WASHINGTON — Rail unions are again seeking to declare an impasse in negotaitions with U.S. railroads, a move which could eventually lead to intervention by President Joe Biden and Congress.
Bloomberg reports that three days of meetings between the two sides with the National Mediation Board will conclude today, with labor unions renewing a request for a declaration of impasse first raised in January [see “Unions declare impasse …,” Trains News Wire, Jan. 20, 2022].
“We met 14 times and we’re getting nowhere,” Dennis Pierce, national president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, told Bloomberg in a May 20 interview. “And it wasn’t until two years into the round that they finally decided they would make a proposal on wages.”
Negotiations for a new contract began in 2020; railroads’ desire to enact one-person crews is a major point of contention.
Negotiations are a complicated process governed by the Railway Labor Act.
If an impasse is declared, the next step would be for mediators to offer arbitration; if one side rejects arbitration, which Pierce told Bloomberg the unions would do, Biden could form a Presidental Emergency Board after a 30-day cooling off period; that group would make recommendations to resolve the dispute. If the board’s recommendations are rejected by either side, the House and Senate would have to pass legislation to settle the matter. Failure to pass legislation would allow unions to strike.
— Updated at 5:05 p.m. to clarify date of Dennis Pierce interview with Bloomberg.
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