The railroads deny they wanted this to end up with Congress, and they preferred to reach a deal with the unions that could be ratified by membership. ![]() “This action prevents us from reaching the end of our process, takes away the strength and ability that we have to force bargaining or force the railroads to…do the right thing,” said Michael Baldwin, president of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, one of the four unions whose members voted against the tentative agreements reached last fall that Congress is now poised to impose on members. But under the Railway Labor Act, management can fall back on hopes that Congress will give them the deal it wants. ![]() If they were covered by the National Labor Relations Act, the labor law that oversees worker-management relations at most of the nation’s businesses, the unions could threaten to go on strike. Wall Street analysts expect even better profits in 2022, at least for the three railroads they cover. (BRKA)’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe - reported some form of record profits in 2021. And they say that management, when weighing the cost of that possible strike, would realize that they have the resources needed to meet those demands without an actual work stoppage. They say it would be far easier to reach a deal that their members can support if they had the leverage of a possible strike. “And it’s been remarkably effective in doing that.”Īs much as management likes the law and its limits on strikes, the unions hate it. “The goal of the Railway Labor Act was to reduce the likelihood of a work stoppage,” said Ian Jefferies, the CEO of the Association of American Railroads, the trade group that represents the railroads. And even the railroads admit that the law makes strikes extremely unlikely. In negotiations at other businesses, the workers’ ability to strike is the most powerful option unions have to achieve their goals at the bargaining table. ![]() And if all those efforts fail, then Congress can step in and impose a contract under which both sides will have to operate. Under the Railway Labor Act, the federal agency that oversees railroad and airline labor relations is the National Mediation Board, which tries to bring the two sides together, and it set up a series of limits and cooling off periods during which unions can not strike and management can not lock out the workers. The measure needed 60 votes to pass the senate. But the efforts to pass that same measure in the Senate fell short, even though 52 of 95 senators voted for it. The House also passed a law that would give the unions paid sick days, addressing the issue they said led members to reject the deals. Minnesota Historical Society/Corbis/Getty Images The Railway Labor Act, passed in 1926, is the reason Congress could intervene this week to block a strike by freight railroad unions. Paul, Minnesota in this file photo from 1925. A prolonged strike would have caused shortage of a wide range of items, from food to gasoline to automobiles, and likely resulted in a spike in prices.Ī group of steam locomotives pour steam and smoke into the air in St. 9 strike that would have shut down about 30% of the nation’s freight shipments. When he does, there will no longer be a chance of a Dec. The measure now goes to President Joe Biden, who has said he will sign it. The structure was therefore set up to regulate labor negotiations between unions and management, rather than oversee organizing campaigns for new unions and additional members.īecause of the law, the House was able to vote Wednesday to impose unpopular contracts on four rail unions whose members have already rejected the terms, followed by a vote by the Senate vote late Thursday that did the same. At that point most of the railroads already had been unionized, some all the way back to the mid-19th century. ![]() The Railway Labor Act was passed in 1926 as one of the very first labor laws in the nation. But thanks to a nearly century-old law that regulates labor relations only when it comes to railroads and airlines, what otherwise would be strictly an economic issue became a political one. Most labor disputes never end up being debated in Congress.
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