THE GANDY DANCERS WON'T DANCE AND THE TRAINS WON'T ROCK AND ROLL.

The Signalmen have joined the Maintenance of Way workers in rejecting the proposed railroad contract.

“For the first time that I can remember, the BRS members voted not to ratify a National Agreement, and with the highest participation rate in BRS history,” union President Michael Baldwin said in a statement. Nearly three quarters of the union’s 6,339 members returned their ballots.

Baldwin expressed disappointment with what he called “the lack of good-faith bargaining” on the part of the National Carriers’ Conference Committee, which represents the railroads. He also said the Presidential Emergency Board recommendations, which did not address working conditions such as paid sick leave, played a role in the members’ decision.

The high turnout and the statements about disrespect from the managers and the bureaucrats are telling.

A railroad strike seems inevitable.

The conventional wisdom has been that there won’t be a strike and if there was one its duration would be measured in hours rather than days because Congress would step in right away.

But that view ignores changes that have occurred since the last strike in 1992.

First, the railroader mood has darkened in the wake of the massive cutbacks made as CSX Transportation, Norfolk Southern, and Union Pacific adopted Precision Scheduled Railroading and BNSF Railway began running a leaner operation, too. Second, railroads are far more profitable now — and many employees feel the record profits have come partly at their expense. Third, Washington is more dysfunctional than ever, and in today’s hyper-partisan atmosphere Congress doesn’t do anything quickly and rarely does anything right.

We have much to look forward to.  Common Dreams interviews a veteran locomotive engineer, Atlanta-based Hugh Sawyer who has a lot to say about being on call all the time.

"I think it's become a big issue for particularly the younger people. The railroads went far beyond what they should have in cutting train crews, and now they want us just to be available to work at will with very little rest at home or little off time. And I don't know what it is about the pandemic, but it's set something off across this country. People have reprioritized their lives and realized that these jobs, be it in the railroad industry or wherever, are not the end all, and that, you know, we want time at home and for a life outside the railroad. I think that's the biggest issue.

"The carriers, on the other hand, have decided that we're just blue-collar labor to be mistreated. They don't care about us having a lifestyle outside of the railroad, and they don't want to pay us for that, [although] historically railroad workers have been well paid, and part of that has been for the home life that they sacrifice. But my wages have remained essentially stagnant, if we take into consideration inflation and what have you, for my entire career. And now it's becoming untenable for a lot of people."

That might be labor militancy, or it might be the backward bending labor supply curve.  Note several mentions of "weekends" and "104 days off," which is pretty standard elsewhere, even among salaried people who might be at work on this Sunday afternoon, although it's possible for people in that position to dip into a football game (Eagles still unbeaten, Bears still suck) which, if you're keeping the birds flying on the Overland Route you can't do that.

The article ends, predictably, with the labor militancy.  "Whether or not the trains grind to a halt next month, rank-and-filers are signaling a growing wave of anger, not just with the bargaining process, but with an industry that has pursued profit and efficiency by driving workers to a breaking point."  That observation also made it into the print version of Trains, which is a ferroequinologists' magazine not given to taking sides on political issues.  The next few weeks might be interesting.