union

[GeoFisher]

let me try to answer your questions. but before I do let me assure you I KNOW the answers as I worked under this very rail contract for almost 20 years. Also my brother is one of "the union leaders" involved at a local level and his fight is relentless. Local union reps are livid and feel very betrayed, I told every one of them this **** would happen one day, well today is one day.
The dem politicians are the same as republican politicians, self preservation and vote harvesting is all they care about. they all pick a flavor of the week and sell it. none of them have ever stuck up for labor when push came to shove. we've had to fight tooth and nail for everything we ever got in a contract only to have half of it overturned by a government arbiter.
Here's what's in the contract...
The biggest misrepresented item is the "24% raise", sounds ridiculously good at a glance.
But when you find out the last raise was almost 5 years ago and this one will be spread out over the next 4 years you come up with an annual raise of 2.66% per year. ok , still not bad you say? the increase in employee contributions for Healthcare all but eat that up. so while the media and crooked politicians hail the big victory for labor , now YOU KNOW THE REAL STORY.
ok so on to the real red meat and biggest point of contention and impasse, sick time.
Historically a thru freight railworker is on call 24/7/365, including Christmas and every other normal holiday. Once upon a time if you were sick or just plain flat out exhausted after working day and night for months you would call and mark off "sick". And once upon a time the railroad company was lenient with this arrangement as they had enough decency to admit when enough was appreciated and a day off was acceptable.
And then everything changed with "kean operating plans" which meant as employees retired, quit or died they weren't replaced. So less staff was expected to do more . so now we have a situation where if you take off sick you may be subject to reprimand including termination.
Realizing this was completely unrealistic the "working man's president" stepped in to force the railroad company to concede and give the employee 3 unpaid sick days a year. These "sick days" could only be used on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday and only if the request for this sick day was given 30 days in advance and approved by supervision.
If I KNEW I was going to be sick 30 days from now I would got to the doctor prior to that time and get med's to head that off.
And yes rail workers are licensed and considered essential workers and could be arrested for participating in a wildcat strike.
Now to your point of union leaders and bribes, I have been suspicious on more than one occasion when things transpired that smelled fishy. these suspicious events always involved legislative union reps that spent a lot of time in...you guessed it....Washington.
Railroad lifestyle is **** near unbearable.
A living railroaders wife is called a railroad widow.
A dead railroaders wife is called retired.
And let me tell you the over 100,000 railworkers are seething with disgust over being conned.
Hopefully this helps you to understand what is REALLY going on.

I have never not ONCE had a good thing to say about a union.

Not saying they did not have a time and place, and not saying some are still needed, but I've always thought that the time would come to pay the piper.........IT has in a lot of ways. Unions raised wages and pensions and benefits to an unsustainable level......Look at the big ones that had to be bailed out a few years ago.


Big unions in the UAW, are all but gone. Sure, they exist, but no sexy pensions, no lifetime healthcare, no protections, not much, but money out of your pocket.

Same thing for Railway, and Pilots unions.

Same way for Many unions.

I've always prided on myself as being a professional worker and being FREAKIN BETTER than most everyone else at what I do. If my company wants to **** can my ass and find someone else. GO AHEAD. I've interviewed 18 freakin useless sum bitches to replace one of my senior engineers that retired 2 months ago.....I will be here forever. Oh Of those 18 useless sum bitches, over half wanted more than I make. Yea, go figure.

Anyways......my point is this. BE better than the next guy. Be a better worker, strive to be the BEST and what you do, it will get noticed, and compensated.

Later,

Geo

[stripernut1]

I have never not ONCE had a good thing to say about a union.

Not saying they did not have a time and place, and not saying some are still needed, but I've always thought that the time would come to pay the piper.........IT has in a lot of ways. Unions raised wages and pensions and benefits to an unsustainable level......Look at the big ones that had to be bailed out a few years ago.


Big unions in the UAW, are all but gone. Sure, they exist, but no sexy pensions, no lifetime healthcare, no protections, not much, but money out of your pocket.

Same thing for Railway, and Pilots unions.

Same way for Many unions.

I've always prided on myself as being a professional worker and being FREAKIN BETTER than most everyone else at what I do. If my company wants to **** can my ass and find someone else. GO AHEAD. I've interviewed 18 freakin useless sum bitches to replace one of my senior engineers that retired 2 months ago.....I will be here forever. Oh Of those 18 useless sum bitches, over half wanted more than I make. Yea, go figure.

Anyways......my point is this. BE better than the next guy. Be a better worker, strive to be the BEST and what you do, it will get noticed, and compensated.

Later,

Geo

So , in most cases you would be "somewhat correct". But where you are 100% misinformed is wages and benefits reaching unsustainable levels.
You mention rail contracts...just curious , how many rail contracts have you voted on, worked under and have a copy of? I will answer that for you....ZERO.
You simply do not know what you're talking about and that's understandable, you are in the majority when it comes to this subject.
Unsustainable? that's laughable, the class 1 railroad I just left recently posts HUGE profits each quarter measured in the BILLIONS. to be unsustainable you occasionally have to show a **** loss . I hardly think 2.66% is an unsustainable raise.
This has ZERO to do with "be better than the next guy". If you truly understood railroad culture and work conditions you would realize it has nothing to do with performance. A crew does not determine when the train leaves point A or arrives at point B. if you have a signal to move you move the train to the next stop signal. Failure to do so will result in failure to operate efficiently and will cost you your job. The central dispatch office controls the signal.
You simply do not understand , you just don't.
The railroad I worked for contacts me at least twice a week to come back. For two reasons, the cat is out of the bag, very few people can agree to the demanding lifestyle, the second reason? I wad a **** good railroader, and I wasn't alone. 99% of railroaders are "better than the next guy" .
You simply don't have a clue when it comes to railroad contracts, nor should you until you hire on with a class 1 railroad.
Later,
Nut

[stripernut1]

ok so we threw the switch and headed down an adjacent track, back on the main line.
Take a listen to why Rand Paul voted "present"....not "nay" or "yay"....present.
He's the ONLY one that got it right

[GeoFisher]

So , in most cases you would be "somewhat correct". But where you are 100% misinformed is wages and benefits reaching unsustainable levels.
You mention rail contracts...just curious , how many rail contracts have you voted on, worked under and have a copy of? I will answer that for you....ZERO.
You simply do not know what you're talking about and that's understandable, you are in the majority when it comes to this subject.
Unsustainable? that's laughable, the class 1 railroad I just left recently posts HUGE profits each quarter measured in the BILLIONS. to be unsustainable you occasionally have to show a **** loss . I hardly think 2.66% is an unsustainable raise.
This has ZERO to do with "be better than the next guy". If you truly understood railroad culture and work conditions you would realize it has nothing to do with performance. A crew does not determine when the train leaves point A or arrives at point B. if you have a signal to move you move the train to the next stop signal. Failure to do so will result in failure to operate efficiently and will cost you your job. The central dispatch office controls the signal.
You simply do not understand , you just don't.
The railroad I worked for contacts me at least twice a week to come back. For two reasons, the cat is out of the bag, very few people can agree to the demanding lifestyle, the second reason? I wad a **** good railroader, and I wasn't alone. 99% of railroaders are "better than the next guy" .
You simply don't have a clue when it comes to railroad contracts, nor should you until you hire on with a class 1 railroad.
Later,
Nut

I have friends and family that are heavily tied into railway ...........Quite a bit of that in my neck of the woods.

I also have a ton of family still involved.

Clear example of unsustainable, is Amtrak. Bottom line I also said there are some unions that are necessary.

That's fine, and from what I hear, the Rail jobs are freaking brutal and stressful, and hard, and crazy, and and, and. Kudo's for anyone that has one, and stays there.

And you're right about finding people..........people today are flat azz lazy and don't know how to work. They want everything given to them, and want to be making GOLD bank with 2 years of experience.

Later,

Geo

[Buzzy]

I have friends and family that are heavily tied into railway ...........Quite a bit of that in my neck of the woods.

I also have a ton of family still involved.

Clear example of unsustainable, is Amtrak. Bottom line I also said there are some unions that are necessary.

That's fine, and from what I hear, the Rail jobs are freaking brutal and stressful, and hard, and crazy, and and, and. Kudo's for anyone that has one, and stays there.

And you're right about finding people..........people today are flat azz lazy and don't know how to work. They want everything given to them, and want to be making GOLD bank with 2 years of experience.

Later,

Geo

Double down being dead wrong. That seems to be your specially


Union "Unsustainably" is a myth as well.

[stripernut1]

I have friends and family that are heavily tied into railway ...........Quite a bit of that in my neck of the woods.

I also have a ton of family still involved.

Clear example of unsustainable, is Amtrak. Bottom line I also said there are some unions that are necessary.

That's fine, and from what I hear, the Rail jobs are freaking brutal and stressful, and hard, and crazy, and and, and. Kudo's for anyone that has one, and stays there.

And you're right about finding people..........people today are flat azz lazy and don't know how to work. They want everything given to them, and want to be making GOLD bank with 2 years of experience.

Later,

Geo

Just involving the word Amtrak in this conversation shows how completely clueless you are about this subject. Amtrak runs on a very predictable schedule, those guys actually get days off, they NEVER have to switch cars out in the weather.
Ok so you have "family and friends" that are involved in rail. I am related to Glenn Campbell but I couldn't play Mary had a little lamb on the guitar.
Knowing someone and LIVING it are galaxies apart.
I dont talk computer with you because I have nothing to tell you....please try to give me the same respect.

[stripernut1]

Geo,
when I say you are clueless, I know that sounds hateful and rude. Let me better explain to help you understand why a railroader gets ruffled feathers when people make statements or judgements or give their opinions on rail work, rail life or rail governance or contracts etc etc.
You said " I have never ever had one good thing to say about a union". How many unions have you belonged to? What first hand experience do you qualify that statements with?
Which union did you belong to? Were you satisfied with representation? if not did you run for local or national office?
please enlighten me on your experience with unions.
Without any first hand knowledge of how this stuff works (and you truly do not know how it works) about a hundred thousand railroaders couldn't give a flying **** about your uninformed conclusions.
If I'm wrong that's ok, but I'm not lol.
later,
nut

[GeoFisher]

Geo,
when I say you are clueless, I know that sounds hateful and rude. Let me better explain to help you understand why a railroader gets ruffled feathers when people make statements or judgements or give their opinions on rail work, rail life or rail governance or contracts etc etc.
You said " I have never ever had one good thing to say about a union". How many unions have you belonged to? What first hand experience do you qualify that statements with?
Which union did you belong to? Were you satisfied with representation? if not did you run for local or national office?
please enlighten me on your experience with unions.
Without any first hand knowledge of how this stuff works (and you truly do not know how it works) about a hundred thousand railroaders couldn't give a flying **** about your uninformed conclusions.
If I'm wrong that's ok, but I'm not lol.
later,
nut

Not at all, I don't take offense. **** happens.

I understand where you are coming from. Just like I understood when I walked picket lines with my Step dad at UAW plants in MUNCIE Indiana.

I have more than a **** ton of family engaged in unions and UAW and Railroadmans.

To say I don't have a clue is showing your ignorance of what I actually know.

Like me being on the other side of negotiations.
Like my cousin being the HEAD Honcho of the UAW Northwest Region.
Like my Uncle being president of UAW FW............

Yea, I don't know what the **** I'm talking about.

Later,

Geo

[Buzzy]

Not at all, I don't take offense. **** happens.

I understand where you are coming from. Just like I understood when I walked picket lines with my Step dad at UAW plants in MUNCIE Indiana.

I have more than a **** ton of family engaged in unions and UAW and Railroadmans.

To say I don't have a clue is showing your ignorance of what I actually know.

Like me being on the other side of negotiations.
Like my cousin being the HEAD Honcho of the UAW Northwest Region.
Like my Uncle being president of UAW FW............

Yea, I don't know what the **** I'm talking about.

Later,

Geo

You either did it or ya didn't. Its that simple and ya didn't do it.

So you dont know

[dragmerc]

what's up with the 36 billion that brandon just gave a bankrupt union?
why should my taxes go to bailout a union?
this should be against the law just like the student loan bailout.
and they wonder why some people rioted.

[Buzzy]

what's up with the 36 billion that brandon just gave a bankrupt union?
why should my taxes go to bailout a union?
this should be against the law just like the student loan bailout.
and they wonder why some people rioted.

its nothing compared to the bailout during the Great Recession.

remember “too big to fail”

[dragmerc]

its nothing compared to the bailout during the Great Recession.

remember “too big to fail”

i'm not in favor of that either.
end the fed.