Railworker issues, lay them out for us.

[Coal Dragger]

You take a lot of random calls at 0100 and spend huge amounts of time away from home? How many days off a month do you have in your job?

If you’re not subject to this bullshit schedule, your opinion is decidedly uninformed.

Furthermore, vacation does not carry over, paid leave days/annual leave days do. It is exceedingly difficult to get paid leave days approved though. So we might as well not have them.

[AKjeff]

When I first heard the issues were quality of life I assumed it was a low staffing issue, created by the RR's to cut costs.
The lack of a schedule and basically being on-call all the time is BS.

I worked in transportation for a state gov.
I spent a few years working on-call but I knew it would end as I got seniority.
They still had ways to screw the employee, and did.

I know a RR strike would affect the entire country but I was rooting for the employees and wouldn't have minded seeing a strike, just to prove a point.

[Coal Dragger]

There would have been no strike had Congress and POTUS merely told the RR’s and Unions that we’re on our own.

A strike would have hurt RR’s way more than workers, and that leverage would have worked to get the very reasonable concessions we were seeking.

The RR’s bluffed (or more likely bought) Congress and POTUS, and used the cudgel of govt’ power to compel a business deal on a group of unwilling people.

[HKGuns]

You take a lot of random calls at 0100 and spend huge amounts of time away from home? How many days off a month do you have in your job?

If you’re not subject to this bullshit schedule, your opinion is decidedly uninformed.

Furthermore, vacation does not carry over, paid leave days/annual leave days do. It is exceedingly difficult to get paid leave days approved though. So we might as well not have them.

How does on call 24x7x365 grab you? When the proverbial shit hits the fan I make it go away. In a very heavily regulated environment btw.

[Coal Dragger]

How often does your job entail actual 24/7/365?

How much time are you away from home for?

Again you can make the claim you are on call, but that doesn’t mean that’s the majority of your hours. So what is the breakdown? What percentage of your hours in a year are actual middle of the night woken from a dead sleep, get up, go to work, and be gone for 36 or more hours before you’re back home to do it again in 14-15 hours?

My guess is less than 10% because only someone doing that very occasionally would be stupid enough to talk a lot of shit like you do.

If multiple individuals in an industry are telling you something is a problem it’s called a clue.

[HKGuns]

How often does your job entail actual 24/7/365

Clearly you don’t understand what 365 means. Regardless, that’s all you’re getting.

Remember, the party that helps the working man is in power, all will be fine. Just ask them.

[Inkslinger]

All jobs can be hard. Remember no one forced anyone in this country into any line of work. You’re also not forced to stay. I work for a public works department. Do I get vacation days and work a five day week? Sure, but I can also get called in the middle of the night for all types of things. I’ve been almost hit by cars. I’ve had to dive out of the way of a falling tree and electric lines during a hurricane. Have you ever plowed snow for 5 straight days with maybe 4 hours of sleep? Granted that was an extreme situation, but 24-48 hours of work with an occasional cat nap in the truck is a way of life for me. With that said, it sounds like RR workers are getting a raw deal. If I were them I would find another job and quit. Or suck it up and accept it.

[HKGuns]

My point exactly Ink.

[Coal Dragger]

All jobs can be hard. Remember no one forced anyone in this country into any line of work. You’re also not forced to stay. I work for a public works department. Do I get vacation days and work a five day week? Sure, but I can also get called in the middle of the night for all types of things. I’ve been almost hit by cars. I’ve had to dive out of the way of a falling tree and electric lines during a hurricane. Have you ever plowed snow for 5 straight days with maybe 4 hours of sleep? Granted that was an extreme situation, but 24-48 hours of work with an occasional cat nap in the truck is a way of life for me. With that said, it sounds like RR workers are getting a raw deal. If I were them I would find another job and quit. Or suck it up and accept it.

We are probably going to lose a lot of junior employees once they get their back pay.

Ironically it could be worse than a strike, if rail customers think their service is super shitty now just wait until 5-10% more RR employees quit. The RR’s do not have the manpower margin to cover that kind of loss.

[Coal Dragger]

Clearly you don’t understand what 365 means. Regardless, that’s all you’re getting.

Remember, the party that helps the working man is in power, all will be fine. Just ask them.

I am quite well aware of 27/7/365 that is my only schedule.

Given your reluctance to answer my question I will take that to mean you occasionally get called outside of normal hours, but I’ll guess you do have normal hours.