A push for rail sick leave

Investment group puts pressure on employers after Congress voted to impose contracts that unions rejected.

Major freight railroads are facing pressure to add sick days for their workers from a new front: An influential investment group says some of its members are pushing the measure that Congress declined to approve as part of the contracts imposed last week to avert a nationwide rail strike.

The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility said Monday that two investment managers it works with to help promote social change at companies had filed proposals at Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern railroads to give shareholders a vote on whether rail workers should get paid sick leave. Similar proposals are likely to be filed at CSX and at BNSF parent company Berkshire Hathaway. The ICCR represents 300 members with more than $4 trillion in assets.

The lack of paid sick time in the industry became a major sticking point this fall in contract talks between the railroads and their 12 unions. Four of those unions rejected five-year deals that included 24% raises and $5,000 in bonuses because of their concerns about sick leave, demanding schedules and other quality-of-life concerns.

President Biden signed a bill Friday that forces railroad workers to accept those deals and prohibits them from going on strike. A separate bill that would have required sick time failed in the Senate.

Labor groups said they will keep fighting for sick time and better working conditions.

Marvin Owens with nonprofit investment manager Impact Shares filed the shareholder proposal at Norfolk Southern. Impact Shares works with groups such as the YWCA and NAACP to establish criteria for funds. Owens said companies should consider sick time as an investment in its workforce, not an expense.

Union Pacific said in a statement that it “knows quality of life concerns are real and we are working with employees to make changes.” Norfolk Southern declined to comment on the investor proposal.

The railroads refused to add sick time during these negotiations because they said the unions had agreed over the decades to forgo paid sick leave in favor of higher wages and strong short-term disability benefits.

The railroads also say employees can take personal leave days or vacation days for illnesses, although workers say those have to be approved far ahead of time so they aren’t very useful for illnesses.

How big of a cliff is this? Trump wrote the following over the weekend on his social media platform:

“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”

The founders deliberately divided government for checks and balances. The courts are an important part of that. They have ruled against Trump’s baseless claims, including judges he appointed.

Trump’s vision is no less than fascism. Now if he can just get enough brain-dead voters to go along, or use violence when ballots fail him, he can be emperor.

Ed Walcek

Placentia

If you are a Republican member of Congress, you have two certain facts in your life. First, you took an oath to defend the Constitution; and second, the leader of your party has called for its abolition.

If you can’t give a simple answer as to whose side you’re on, the follow-up questions should be: Why are you still in Congress? And why are you still a Republican? You can’t be both and still have your honor.

Trump doesn’t accept non-committal answers, so why should we?

Peter Scofield

Corona del Mar

Former Republican Party consultant Rick Wilson has commented, “Everything Trump touches dies.”

The largely muted response to Trump’s call to upend our Constitution shows how thoroughly our national “frog” has gotten used to its place in Trump’s cauldron of water heating to a boil. It’s as if we’re saying, “Oh, that’s just Trump spouting off.”

This man wants to be our president again.

Years ago, I heard a survivor of the Nazi era explain why Germany’s pre-Nazi government dissolved. The person said they couldn’t tell if it was 10 minutes to midnight or 10 minutes past.

Buckle up — we’ve got work to do.

Ken Levy Los Angeles

If the Constitution were suspended, what would stop the executive branch from ordering ( just to cite one example) the arrest and imprisonment of Trump?

Tony Castañares Hollywood