Experts have cautioned that Joe Biden’s agreement to grant train workers a salary raise to prevent severe shutdowns on Friday could pave the way for future huge settlements.
Thursday, the Biden administration reached a tentative agreement to raise the salaries of rail workers by 24 percent, but labor experts fear the agreement might serve as a benchmark for future strikers.
Michael Lotito, co-chairman of the Workplace Policy Institute at Littler, told the Wall Street Journal, “This is a very, very controversial time.”
I believe this will encourage unions to ask for more.
Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) stated that the number of strikers in the United States increased to 78,000 in the first half of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021.
Michael Lotito (left), co-chairman of the Workplace Policy Institute at Littler, cautioned that future strikers could take Joe Biden’s agreement to raise rail workers’ salaries by 24 percent to avert a shutdown as a success metric.
There have been 180 strikes involving 78,000 workers in the first half of 2022, over three times as many as in the same period of the previous year.
This year there have been 271 strikes, with the bulk occurring in California, Washington, and Pennsylvania. A record of 2022’s labor issues is pictured.
According to the ILR, there were approximately 180 strikes in the first half of 2022, compared to 102 strikes during the same period in 2021, in which 26,500 workers participated.
By the conclusion of 2021, a total of 265 strikes involving around 62,000 workers occurred in the United States.
There have been a total of 271 strikes so far this year, with the majority occurring in California, Washington, and Pennsylvania.
According to experts, the pandemic is the primary reason of the epidemic strikes.
Lotito told the WSJ that two years of COVID made the occupations of many more difficult and risky, leaving them with the impression that their employers do not provide them with the compensation and esteem they deserve.
Among these dissatisfied employees were healthcare professionals. This week, more than 15,000 Minnesota nurses went on strike for three days, seeking a 30 percent wage rise over the next three years.
The nurses have returned to work without a new contract agreement, and it is unknown if they will strike again with new demands.
Director of labor studies at Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Arthur Wheaton, opined that now was the ideal time for employees to go on strike with less severe consequences.
Wheaton told the WSJ, “As long as the labor market is healthy and people can find work and inflation is high, there is less likelihood of a strike.”
In 2021, there were a total of 265 strikes in the United States, involving around 62,000 workers.
Even if union officials reject Biden’s proposal, a rail shutdown has been postponed for several weeks.
President Joe Biden announced Thursday that a tentative labor agreement for the railroad industry had been struck, averting a potentially catastrophic strike prior to the key midterm elections.
On Thursday, Vice President Biden referred to his agreement as a victory for the tens of thousands of rail workers who labored diligently during the pandemic to ensure that America’s families and communities received the essential supplies that kept the nation afloat during these tough years.
As negotiations between the rail corporations and the unions drew to a close, the White House and Biden’s Labor Secretary Martin J. Walsh intervened to broker a deal.
The union members must now vote on the tentative deal.
But even if they reject it, according to a person involved with the negotiations, a rail shutdown has been averted for several weeks due to the typical language contained in such an agreement.
If the strike had occurred, it would have caused an estimated $2 billion a day in economic disruption by suspending the flow of commodities and passenger rail service, which typically uses freight lines.
The provisional agreement was negotiated with numerous unions representing over 60,000 employees of the nation’s private freight train businesses, thus the lump sum payment will cost the companies approximately $660 million.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual compensation for locomotive engineers is approximately $73,000. Other essential rail personnel covered by the agreement include signalmen and other positions.