US Railway Strike Still Looms | Jonah Furman | TMR

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Sam Seder Emma Vigeland on The Majority Report. It is a pleasure to Welcome to the program somebody who I've been reading for quite a while. I follow you on Twitter as well as Jonah Fuhrman of Labor Notes. He's the author of Who Gets the Bird? a newsletter on substack. If you want a sense of what's going on in terms of the labor movement in this country at the moment Jonah's Twitter feed is a great place to start. Anyways Jonah is welcome to the program. Thanks for having me. all right so will you just back up a little bit for us in terms of what's happened with this labor strike? there was a little bit of a blip I guess like 45 days ago or so where it hit the news in a sort of mainstream way. and then it punted for 30 days. just give us some background as to how we got to where we are today. you know maybe up to how we got to where we are last Thursday. on the with the railway strike. sure yeah so what people should understand is that in this country because of strikes in the 19th century railroads are covered under a different law. which uses the federal government a lot more. so there are all these different points where they'll be like okay 30-day cooling off kick it to the federal government. Advisory Board. mediators. all these things. so these negotiations actually are from 2019. The contract we're talking about is a 2019 contract. that has been delayed three years. Now the whole process involves bringing in mediators. bringing in recommendations. and the thing you're talking about 45 days ago in August was the presidential emergency board. so this is pretty rare in real negotiations. Usually, they'll have a deal before it gets to this level but there's part of the real negotiations involved the president appointing a board of mediators to say here's what we think the deal should be. you guys the unions and the railroad companies can't agree here's what it should be. so that report came out. and that's where you saw this basically proposed settlement that said you're going to get money. but you're not going to get more time off. is essentially the trade-off.

[bigbaddawg]

I have a friend that runs the North Dakota State Historical Society and works at the state Heritage Center and can tell you the history of the rail system running through state and the horrible things they did to gain and maintain power in the state.

[AncientCrustacean]

Nothing about modern life "works" without massive amounts of exploitation and destruction of human spirit

[haileykolsky]

What a great interview, I learned so much, both when I heard it live and again today! Thank you, please have him back on when there’s an update!

[bigbaddawg]

I remember I had to skip my own high school graduation because I had to work.

[vengenceismine]

CHOOO CHOOO choose to give people fair wages and a good health care option .

[bonkaiking]

Nationalize the railroads! Make it like the post office!

[glenjo]

Another industry Warren Buffet has wrecked. Look at what he did to the mobile home business.

[msjodikat]

I appreciate this so much. I’m super curious how that translates to my area (NH) where I would like to encourage public, environmentally & worker

[__-ndqi]

Honestly hope they strike they need the time off

[ThePetspock]

Wow!!! What happens when a rail worker unexpected catches covid? Cant schedule that in advance ….

[Nobodylistenstoturtle-]

Unfortunately the corporate greed will prosper.
The future is obvious.
The carriers want everything & care less about their workers.

[MaryBennett]

I believe Jeff Merkley has been planning to become Majority Leader since he was first elected. Maybe it is time he made his move.

[sjay]

If Union leadership decides to ratify the contract, the members must accept that decision, because the members placed the final decision in the hands of their leaders many many many contracts ago.
The members could overwhelmingly vote against the proposed contract, by a 75% no, to a 25% yes vote and the Union leaders are allowed to ratify the agreement.
The ink is already dry.
As far as the Maintenance of Way Union’s no vote, about 70% of those members will be furloughed, for the Winter season anyway. The carriers will subcontract the remaining Track Maintenance work, in the Spring.

[yeaho]

There is over a million people working in India railroad there's a strike

[YamiChampu]

Whoever's reading this, i pray that whatever you're going through gets better and whatever you're struggling with or worrying about is going to be fine and that everyone has a fantastic day! Amen

[omarlocke]

this guy is mischarachterizing the problem. the railway companies want only one person driving the train when it takes more than one person.

the root of the problem is not sick leave and time off

[michaelchase]

He really needs to work on his uhhhs and umms.

So much for information totally lost to his uhhhs and ummms.