The railroads have been running like clockwork. That is the problem. Human beings aren't clocks.
Railroad workers want to strike. Congress may not let them. The country needs the railroads and the railroads need workers. Railroads don't want real, live humans to be those workers.
If the railroad workers go on strike, supply chains get interrupted once again. It isn't Santa's Christmas gifts that would be delayed getting to the stores. Toys are already in stores. It is a matter of boxcars of grain getting to cargo ships, tank cars of chemicals getting to manufacturers, fertilizer getting to farmers, and coal getting to power plants. Railroads carry big stuff that the American economy needs. A rail strike could push us into a recession.
The railroad strike hinges on the issue of paid sick days. The context of that sticking point is PSR, the railroad industry abbreviation for Precision Scheduled Railroading. Railroad consolidation meant that railroad lines have near-monopoly power to squeeze shippers. Railroads are profitable. However, profitable railroads were under pressure to perform for stockholders. Investors noted that the OR--the Operating Ratio--of some railroads was better than others. Ones that needed 80 or 90 cents in costs to make a dollar in revenue were presumed slackers and poorly managed compared with ones that recently achieved an OR of 60. Those high-achievers had instituted Precision Scheduling. That means longer trains, more point-to-point deliveries, and most importantly, fewer employees. They got rid of employee slack. They instituted employee practices that strongly disincentivized unscheduled sick days or personal days. Humans needed to service the schedule, 24-7-365.
In day-to-day work-life for railroad employees it meant sick days, family emergencies, or unscheduled anything brought instant demerits on an employee scorecard, with demerits leading to prompt termination. Workers were essentially always on-call in case they were needed on short notice. Vacation time needed to be scheduled in concert with other employees, meaning it was scheduled at the railroad's convenience, not the workers'. Scheduled time off could be overruled on short notice. The PSR system worked well for railroad companies' Operating Ratio. It was efficient and profitable.
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| Breakthrough |
PSR is miserable for employees. It works because employees are treated as a capital good, an inanimate cog in a machine. This labor struggle wasn't about money for salaries. The railroads offered 30% increases in pay. They are busy automating as much as possible and are continuing to reduce headcount, so salary cost was secondary. The railroads' sticking point was worker flexibility. PSR means running lean. Don't get sick without notice.
There is a 19th Century feel to this moment: The heartless machine pitted against the worker. I don't expect Pinkerton guards with baseball bats, but the moment has the drama of the clash of two great forces. It pits the imperative of capitalism versus the reality of human lives in 21st Century America. Workers have an expectation of something better than grinding poverty servicing an inflexible system.
Strikes are a form of body language. It is a way for workers to send a message of power. We need maintenance, as do grease fittings for the axels and wheels of rail cars. Our needs must be considered and accommodated. It takes a human to safely run a 100-car train. Without us, you cannot operate. Without competent employees, you get accidents, and if an accident happens and toxic chemicals spill, the railroad might have a billion dollar cleanup and liability for a thousand deaths. Or maybe a $10 billion accident. Ask Exxon and BP and Union Carbide about the cost of accidents.
In 21st Century America strikes are rare and they come across as a blunt instrument of persuasion, but they make a point. Railroads need humans, with all their complications. Our economic system is intended to serve humans, isn't it?
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9 comments:
This seems like a good opportunity to highlight the needs of pregnant women, post partum women and nursing moms (since this is what is being "encouraged" these days). Also babies and children who get sick and need someone to take care of them.
Until this threat of strike, I had thought paid sick leave was standard practice. The good news is that the House passed a bill providing it. The bad news is that it probably won’t pass in the Senate. Guess which party will oppose it, and how much sick leave they get. I hope I'm wrong, but that's the kind of people they are.
The rules of capitalism need to be changed so that abusive crap like this doesn’t happen. The rules need to be changed so that predatory acquisitions like what happened to Toys “R” Us don’t happen. The rules need to be changed so that creepy charlatans like Sam Bankrupt Fraud don’t get to grab billions of dollars for useless trickery.
The problem is, there has to be a countervailing force to keep the rules in check, so that we don’t end up so bound up in red tape that the economy grinds to a halt, and we end up as incapable of doing anything as the Soviet Union did.
In other words, we need to end up somewhere between Bernie Sanders and Adam Smith; somewhere between socialism/communism and capitalism red in tooth and claw.
People much smarter than me will have to figure that out.
Your 19th century reference was spot on.
It's pretty clear that we have a textbook example of Regressive-ness or more simply the resistance of capitalism to change. The labor/capital balance is traditionally kept in balance by violence, as in slavery, or in the modern era by coercion. As the capitalists gained more of the wealth of the society, however, the standard for prosperity has been raised until now everyone expects a standard of living that was reserved for the ultra-rich, as I like to say, "everyone gets a boat".
As government, or as our right-wing friends call it, the State, has become more Progressive, and basic needs have become basic rights we have entered new era that is less tolerant of oppressive labor practices like no sick leave, etc.
Unions are resisted because they reduce profits, and there is the danger of killing the golden goose, but once felt, grievances are difficult to suppress, not to mention the opportunists who will benefit from promoting them.
Sec. Buttigieg has an opportunity to step up here. So far he doesn't seem to be much of a player. And who's at Commerce?...
Buttigieg is hanging a big anchor around his Presidential Ambition by not getting out in front of this "No Sick Leave" fiasco handed to the rank and file Railway workers by President Biden who lost a lot of points himself, imho.
Ask Exxon, BP, and Union Carbide? It’s been quite a long time since Bhopal, and I can’t speak to Union Carbide’s corporate health, if any, but I did see a relatively recent piece on Exxon. I already remembered that after some years of legal wrangling, Exxon had worked its total Alaskan oil spill damages award down to $500 billion or so from an initial $2.5 billion or so. In a Forbes article this year, President Biden was reportedly taking Exxon and others to task for profits during the so-called “Putin price hike”. Exxon’s net profit for the most recent quarter—yes, quarter—at issue? $5.5 billion, with $26 billion for 2022 so far. They probably wrote off whatever portion of that $500 billion they actually paid out anyway.
We all know about the military-industrial complex. There are other “complexes”, including Big Energy and Big Pharma. Goldman Sachs, et al. These days, add in the likes of Big Tech, and arguably repugnant companies like Apple. Both political parties help of th4 the “complexes” batten at the public trough.
All these worthy comments reinforce the need for workers to have paid sick leave. Will Congress allow it? Don't hold your breath.
Legislators are supposedly public servants. I've always contended that our servants shouldn't get any better healthcare than the least of those they supposedly serve. If that were the case, you can be sure we'd have quality universal healthcare in no time.
Oops, sorry—that’s $500 million in Valdez damages, not billion. The profits stay in the billions.
No sick leave?
The last time this came up, the union accepted a rather large pay increase instead of paid sick leave.
This time, the unions got another large pay increase instead of paid sick leave.
Perhaps asking for paid sick leave and a large pay increase was too much
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