative Agreement (Class I Freight Railroads) 
 \n\nhttps://www.bmwe.org/secondary.aspx?id=700\n\nPublished: Oct 10 2022 
 12:25PM\n\nOctober 10, 2022\n\nBMWED membership voted against ratification 
 of the tentative national agreement reached with the Class I freight 
 railroads, sending the two sides back to the bargaining table and resetting 
 the countdown to a potential work stoppage.\n\n“The majority of the BMWED 
 membership rejected the tentative national agreement and we recognize and 
 understand that result,” President Tony D. Cardwell said. “I trust that 
 railroad management understands that sentiment as well. Railroaders are 
 discouraged and upset with working conditions and compensation and hold 
 their employer in low regard. Railroaders do not feel valued. They resent 
 the fact that management holds no regard for their quality of life, 
 illustrated by their stubborn reluctance to provide a higher quantity of 
 paid time off, especially for sickness. The result of this vote indicates 
 that there is a lot of work to do to establish goodwill and improve the 
 morale that has been broken by the railroads’ executives and Wall Street 
 hedge fund managers.”\n\nThe American Arbitration Association counted and 
 verified the election results. In total, 11,845 BMWED members submitted 
 ballots, 6,646 against ratification and 5,100 approving the tentative 
 agreement. 99 remaining ballots were submitted blank or voided for some 
 other user error.\n\n“The membership voted in record numbers on this 
 tentative agreement, exhibiting that they are paying close attention and 
 are engaged in the process,” President Cardwell said. “BMWED members 
 are concerned with the direction of their employers and the mismanagement 
 and greed in which they have consistently implemented, and are united in 
 their resolve to improve their working conditions across the entire Class I 
 rail network.”\n\nThe rejection of the tentative agreement results in a 
 “status quo” period where the BMWED will reengage bargaining with the 
 Class I freight carriers. That status quo period will extend to 5 days 
 after Congress reconvenes, which is currently set for Nov. 14. Assuming 
 Congress returns to session on the 14th there could be no “self help” 
 until after the 19th.\n\nIBT BMWED Rejects Deal; Strike Not 
 Imminent\nhttps://www.railwayage.com/mw/bmwed-rejects-deal-strike-not-imminent/\n\nOctober 
 10, 2022 M/W\nWritten by Frank N. Wilner, Capitol Hill Contributing 
 Editor\nBMWED President Tony D. Cardwell said his union would maintain the 
 status quo until at least Nov. 19—five days after the anticipated Nov. 14 
 return of Congress following mid-term elections. The NCCC said that “in 
 the event of a failed ratification, the parties have agreed to maintain the 
 status quo for a period of time pending any further discussions and 
 assessment of next steps.”\nHardly unexpectedly, but still troubling to 
 railroads and their shippers, members of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of 
 Way Employees Division of the Teamsters Union (BMWED) have voted to reject 
 a tentative contract amending wages, benefits and work rules. Barely 43% of 
 the almost 12,000 BMWED members casting ballots voted in favor of the 
 agreement, said the union Oct. 10 in announcing the results. A work 
 stoppage is not imminent.\n\nFour of 12 rail labor unions already have 
 ratified tentative agreements with the National Carriers Conference 
 Committee (NCCC), which bargains on behalf of most Class I railroads and 
 many smaller ones. Seven other rail labor unions are currently conducting 
 ratification votes.\nAll provisions of existing wage, benefits and work 
 rules agreements will remain in force as contracts negotiated under the 
 Railway Labor Act have no expiration date and are changed only by ratified 
 amendments.\nA work stoppage by BMWED—or any of the other seven unions 
 that have yet to ratify—is not anticipated before late November, if at 
 all. A work stoppage by any of the rail unions, however, can be expected to 
 cause a nationwide rail shutdown. Carriers also could trigger such a 
 shutdown by locking out the work force—as it did in 1992—if a work 
 stoppage is initiated against just one railroad. There has not a nationwide 
 rail shutdown since.\nBMWED President Tony D. Cardwell said his union would 
 maintain the status quo until at least Nov. 19—five days after the 
 anticipated Nov. 14 return of Congress following mid-term elections. The 
 NCCC said that “in the event of a failed ratification, the parties have 
 agreed to maintain the status quo for a period of time pending any further 
 discussions and assessment of next steps.”\nThat Nov. 19 date mentioned 
 by BMWED may be extended, as voting by the two largest of the rail 
 unions—the Transportation Division of the International Association of 
 Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART-TD) and the 
 Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET, also a Teamsters 
 affiliate)—will not be completed before Nov. 17, and votes by members of 
 the International Association of Machinists (IAM) may not be counted before 
 Nov. 20.\nMoreover, Nov. 19 is the Saturday before Thanksgiving 
 Day—Thursday, Nov. 24—meaning many House and Senate members may not be 
 in Washington that week to vote on legislation ending a work stoppage. The 
 following weeks are equally problematic, as religious holidays occur in 
 December. Congress then doesn’t return until early January, and it will 
 not be known until after Election Day, Nov. 8, which political party will 
 control the House and/or Senate.\nCompounding uncertainty—even chaos 
 should even one senator filibuster and prolong a proposed legislated end to 
 a work stoppage—is that congressional action, if necessary, will occur 
 during a lame-duck session of Congress. Many members who were defeated or 
 are retiring will be negotiating new employment with lobbying and law 
 firms—a Washington “revolving door” tradition. There will be 
 incentive for many to double-down on pro- or anti-labor images, or avoid 
 choosing sides and not vote. In short, lame-duck sessions are the worst of 
 times for such a rail work stoppage to occur.\nEqually uncertain is whether 
 railroads will again blink and sweeten their offers to avoid a work 
 stoppage, as they have twice done to gain the tentative agreements such as 
 rejected by BMWED. Rejections by other unions will only increase the 
 precariousness of the status quo.\nFollowing an all-night mid-September 
 bargaining session in the offices of Biden Administration Labor Secretary 
 Marty Walsh involving BLET, SMART-TD and the Brotherhood of Railroad 
 Signalmen, the carriers backed off an insistence they would not budge from 
 non-binding recommendations made a month earlier by a Biden-appointed 
 Presidential Emergency Board.\nThen, in response to Division 19 of the 
 International Association of Machinists (IAM) rejecting a tentative deal, 
 the carriers again blinked and offered up additional deal sweeteners to 
 gain a second tentative deal with the IAM on Sept. 27 that is pending 
 ratification. \nAs each tentative agreement contains a “me too” clause, 
 each sweetener offered by carriers to one union is applied, as applicable, 
 to all the others.\n\nBMWED’s Cardwell said his members’ rejection of 
 the tentative contract is over quality-of-life issues rather than wage and 
 benefits boosts—the carriers’ “stubborn reluctance to provide a 
 higher quantity of paid time off, especially for sickness.” There is 
 concern that BLET and SMART-TD members may similarly turn thumbs-down on 
 their tentative deals, expressing displeasure over mandatory attendance 
 policies as well as other quality-of-life issues. It is member 
 quality-of-life issues that made the BMWED rejection unsurprising, and 
 which likely have influenced BLET President Dennis Pierce and SMART-TD 
 President Jeremy Ferguson not to endorse the tentative deals, even though 
 they negotiated them.\n\nThe NCCC, in expressing “disappointment” over 
 the BMWED rejection, said the tentative agreement included “significant 
 increases to the national rules relating to reimbursements for travel and 
 away from home expenses for the roughly 50% of BMWED members employed in 
 traveling roles.”\nEach of the current tentative agreements—including 
 the one rejected by BMWED members—provides for a 24% wage increase 
 through 2024 and retroactive to January 2020, $5,000 in lump-sum bonus 
 payments, and a 14.1% retroactive portion of the 24% wage increase payable 
 immediately.\nThe four unions that have ratified tentative agreements are 
 the American Train Dispatchers Association, Brotherhood of Railroad Carmen, 
 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and the Transportation 
 Communications Union.\nRatification votes of the other seven unions are to 
 be counted on or before the following dates:\nNational Conference of 
 Firemen & Oilers, Oct. 13\nMechanical Division of SMART, Oct. 
 14\nBrotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, Oct. 26\nInternational Brotherhood 
 of Boilermakers, Nov. 11\nBLET and SMART-TD, Nov. 17\nIAM, Division 19, 
 Nov. 20\nRailway Age Capitol Hill Contributing Editor Frank N. Wilner is 
 author of “Understanding the Railway Labor Act” published by Railway 
 Age sister company Simmons-Boardman Books of Omaha, Neb. He has almost 50 
 years’ experience on both sides of the bargaining table as assistant vice 
 president for policy at the Association of American Railroads and director 
 of public relations for SMART-TD and its predecessor United Transportation 
 Union.\n\n https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2022/10/14/18852558.php
SUMMARY:Bay Area Solidarity Rally For Railroad Workers! Defend The Right To Strike!
LOCATION:Port Of Oakland \nShoreline Park \n2777 Middle Harbor Road, \nOakland
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2022/10/14/18852558.php
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DTEND:20221022T113000Z
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