Members can win by involving the public and taking the fight to the railroads.
Railroaders do essential work for billion-dollar companies, but are not treated as essential. Wage gains are not keeping up with increases won by other essential workers like UPS drivers and longshore workers.
In the BMWED, members narrowly approved contracts at Norfolk Southern and CSX. In the case of CSX a deal was approved after the contract was first rejected by 68% of members.
The number one reason members rejected the contract was substandard wage increases.
BMWED officials defend the contracts by saying they have been bargaining with companies for
18 months.
They say that members have two options: either accept a contract with substandard raises, or wait years for a presidential emergency board that will likely impose a very similar deal that other unions have already agreed to.
This is the same losing cycle we’ve been in for years.
But there is another way to bargain contracts.
Instead of bargaining in secret for 18 months, our union could mobilize members around unifying contract goals.
Instead of letting the companies set the agenda and establish a pattern in back rooms with the weakest rail unions first, we could go on the offense around a bargaining agenda and build a contract campaign that puts pressure on the company by mobilizing members and public support.
That’s what the Teamsters Union has been doing with success, including at UPS. Our own fight over paid leave is another example. People side with workers over billion-dollar companies when we take our case to the public.
Teamster members, including the majority of rail Teamsters, used our right to vote to elect new Teamster International Union leadership. Many members have gotten a more militant approach in contract negotiations as a result. Rail Teamsters have not.
At UPS, members were surveyed well before bargaining began and got involved by signing pledge cards, holding parking lot meetings, and engaging in regular solidarity actions.
Leadership was transparent throughout the process—dozens of rank and file members served on the bargaining committee and updates were sent to the membership every step of the way on progress made towards key issues. When talks broke down, members hit the streets to organize “just practicing” picketing, inviting the public to join them to put maximum pressure on UPS to settle. As a result members won an historic agreement that was supported by 86% of the members.
We can also look to the last round of rail bargaining. In 2022, members drew a line in the sand and rejected contracts that did not include paid sick days. Members mobilized and rallied the public who were shocked to hear about the poor working conditions of railroaders. In the end, the companies caved to public pressure, and by 2023 the vast majority of rail Teamsters had won paid sick leave agreements.
It wasn’t everything we wanted, but it was a start that showed how we can win more if we do things differently.
Bargaining is just starting with the BLET and major freight carriers, and still ongoing in the BMWED with Union Pacific and CPKC.
Rail Teamsters have a choice: We can do the same things we’ve done over and over again and expect different results, or we can do things differently by involving members in a contract campaign and aggressively taking the fight to the railroads.