“This is the railroads’ last chance to do the right thing by voluntarily agreeing to provide paid sick leave to all employees,” warned the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes (BMWE), one of the four unions that rejected the deal, in a statement. “If the railroads fail to give up one penny of every dollar of profit for paid sick leave for their highly valued employees by December 8th, and there is either a strike or lockout or both, then the railroads will be responsible for the imposition of a shutdown of their operations and the economic harms to its customers, the country’s economic supply chain and the entire U.S. economy.”
The unions have asked for 15 paid sick days per year, but the railroads settled on giving one additional personal day on top of existing vacation allowances, Reuters reports. A potential shutdown—the result of either a strike or a lockout—could cost the U.S. economy as much as $2 billion per day, according to the news agency.
It is possible that the conflict gets settled without further intervention from the federal government, but both the White House and Congress could put more pressure on the two sides. Sens. Richard Burr (R–N.C.) and Roger Wicker (R–Miss.) have introduced a bill that would prohibit a strike and force the unions to accept the PEB-authored contract, which could be the ultimate last-gasp plan to avoid a devastating strike.
“There’s no counterproposal in Congress to rewrite the PEB’s agreement to give the unions what they want,” notes Sean Higgins, a research fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market think tank. “In short, the holdout unions don’t have a strong hand to play this time. They probably know this and are just pushing things as far as they can.”
[On the other hand … no sick days at all? Seems odd, and while I’m sure there’s an industry explanation and 15 a year seems excessive, that seems incongruous in this age. — Ed]
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