One of the greatest railroad strikes in US history is about to take place .
Just so everyone is on the same page because the media isnt covering this . these people spend 90% of their lives away from home (awake or asleep , no they dont get per dm) , yeah they will get a raise in the new contract and it will get wiped out with the railroads raising cost of health insurance , if they get sick and go to the doctor they are one foot out the door as fired because of the draconian attendance polices . they are trying to cut train crews down to 1 man (this will get the general public killed as Canada saw in 2013) , they are on call 24/7/365 and they will call then cancel that call and call again and cancel for hours. I personally know people they did it to for 30 hours straight ever few hours ….. They got no sleep and after their 12 hour shift when they hit the 12 hour law limit they had been up for 42 hours with maybe 2 to 3 hours of sleep. I know 3 people who have had this happen to and its happened to each more than once.
The supply chain issues are because of what the railroads call PSR (precision scheduled railroading ) …. There is nothing precise about it . its make everyone wait , dont send trains in a timely fashion and wait till you have a gaint train to send (cuts labor and maintence costs ) . this is why the ports couldnt keep up because before covid freight rail fourghled 1/3 of its total workforce from 2017 to 2019 and semi trucks were ill equipped to handle the influx.
A rail strike would cost the economy 2 billion a day and we would need HALF A MILLION more semi trucks EVERY DAY to make up for a rail strike .
Freight rail labor is the back bone of this country
Fyi no i dont work for any railroads
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/12/biden-rail-dispute-strike-00056241