Rail unions launch campaign to halt stock buybacks

Fourteen unions representing more than 100,000 freight-rail workers have launched a campaign demanding that U.S. freight-rail corporations stop all stock buybacks until rail safety improves.

On the nostockbuybacks.org website, unions ask railroad executives to stop using the precision scheduled railroading business model and decrease the rate of safety accidents across the industry so that workers feel safe.

"Since 2015, the big six publicly traded U.S. freight rail companies spent more than $165 billion in stock buybacks, which is at least $46 billion more than they invested in safety," the unions claimed in a press release.

Precision scheduled railroading is a "Wall Street business model" designed to maximize profits over safety, the unions claim.

The campaign includes AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department; American Train Dispatchers Association; Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen; Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division; Brotherhood of Railway Carmen; Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen; International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers; International Brotherhood of Boilermakers; International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; National Conference of Firemen and Oilers 32BJ/SEIU; International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers-Mechanical and Engineering and Transportation Departments; Transportation Communications Union; and Transport Workers Union of America.