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10/20/2022
National Carriers' Conference Committee (NCCC) officials yesterday said the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters' (BMWED) latest request for additional benefits under a tentative labor agreement with the nation’s major freight railroads will be rejected.
The NCCC, which represents the railroads in collective bargaining, issued a statement that the BMWED's request is similar to a proposal that was considered and rejected by the Presidential Emergency Board, and comes weeks after the union entered into a tentative agreement that included "the most generous wage package in almost 50 years of national rail negotiations.”
At the time, BMWED leadership praised the tentative agreement, which calls for increases for travel expenses specifically requested by the union. However, the union’s membership voted to reject ratification of the agreement.
"Now, following an unsuccessful initial membership ratification process, BMWED leadership is asking for additional benefits and threatening to strike, this time based on the easily disproven premise that union workers are not allowed to take sick leave," NCCC officials said.
Their statement continued: "The health, safety and wellbeing of rail employees is a top priority for all railroads. Rail employees can and do take time off for sickness and have comprehensive paid sickness benefits starting, in the case of BMWED-represented employees, after four days of absence and lasting up to 52 weeks."
The structure of those benefits resulted from decades of bargaining where unions, including BMWED, "repeatedly agreed that short-term absences would be unpaid in favor of higher compensation for days worked and more generous sickness benefits for longer absences," according to the NCCC statement.
NCCC officials noted that six unions have ratified the tentative agreement.
"Now is not the time to introduce new demands that rekindle the prospect of a railroad strike. The carriers have advised BMWED that its latest proposal will not be accepted," they added.