Sick pay1/17/2024 ![]() ![]() Negotiations with the other labor coalition unions continued toward a Sept. 1 that it had reached a tentative agreement with the rail carriers that included the board’s recommendations. While this board made a number of positive recommendations in its proposal - including improved health care benefits and one additional personal day - guaranteed paid sick days still was not among them.Įven so, the IBEW said Sept. Once the mediators determined that negotiations were at an impasse, Biden appointed a Presidential Emergency Board to hear testimony from both camps. By July, the carriers still hadn’t budged. Sick leave had always been a sticking point in negotiations toward a national rail contract update, which began in late 2019.Īfter almost 2½ years of ongoing refusal by the Class I rail carriers to accept the unions’ good-faith settlement offers or to offer their own, the IBEW and the other unions sought help from the National Mediation Board in early 2022. “Without it, we very likely would not have gotten what we have gained today.” “We truly compliment his effort to bring dignity to workers in the rail industry,” he said. Russo is grateful that Sanders stepped in. “Guaranteeing seven paid sick days to rail workers would cost your industry just $321 million.” “Last year, the companies you lead made over $22 billion in profits,” Sanders wrote, noting that they had cut 30% of the workforce over the last six years. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, wrote a letter to the leaders of six Class I railroads, urging them to guarantee at least seven paid sick days for all of their workers. “We never stopped applying pressure on the companies or on Congress.” ![]() ![]() “We’ve been playing the long game on this, too,” Russo said. The current national pact was first reached last summer by negotiators from the railroad unions, the railroads, the Labor Department and the White House. Instead, the parties enter a “status quo” position: Workers remain on the job with no changes to their pay and benefits until a replacement contract is approved. Under the Railway Labor Act, national railroad labor agreements don’t expire. Unused sick time at the end of a year can be paid out or rolled into a worker’s 401(k) retirement account. The union reached similar understandings with CSX and Union Pacific on March 22, and with Norfolk Southern on March 10. ![]() The IBEW and BNSF Railway reached an agreement April 20 to grant members four short-notice, paid sick days, with the ability to also convert up to three personal days to sick days. That pressure, plus the IBEW’s ongoing efforts, is paying off at last. “I have pressed legislation and proposals to advance the cause of paid leave in my two years in office and will continue to do so.” “I share workers’ concern about the inability to take leave to recover from illness or care for a sick family member,” Biden said. While President Joe Biden was calling on Congress in November to pass legislation to implement the agreement, he stressed that he would continue to encourage the railroads to guarantee paid sick time for their employees. Until we negotiated these new individual agreements with these carriers, an IBEW member who called out sick was not compensated.” “We know that many of our members weren’t happy with our original agreement,” Russo said, “but through it all, we had faith that our friends in the White House and Congress would keep up the pressure on our railroad employers to get us the sick day benefits we deserve. “Without making a big show of it, Joe Biden and members of his administration in the Transportation and Labor departments have been working continuously to get guaranteed paid sick days for all railroad workers. “We’re thankful that the Biden administration played the long game on sick days and stuck with us for months after Congress imposed our updated national agreement,” Russo said. It was not part of last December’s congressionally implemented update of the national collective bargaining agreement between the freight lines and the IBEW and 11 other railroad-related unions. This is a big deal, said Railroad Department Director Al Russo, because the paid-sick-days issue, which nearly caused a nationwide shutdown of freight rail just before Christmas, had consistently been rejected by the carriers. freight carriers finally have what they’ve long sought but that many working people take for granted: paid sick days. After months of negotiations, the IBEW’s Railroad members at four of the largest U.S. ![]()
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