Some 57,000 rail workers across the United States are slated to walk off the job on July 18 in protest against low wages and poor working conditions.
According to reports, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) voted by a resounding margin of 99.5 percent to authorize a strike if such action becomes legal and "necessary to secure a contract worthy of their consideration."
As we reported previously, a strike like this threatens to halt all train movement across the country, which is about the last thing the already battered supply chain needs.
In a statement, BLET National President Dennis Pierce said that this is the first nationwide strike vote since 2011, but that it is necessary because railroads "used and continue to use their economic strength to steamroll their employees, their customers and the nation, all for the sake of their bottom line, and it is clear that they have no intentions of changing."
In the third year of the national contract negotiation process, he added, "the rail carriers have never made a contract proposal to our union that their employees, our members, would accept."
Even if Biden does intervene, that will only add another 60 days maximum of buffer time before a nationwide strike occurs anyway
The Railway Labor Act requires a 30-day cooling period, which is currently underway, since the two sides failed to reach an agreement in talks before the National Mediation Board. That cooling period ends on July 18.
Unless fake president Joe Biden intervenes by naming a Presidential Emergency Board to investigate the dispute and release recommendations for a settlement, America's trains will stop in less than a week.
"That would block a work stoppage for another 60 days – 30 days while the board investigates and makes its report, and 30 days after the report issued," reports Trains.com about what a Biden intervention would accomplish.
The National Railway Labor Conference is expecting that Biden will name a board, and various business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are calling on the regime to do the same.
"It is imperative that the administration act to prevent any disruption to America's rail service," wrote Chamber CEO Suzanne Clark in a letter to Biden earlier this month.
In his own statement, BLET's Pierce criticized the railroads for using the Railway Labor Act to "hide" and avoid "having to treat their employees fairly."
"Rest assured," he added, "our Brotherhood is now prepared to take the next steps in the process as we fight to reach a contract settlement that our members will accept."
In the comments at Trains.com, one person wrote that it is duplicitous of Suzanne Clark to have remained silent when railroad executives were cutting their operations "to the bone" in an effort to maximize profits.
"On one hand, it's great to maximize profits, even if that comes at the price of operational flexibility and customer service," this person further wrote. "On the other hand, it's a disruption when the folks doing the actual work with boots on the ground ask to be treated fairly."
"Railroading is a very difficult lifestyle. Yes, lifestyle, because that it is what it is, 24/7/365-1/4. Without people accepting that lifestyle, railroading will come to a halt. That lifestyle becomes more onerous when the people doing the work are treated as a budget line item like motive power, rolling stock, rail, ties or OTM."
Someone else, responding to this, explained that the railroads have simply run out of people willing to work under such conditions, especially for low pay and poor benefits.
More related news about the disintegration of America can be found at Collapse.news.
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