2022 Rail Strike

I start to become a husker fan when they get humble lol .
If they ever get back to where they were in the 90s and early 2000s I'll get tired of seeing them belittle every team they play and the gloating of the fans and I will hate them again .

 

Since you came from trucking, you're going to understand this, as I made the same statement to someone on Facebook.

Everything you guys are wanting to strike for and complain about, applies to trucking, but here's the difference.

When your shift is up, you park the train on a siding, or mainline, or in a yard and crew transport either takes you to a hotel or back to the office and you drive home. When my shift is up, I walk 2 ft to my bed.
When your shift is up, you're guaranteed a hot shower, a bed and a meal, I'm only guaranteed a bed, it might be 3 days before I get a shower because I simply am too tired to wait 4 hours for that shower, or I don't have the $17 to pay for it (not everyone gets rewards points for a free shower), and frequently my meal is sugary or four day old junk I can find.
When you want a vacation week, you might give 3 or 4 weeks notice, I have to give 3 or 4 months notice. If you get sick while on the clock, within 24 to 36 hrs you'll be home and able to get to a Dr., sure it might cut into your time off, but you can get to a Dr.. Last time I was sick on the road, I suffered for 8 days before I was finally feeling better, I ran a fever for 3 of those days, I coughed, sneezed, killed four boxes of tissues, puked off the side step a few times, and ruined at least 3 pairs of underwear trying to find someplace to stop and relieve myself, there was no meds I could take that wouldn't risk putting me out of service or getting a DUI for violating the law, and I didn't sleep worth a darn, and despite knowing I was sick, my dispatcher expected me to be 100% ready to go.
You work in an industry with above average pay, excellent benefits, excellent retirement, I work in an industry where I'm lucky to make enough money to cover rent and my meals on the road, and someone wants to cut my pay.
You work in an industry where if the train is late, it's acceptable, and rarely your fault (railroads as a whole have a 46% on time rate), no one is going to be standing on the dock screaming at you, and no one is going to refuse to pay the railroad what they are owed. I work in an industry where if I'm late, the load will be most likely be rescheduled, I'll be stuck sitting someplace without pay for an extra day till I can get unloaded, there's guaranteed to be someone on the dock #####ing and screaming that they are going to short the freight charges to compensate for me being late, and if I do it enough times, I'm probably going to be fired, even if all those lates aren't my fault.
At the end of your shift, your schedule is frequently preplanned and not likely to change, sure you might be on-call, but you'll at least be at home, and you can turn off your phone and let the on-call notice go to your voicemail until you've had a decent 8 hrs sleep. When my shift is up, over the next 10 hrs, my schedule might change 8 times, and I can't turn off or silence the machine that they notify me by, it's can't be silenced.
You work in an industry where if you drop dead at the controls, the train comes to a screeching halt, and infrequently do you hear of train operators dying on the job. I work in an industry with the second highest on the job fatality rate, if I die at the controls, there's a good chance I'm taking 3 or 4 others with me as well, an industry where obesity, kidney disease, heart disease, broken bones and career ending injuries are common, as are the risks of getting run down by the motoring public. Annually on average, at least three to four dozen truck drivers die in their sleep, alone, on the road, in their sleeper, and in some cases the body isn't found for week.
You actually have federal regulators, albeit in the pocket of the railroad, who actually enforce the laws and regulations on the railroad and people give a #### and at the end of the day, if you make a mistake, someone isn't going to hand you a ticket that you're expected to retain a lawyer and show up in court, I work in an industry where the rules are subject to interpretation and the will of the person reading them, and the slightest mistake might net me a thousand dollar ticket that I'll have to hire a lawyer to fight, and in the end I might lose my license.
You don't have law enforcement viewing you as a rolling revenue machine, I do.

I'm glad in the end you got the majority of your demands, good luck, but don't act like you're being abused and treated horribly, because there's another industry, in the same basic line of work as you, treated far worse.

 

I love my job.

 

Hasn't the strike been called off?

 

There is a tentative agreement

 

I got 10.00 say that train will derail before it makes 1 loop

 

I see your point, either way. They can have the railroad, I have a month left here tops and I’m gone. I got a local trucking job that fits my lifestyle and it’s what I’d rather do. Just waiting on the background check to go through, this was in the works before the strike drama. I can say I tried it, the grass wasn’t greener (for me at least) but hey! They’re hiring I went down 3,800 seniority numbers in the last 10 months.

 

I’ll raise another 10 that since it’s made in china it’s bad right out of the box.

 

Noticed

I got better things to do but thanks !