Rail workers’ lack of leave largely accurate
The claim: In the first three quarters of 2022, “the railroad industry made $21 billion in profits, provided $25 billion in stock buybacks and dividends,” and its CEOS are paid up to $20 million a year, while railroad workers have “zero guaranteed sick leave.” — Sen. Bernie Sanders
As President Joe Biden and Congress late last month approved a law forcing an agreement between the nation's major railroads and union workers, Sanders, I-VT., claimed the industry is awash in wealth even as its employees had no paid sick days.
Politifact rating: Mostly true.
The dollar figures Sanders cited are correct for the seven major rail carriers in the United States. Sanders is mostly correct on paid sick days. The vast majority of workers at the largest railroads have none, but a small percentage do.
Discussion
Railway carriers and 12 unions had been negotiating over employee wages, benefits, workloads and duty schedules since November 2019. Biden moved to resolve the dispute this past July, one day before workers could have gone on strike, by ordering the formation of a presidential Emergency Board.
Based on the board's recommendations, Biden and Congress in late November approved a law forcing the agreement between the carriers and the unions to avert a strike that could have begun this past Friday and that threatened the U.S. economy before the holidays.
Congress has the authority to intervene in disputes between railway carriers and unions based on its constitutional power to regulate commerce and the Railway Labor Act of 1926. It's done so nearly 20 times, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The law that prevented a strike included a 24 percent pay increase for workers over five years, from 2020 to 2024; five annual $1,000 bonuses; more schedule flexibility; and a paid personal day. The Senate rejected a House-approved amendment to give workers seven paid sick days.
The carriers said average rail worker wages will reach about $110,000 per year by 2024.
Sanders' claim of profits, stocks and dividends is on target.
The seven major U.S. railway companies reported profits totaling $21 billion for 2022's
first nine months, reports from the companies show.
Sanders is also correct that the companies reported spending $25 billion on stock repurchases and distributing dividends during the same nine-month period.
James Foote, the CEO of CSX Corp., which is based in Jacksonville, Fla., received $20 million in total compensation last year, including $9.15 million in stock awards.
Two other CEOS each were paid more than $14 million last year.
Jessica Kahanek, a spokesperson for the Association of American Railroads, said the association does not comment on rail companies’ financial results. She did not dispute the detailed figures that Politifact provided her.
Nick Little, railway education director at the Center for Railway Research and Education at Michigan State University, said Sanders’ reference to the “railroad industry” was broad.
“You cannot describe the industry as all the same,” Little said, because it includes 600 short lines and regional railroads, too. But “the large companies look after their shareholders rather than employee and customer stakeholders.”
Sanders is largely correct that employees have “zero guaranteed sick leave.”
As of March, 86 percent of all full-time private sector workers in the U.S. had access to paid sick leave benefits, the latest figures from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics show. By comparison, the vast majority of the workers of the seven major rail carriers do not have paid sick leave, said railroad analyst Tony Hatch and union lawyer Richard Edelman.
That means that if the employees want to take a day off work for sickness or a routine medical appointment, they have to use other benefits such as vacation or go unpaid, Hatch and Edelman said.
The unions argued that management’s “attendance control policies” and other rules limit workers’ ability to take off work because of illness.
The carriers opposed the unions’ request for 15 annual paid sick days mainly because, they said, it would cost $688 million per year, the equivalent of a 6.4 percent
general wage increase.
The Association of American Railroads pointed Politifact to its time-off policies summary. It says members of two unions have access to paid sick leave, while
all workers have longterm illness benefits that are paid.
But long-term paid sick leave can’t be used unless workers are sick for a minimum number of days and after a waiting period, Edelman
said.
Hatch and Edelman said it’s also possible that some smaller rail lines offer paid sick days, but many of their employees are not unionized and their benefits are not made public.