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Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Maximilian Alvarez. I'm the editor in chief of

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Speaker 1: the Real News Network and host of the podcast Working People,

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Speaker 1: and this is the Art of Class War on Breaking Points.

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Speaker 1: Last time I was in the Breaking Points studio, we

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Speaker 1: talked about the unbearable heat conditions that ups workers in

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Speaker 1: package cars and warehouses have been enduring on the job.

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Speaker 1: Part two of that segment, where we'll look more at

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Speaker 1: heat as a workplace hazard impacting workers across many industries,

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Speaker 1: is still coming, but we're pushing that back just a

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Speaker 1: little bit more to bring you this special edition of

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Speaker 1: the Art of Class War to talk about the crisis

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Speaker 1: on the country's freight railroads as we count down to

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Speaker 1: a potential national rail shutdown this Friday, September sixteenth. If

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Speaker 1: you follow our work at the Real News Network, then

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Speaker 1: you know that for the past eight months, journalist Melbeuer

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Speaker 1: and I have been extensive covering the ways that corporate

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Speaker 1: greed has wrecked the freight rail industry, the supply chain,

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Speaker 1: and freight rail workers themselves. And you know, Breaking Points

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Speaker 1: is one of the few other outlets that have actually

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Speaker 1: covered this story regularly. The stalled negotiations between the major

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Speaker 1: rail carriers and the twelve different unions representing rail workers

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Speaker 1: have been going on for over two years, officially reaching

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Speaker 1: an impasse in late spring of this year. And you know,

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Speaker 1: the issues that workers have been raising the alarm about

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Speaker 1: have been plaguing the industry for years, if not decades,

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Speaker 1: and yet it's been next to impossible to get media

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Speaker 1: and political elites to pay attention. And when they have

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Speaker 1: paid attention, they almost never talk to the workers who

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Speaker 1: make the railroads run about what they think. But now, finally,

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Speaker 1: just days before we are poised to cross the final

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Speaker 1: threshold to a rail strike initiated by the unions or

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Speaker 1: a rail lockout initiated by the rail carriers, suddenly corporate

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Speaker 1: media and DC politicians have decided to take an interest

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Speaker 1: in this story. Now things are moving very quickly, and

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Speaker 1: just this past weekend, for instance, ahead of the deadline

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Speaker 1: for when lockouts can legally start, the rail carriers began

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Speaker 1: what some describe as a soft lockout by notifying customers

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Speaker 1: and shippers of immediate carrier initiated slow downs and embargoed freight. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: the union leadership in ten of the twelve railcraft unions

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Speaker 1: have reportedly agreed to accept the recommendations of Biden's Presidential

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Speaker 1: Emergency Board as the new terms for a new contract,

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Speaker 1: but the membership still needs to have their say and

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Speaker 1: vote on it now. The two unions standing their ground

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Speaker 1: and rejecting the Presidential Emergency Board or PEBS recommendations, which

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Speaker 1: collectively represent close to sixty thousand engineers and conductors and trainmen,

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Speaker 1: are the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, Teamster's Rail

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Speaker 1: Conference or the BLET, and the Transportation Division of the

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Speaker 1: Sheet Metal Air Rail and Transportation Workers or smart TD.

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Speaker 1: In a joint statement released this Sunday, Jeremy Ferguson, president

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Speaker 1: of smart TD, and Dennis Pierce, president of the BLET,

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Speaker 1: said about the embargo, quote, the railroads are using shippers, consumers,

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Speaker 1: and the supply chain of our nation as pawns in

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Speaker 1: an effort to get our unions to cave into their

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Speaker 1: contract demands, knowing that our members would never accept them.

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Speaker 1: Our unions will not cave into these scare tactics, and

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Speaker 1: Congress must not cave into what can only be described

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Speaker 1: as corporate terrorism. And on Monday, Republican Senators Richard Burr

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Speaker 1: and Roger Wicker introduced their resolution quote to adopt the

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Speaker 1: PEB recommendations to avert a rail strike. End quote. Now,

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Speaker 1: it remains to be seen if Biden and the Democrats

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Speaker 1: will have anything more than that to offer all these

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Speaker 1: truly beaten down but fired up workers who say they

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Speaker 1: are getting screwed, that the supply chain is getting screwed,

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Speaker 1: and if they can't strike, that they have zero power

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Speaker 1: to do anything about it. If a resolution is not

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Speaker 1: reached between the unions and the rail carriers, twelve am

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Speaker 1: on Friday the sixteenth could be the moment strikes or

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Speaker 1: lockouts begin around the country. Now, Congress may force a

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Speaker 1: contract down workers' throats and compel them back to work

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Speaker 1: for fear of the seismic economic damage a shutdown would do.

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Speaker 1: But will workers obey To talk about all of this.

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Speaker 1: I'm honored to be joined today by Michael Paul Lindsey,

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Speaker 1: a locomotive engineer and a seventeen year employee of Union

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Speaker 1: Pacific in Pocatello, Idaho. Michael, thank you so much for

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Speaker 1: joining us today on Breaking Points. Thank you for having

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Speaker 1: me so I'm yeah, I really appreciate it. Man. I

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Speaker 1: know there is a lot going on both in your

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Speaker 1: work life, and you know in the broader, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: crisis that the rail road industry is in right now.

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Speaker 1: And so before we really sort of dig into the

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Speaker 1: moment that we're at right now, approaching the threshold of

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Speaker 1: a striker or a lockout, let's start by quickly getting

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Speaker 1: to know more about you. So I was wondering if

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Speaker 1: you could tell folks a little bit about, you know,

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Speaker 1: how long you've been working on the railroads, what kind

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Speaker 1: of work that you do, and you know, for those

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Speaker 1: who are just now learning about the crisis that has

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Speaker 1: led us to this point, talk about what your you know,

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Speaker 1: tip cale quote unquote work week looks like. Okay, I've

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Speaker 1: been an employee of the railroad for about seventeen years.

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Speaker 1: I'm a locomotive engineer, so I work out of Poketelo,

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Speaker 1: So I take trains from Poketelo to Green River, Wyoming

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Speaker 1: and also West Nampa, Idaho. And this usually these are

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Speaker 1: trains going from Chicago to Portland, Chicago to Seattle, place

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Speaker 1: like that. So I've worked around the country and other

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Speaker 1: places as well, but that's been my primary home base

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Speaker 1: for most of my career. A typical work week for us,

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Speaker 1: more like work in general. The whole year would be

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Speaker 1: being available for call, and you're available for call, and

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Speaker 1: whenever your spot's up to be called, they call you.

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Speaker 1: And it doesn't matter whether it's six in the morning

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Speaker 1: or one am or noon, it doesn't really matter. You

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Speaker 1: get called, you take your call, and you go down

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Speaker 1: there and you form your asignment. You take your train

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Speaker 1: over the road, or you work in the yard, or

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Speaker 1: you work a local. You don't really know day to

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Speaker 1: day what you're doing exactly, but usually when you go

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Speaker 1: out of town, we're gone for up to forty eight

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Speaker 1: hours at a time. Take a train across it might

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Speaker 1: take twelve, we might be on duty twelve thirteen, fourteen

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Speaker 1: hours by the time we actually get to the end

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Speaker 1: of our shift and get relieved and get a van

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Speaker 1: back to wherever we're going to be, and then we

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Speaker 1: go to a hotel and then we're in a hotel

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Speaker 1: for sixteen, eighteen, twenty hours sometimes more, and then we

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Speaker 1: take a train back the other direction. And there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of downtime in between shifts where we're not getting compensated,

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Speaker 1: which that's time that we're not getting compensated for us

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Speaker 1: that needs to be taken into account on our right

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Speaker 1: of pay. And then also there's a lot of away

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Speaker 1: from home meal expenses because we're stuck away from town,

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Speaker 1: eating eating out away from home, we don't have an alternative.

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Speaker 1: And unfortunately, our meal allowances not have not gone up

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Speaker 1: since nineteen ninety three. So as an engineer for Union Pacific,

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Speaker 1: I'm still making twelve dollars on my non taxable meal allowance. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: the IRS says that sixty dollars per day is the

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Speaker 1: acceptable amount, and we're still making twelve dollars. And that

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Speaker 1: goes into these contract negotiations and how they did not

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Speaker 1: they did not address that in any way. That was

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Speaker 1: not one of the things that were included in the contract, right,

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Speaker 1: And you know, we're gonna talk a bit about, you know,

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Speaker 1: the contract negotiations such that they are, and you know,

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Speaker 1: the shortcomings of President Biden's Presidential Emergency Board, which adds

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Speaker 1: you alluded to did not really address, you know, any

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Speaker 1: of the quality of life and workplace safety issues that

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Speaker 1: railroaders like yourself have been about for you know, many years.

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Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about that, but I want

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Speaker 1: to kind of pick up on that sort of you know,

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Speaker 1: the daily grind of it, right, what working in this

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Speaker 1: sort of environment being on call twenty four to seven,

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Speaker 1: having no sick days, right, having no set schedule, and

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Speaker 1: you know, having to having a workplace that mo that

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Speaker 1: literally moves, and sometimes your you know, rest time is

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Speaker 1: being stuck out in a strip mall somewhere in a

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Speaker 1: motel before you can hitch a ride back home. I

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Speaker 1: want to kind of talk about that because that's where

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Speaker 1: I first entered into this story when I reported for

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Speaker 1: the Real News Network in January on the quote unquote

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Speaker 1: high visit attendance policy at BNSF Railway, another one of

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Speaker 1: the Class one freight railroads, and I learned that workers,

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Speaker 1: seventeen thousand of them, were prepared to strike over this

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Speaker 1: attendance policy. I learned that a US District court judge

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Speaker 1: blocked workers from striking for fear of what it would

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Speaker 1: do to the supply chain. And then I learned more

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Speaker 1: about what this kind of attendance policy and these sorts

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Speaker 1: of work practices that you know are really you know,

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Speaker 1: the case across the industry, not just at BNSF. Like

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Speaker 1: what that says about how the industry has changed over

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Speaker 1: the years. So I want to pick up on that.

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Speaker 1: And you know, since the nineteen eighties, when you know,

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Speaker 1: there were over thirty Class one railroads operating in this country.

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Speaker 1: Deregulation and corporate consolidation on the railroads has led us

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Speaker 1: to the point that there are now just seven, right,

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Speaker 1: And over that same time period, the railroad workforce, as

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Speaker 1: you know, was slashed dramatically from over five hundred thousand

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Speaker 1: employees in nineteen eighty to less than one hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty thousand today. And I mean, you know this time,

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Speaker 1: I try to stress for folks that even before COVID nineteen,

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Speaker 1: since twenty fifteen, the rail carriers collectively have laid off

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Speaker 1: over thirty percent of their combined workforce, and now they're

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Speaker 1: complaining about a labor shortage. So can you talk about

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Speaker 1: what it's been like to work while all of this

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Speaker 1: slashing has been going on around you? And what does

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Speaker 1: this approach to staffing and the way that these companies

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Speaker 1: generally treat workers like yourself? Like what does that tell

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Speaker 1: us about the larger system shift that has taken hold

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Speaker 1: of the rail industry? Like why is this happening? We

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Speaker 1: mentioned deregulation and going back to the eighties and all,

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Speaker 1: there was a time when the railroad industry was not

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Speaker 1: profitable like it is now. They were in a hard time. Well,

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Speaker 1: several decades have passed, the consolidations have occurred, the reductions

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Speaker 1: and staffing and lines and abandonments of lines and everything

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Speaker 1: has occurred, and now this industry is ultra ultra profitable,

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Speaker 1: and like you said, they've consolidated into seven systems. Two

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Speaker 1: of those are Canadian railroads. Actually, the big four Union Pacific,

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Speaker 1: b NSFCSX, Norfolk, Southern are the ones that for the

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Speaker 1: for the most part, they're the ones that we're talking

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Speaker 1: about here, and they work together and collude together like

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Speaker 1: a big, happy cartel. These railroads are owned by the

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Speaker 1: same people, they're primarily controlled by the same institutional investors,

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Speaker 1: and they make the same choices and decisions. So the

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Speaker 1: high viz A tendance policy has been the most publicized

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Speaker 1: attendance policy, but make no mistake, all the railroads have

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Speaker 1: these attendance policies. And what happened in the last few

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Speaker 1: years is the railroads have implemented this plan they call

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Speaker 1: precision scheduled railroading, and that means very different things depending

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Speaker 1: on who you ask, but for the most part, it

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Speaker 1: involves cutting crews cutting maintenance, cutting locomotives, cutting terminals, slashing

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Speaker 1: and burning the railroad in any way possible to get

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Speaker 1: a lower operating ratio, to increase the dividends, to increase

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Speaker 1: the share buybacks. And they have paid more to share

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Speaker 1: buybacks over the last fifteen years every year consistently than

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Speaker 1: they have to capital improvements. In fact, they've essentially invested

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Speaker 1: nothing into their railroad. They're not investing in expansion, they're

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Speaker 1: not investing in electrification, they're not investing in anything that

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Speaker 1: would be good for the economy or people or anyone else.

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Speaker 1: They're investing or they're investing in their stock price growth

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Speaker 1: and their dividend growth. And so part of that was

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Speaker 1: to cut their crews. And so about five years ago

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Speaker 1: they started cutting dramatically, and our seniority has gone downhill.

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Speaker 1: They furloughed a whole bunch of people that were hired

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Speaker 1: on like twenty sixteen seven team. They furloughed them for

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Speaker 1: two and a half years or so, and then when

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Speaker 1: it finally came time, they realized, oh, we need these people,

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Speaker 1: we need to bring these people back. None of them

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Speaker 1: came back, very very few of them came back. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it was like single digit retention rates in a lot

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Speaker 1: of parts of the country, and this was on all

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Speaker 1: four of the big carriers, so no one really came

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Speaker 1: back and they realized, oh, we got a manpower shortage now,

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Speaker 1: and it was self inflicted. Of course, they're trying to

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Speaker 1: blame COVID. It had nothing to do with COVID. And

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Speaker 1: they've realized that they cannot hire people anymore because people

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Speaker 1: realize what a terrible work life balance you have, or

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Speaker 1: lack of any work life balance that you have. And

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Speaker 1: so since they can't get new employees, they imposed these

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Speaker 1: horrible attendance policies which make it to where every time

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Speaker 1: we take any sort of day off, we lose points,

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Speaker 1: and in order to get any points back, you have

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Speaker 1: to be available for an obscene amount of time for us.

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Speaker 1: In order to get any points back on up, you

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Speaker 1: have to be available for call or working for twenty

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Speaker 1: eight days straight to get any points back whatsoever, I mean,

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Speaker 1: not essentially. The way it's structured means that you can

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Speaker 1: get very very few days off per year, you know,

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Speaker 1: especially if you count days that are kind of unplanned,

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Speaker 1: like a sickness in the family or you need to

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Speaker 1: go to the dentist or anything. You can't get days off.

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Speaker 1: The only way to get days off is to take

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Speaker 1: family medical leave. That's about the only way to get

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Speaker 1: days off now. And so the railroads have in unison

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Speaker 1: and pushing these policies to keep us working. And since

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Speaker 1: the boards are short, since there's no people available to

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Speaker 1: to move these trains, there have been times where you're

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Speaker 1: literally gone for thirty six or forty eight hours out

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Speaker 1: of town. You come home, you're home for ten hours,

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Speaker 1: then you're gone for thirty six forty eight hours again.

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Speaker 1: Then you're home for ten hours, gone for thirty six

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Speaker 1: forty eight hours again. And then there's issues with locomotive

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Speaker 1: shortages and every other sort of delay you can imagine

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Speaker 1: related to basically the railroad's failure to adapt and be

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Speaker 1: able to move their trains. And because of that, you

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Speaker 1: may think you're going to work, and you're expecting, Okay,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to go to work. It looks like I'm

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Speaker 1: going to go to work about you know, one or

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Speaker 1: two in the afternoon today, you know, I'm waiting for

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Speaker 1: a call, and you wait around the house all day

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Speaker 1: for a call, and then something happens. They don't have

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Speaker 1: locomotives for the train because they've been cutting their locomotives

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Speaker 1: and cutting their maintenance staff, and the train never actually goes.

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Speaker 1: And then right about the time you're getting tired, about

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Speaker 1: nine or ten o'clock at night is when they decide

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Speaker 1: to call. And there's no sort of ability to mark

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Speaker 1: off when you're not rested. And like I said, you

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Speaker 1: accumulate points every time you take a day off, and

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Speaker 1: eventually they threaten you with termination over taking basic days off.

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Speaker 1: So well, and like you know, this is again like

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Speaker 1: why you know, looking at these attendance policies reveals right

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Speaker 1: the much larger issue here, right, because as you mentioned

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Speaker 1: right there, there is a serious problem. And I completely

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Speaker 1: understand right now that folks who haven't been following this

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Speaker 1: story are suddenly hearing that there could be a national

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Speaker 1: rail strike or a rail lockout this Friday. They're worried

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Speaker 1: about what that will do to the supply chain. They're

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Speaker 1: worried about what that will do to costs at a

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Speaker 1: time when inflation is already high. But what I would

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Speaker 1: stress to folks to understand, right is that the very

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Speaker 1: greedy corporate practices, the profit seeking cost cutting practices that

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Speaker 1: we are describing here have already damaged the supply chain irreparably.

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Speaker 1: Like this is what railroad workers like Michael have been

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Speaker 1: telling me all years. And the proof is really in

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Speaker 1: the putting. As you mentioned, I mean, Surface Transportation Board

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Speaker 1: Chairman Martin Oberman estimated that since twenty ten, Class one

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Speaker 1: freight rail carriers have spent forty six billion dollars more

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Speaker 1: on stock buybacks and dividends than railroad maintenance. Right. So

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Speaker 1: that's that's a sizable difference. And what is that translated to, right,

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Speaker 1: Shippers and customers are repeatedly complaining about poor quality of service. Right, So,

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Speaker 1: quality of service, the amount of freight have all been

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Speaker 1: going down for years at the same time that quality

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Speaker 1: of life for workers on the railroad has also been

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Speaker 1: going down. At the same time that, you know, prices,

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Speaker 1: profits and stock buybacks have been skyrocketing. Right. So this

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Speaker 1: has been a slow building crisis that folks are just

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Speaker 1: now waking up to. And I think the thing that is,

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Speaker 1: you know, really mind blowing is that you know, we

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Speaker 1: can't go through the whole process here, right, you know,

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Speaker 1: but folks, you know can if they want to know more,

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Speaker 1: they can, you know, watch our coverage at the Real

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Speaker 1: News networker here on breaking points to understand why we've

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Speaker 1: had to clear so many hurdles to get to this

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Speaker 1: point right. Negotiations installed for two and a half years,

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Speaker 1: officially declared to an impass in the late spring. President

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Speaker 1: Biden appointed a Presidential Emergency Board to try to broker

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Speaker 1: an agreement. They released their recommendations in August. The rail

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Speaker 1: carriers enthusiastically endorse those recommendations. Rail workers not so much.

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Speaker 1: And you know it's because, as rail workers continuously say,

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Speaker 1: the Presidential Emergency Board does not address, it punted on

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Speaker 1: every one of these workplace safety and quality of life

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Speaker 1: issues that workers are talking about. But not only that,

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Speaker 1: there was salt very much rubbed in the wound in

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Speaker 1: this PEB report. And I will quote from the infamous

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Speaker 1: page thirty two where the Presidential Emergency Board wrote, and

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Speaker 1: I quote quote the carriers again, these are the companies

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Speaker 1: that own the railroads. The carriers maintained that capital investment

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Speaker 1: and risk are the reasons for their profits, not any

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Speaker 1: contributions by labor. So, Michael, I wanted to you know,

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Speaker 1: we don't have a whole lot of time, but I

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Speaker 1: wanted to ask you First, how did it make you

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Speaker 1: feel reading that? And can you break down for folks

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Speaker 1: like why the PEB fell so short of addressing the

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Speaker 1: concerns that you and your fellow workers are raising. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I got to love that quote. It's kind of become

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Speaker 1: a meme around the railroad industry. You know, everyone knows

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Speaker 1: that quote now, and it was really offensive, especially here

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Speaker 1: in that quote. And then looking just a couple pages

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Speaker 1: earlier on page twenty eight, where the PB recommendations spoke

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Speaker 1: about part of the of the profitability increases in the

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Speaker 1: railroads were caused by tax cuts the previous couple of years.

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Speaker 1: And you know, I just have to ask. So I'm

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Speaker 1: not a Harvard MBA or anything, but were corporate tax

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Speaker 1: cuts considered risk or were they investment? Since all their

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Speaker 1: profits are made by risk or investment? I got to ask.

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Speaker 1: But the PEB recommendations fell so short because they literally

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Speaker 1: just addressed general pay increase and health insurance and that's it.

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Speaker 1: So it addressed a general pay increase which did not

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Speaker 1: keep up with inflation, but it also removes the cap

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Speaker 1: on our health insurance to make it to where we're

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Speaker 1: going to be paying significantly more every month on our

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Speaker 1: health insurance, which is going to erase any games that

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Speaker 1: we gained through a raise. In addition to the fact

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Speaker 1: that the general wage increase itself did not actually keep

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Speaker 1: up with inflation, even though the railroads are touting this

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Speaker 1: as a record pay increase. The other thing it did

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Speaker 1: not do is it did not address the fact that

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Speaker 1: we lost our ability to write off away from home meals.

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Speaker 1: We used to be able to count up our days

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Speaker 1: that we were gone. And let's say you were gone

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Speaker 1: two hundred days away from home for the year, and

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Speaker 1: the IRS allows sixty dollars a day to be written off.

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Speaker 1: That's a twelve thousand dollars deduction on your taxes. We

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Speaker 1: lost that when the tax changes happened a few years ago.

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Speaker 1: We basically lost our ability to itemize. And so that

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Speaker 1: right there is costing us, on average on the road

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Speaker 1: at least six or seven thousand dollars a year in

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Speaker 1: real pay decrease because it's being taxed away from us.

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Speaker 1: We're not getting reimbursed for our way from home meal expenses.

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Speaker 1: Like I said, we still make twelve dollars as engineers

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Speaker 1: at up. Another thing is it did not do anything

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Speaker 1: to address the working conditions the fact that we have

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Speaker 1: zero reliability on our on our scheduling, the fact that

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Speaker 1: we have attendance policies preventing us from ever taking days off.

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Speaker 1: None of this was addressed. The PEB basically punted all

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Speaker 1: these issues. Whose back to mediation, back to negotiations, which

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Speaker 1: the railroads and the unions have been negotiating for almost

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Speaker 1: three years and they haven't been able to come to

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Speaker 1: an agreement on any of this. So what makes you

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Speaker 1: think that they're going to be able to reach an

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Speaker 1: agreement now? And it's not going to happen. So that

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Speaker 1: is the reason why the late why we're threatening to

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Speaker 1: strike is because they failed to address the issues that

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Speaker 1: really matter to us or which are not just purely

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Speaker 1: financial railroads. We'll try to say that we're just being

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Speaker 1: greedy and this is wanting more money. That's not it

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Speaker 1: at all. We literally want to take control of our

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Speaker 1: life back. We want to be able to take care

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Speaker 1: of our family and actually have a life again. And

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Speaker 1: especially since the railroads have been so successful in being profitable,

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Speaker 1: and since railroad employees are the most productive employees the

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Speaker 1: railroad has ever seen now in the one hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty years that the railroad industry has been around fifty plus.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you look at the length of our trains

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Speaker 1: now and how we have locomotives on the front, middle,

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Speaker 1: and rear of the train on a lot of these trains,

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Speaker 1: and they're running them twelve thirteen, fourteen, even fifteen thousand

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Speaker 1: people long long and we are controlling all the locomotives

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Speaker 1: from the head end. We've expanded our ability to move

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Speaker 1: freight dramatically, and we're not seeing any benefits from being

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Speaker 1: more productive and doing an absolutely fantastic job at moving

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Speaker 1: their freight, you know, moving these trains and learning how

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Speaker 1: to actually successfully operate these trains over the road, which

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Speaker 1: a fifteen thousand foot train would have been completely unheard

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Speaker 1: of just twenty years ago. It can't happen, there's too

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Speaker 1: many limitations. But we do it now. We're no credit

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Speaker 1: and no credit for well, not only are you doing

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Speaker 1: it right, but you're doing it with as you mentioned,

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Speaker 1: like fewer people. Right. Those those shorter trains used to

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Speaker 1: have like four or five person crews, and the railroad

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Speaker 1: carrier has been trying to get it down to one

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Speaker 1: person on running those massive vehicles. And you know, the

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Speaker 1: unions have been fighting tooth and nailed to maintain two

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Speaker 1: person crews. And again when you have longer, heavier, more

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Speaker 1: unwieldy trains that are carrying hazardous materials, like this is

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Speaker 1: really setting us up for potential catastrophe. And that's what

404
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Speaker 1: we mean when we say the supply chain is already

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Speaker 1: at risk and people need to look at the reasons why.

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Speaker 1: And you know, man, we've got to wrap this up.

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Speaker 1: But I mean, you've packed so much helpful information in

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Speaker 1: there for folks. I know that things are happening quickly.

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Speaker 1: We don't know what's going to happen here in d C.

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Speaker 1: We don't know if Congress is going to force people

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Speaker 1: back to work. We don't know if workers are going

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Speaker 1: to obey that order. We don't know if Congress is

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Speaker 1: going to force a PEB based contract down everyone's throats.

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Speaker 1: A lot of there's a lot of fluidity this situation

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Speaker 1: right now. But I wanted to just round out by asking,

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Speaker 1: if you know, if you could say to folks out

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Speaker 1: there watching and listening around the country and beyond, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, what should they know ahead of Friday? You

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Speaker 1: know about what this you know, dispute is really about,

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Speaker 1: and what can they do to show solidarity with you

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Speaker 1: and your fellow railroad workers. Well, Congress is actively discussing

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Speaker 1: and they they have announced that it is their intention

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Speaker 1: to try to end our strike before it even begins,

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Speaker 1: and there I guess there's a tentative bill out in

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Speaker 1: the Senate right now, so they are actively discussing doing that.

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Speaker 1: I think that everyone and all the people listening need to,

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Speaker 1: if they want to be supportive here, try to contact

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Speaker 1: their congressmen, their representatives and remind them that in a

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Speaker 1: country that's allegedly free and democratic, we absolutely cannot allow

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Speaker 1: us to be forced back to work by law. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's essentially a bailout again for these big railroad monopolies,

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Speaker 1: and anyone that wants to advocate for better wages and

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Speaker 1: work conditions for any industry that you're in. It doesn't

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Speaker 1: matter whether you're in healthcare or education, or retail or service.

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Speaker 1: It will hurt all of you. It will hurt everyone

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Speaker 1: if we set this precedent again that whenever there's a dispute,

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00:27:24,480 --> 00:27:27,119
Speaker 1: Congress will just force us back to work. And they

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Speaker 1: need to know too that there's a mass exodus from

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00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:32,720
Speaker 1: the industry right now, and there are lots and lots

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Speaker 1: of railroaders that are standing by and have actively stated

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00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 1: that if they don't get a good contract, if we

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Speaker 1: lose further ground, then they're just going to step away

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Speaker 1: from the industry and we're going to get the effect

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Speaker 1: of a strike regardless as people just resign in greater

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Speaker 1: numbers at the railroad and they already have a hard

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Speaker 1: time hiring people. So Congress needs to think long and

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00:27:57,000 --> 00:27:59,400
Speaker 1: hard about that too before they force us back to work.

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Speaker 1: People are ready to quit, and they are quitting there.

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Speaker 1: There've already been plenty of people that have quit in

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Speaker 1: response to the attendance policy and the work conditions. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: contact and representatives and let them know it's unacceptable to

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Speaker 1: force laborers back to work by law and to allow

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Speaker 1: railroads to have a cop out in negotiating work conditions.

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Speaker 1: So that is veteran railroad engineer Michael Paul Lindsey. Michael,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on and chatting with

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Speaker 1: us today on Breaking Points. Man. I really appreciate it. Problem.

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Speaker 1: Thank you to all of you watching. Thank you so

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Speaker 1: much for watching this segment on Breaking Points, and be

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Speaker 1: sure to subscribe to my news outlet, The Real News

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Speaker 1: with links in the description. See you soon for the

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Speaker 1: next edition of the Art of Class War. Take care

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Speaker 1: of yourselves, take care of each other. Solidarity forever