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>Workers represented by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, and the Transportation Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, A
by rasz 5y ago
>Workers represented by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, and the Transportation Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation unions mobilized and pushed for the right to strike over the new attendance policy, but a federal judge ruled the dispute was “minor” under the Railway Labor Act, meaning workers cannot legally strike over the policy.
What? Why not just you know, strike instead of asking for permission?
- jka 5y agoPossibly because that would be illegal (according to the quote you mention) and so they would likely lose further negotiating ground by doing so.
- rasz 5y agoThere is no loss of negotiation position when everyone goes on strike, the Machine literally stops. You can also escalate ala French and start burning cars. Then again, there was this Reagan fire all traffic controllers and put them on a black list thing in the eighties https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/reagan-fires-11359-air-traffic-controllers https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/reagan-fires-113... but I have a suspicion private company with no military personnel to immediately take over would be more willing to work something out.
- hulitu 5y agoWow. Just like in communism. You got to love the land of the free.
- cafard 5y agoYou subject yourself to various penalties. As a sibling comment remarks, Reagan used a similar case to essentially wipe out the air traffic controllers' union.
- jfengel 5y agoUnions and management have agreed to let the government manage the process. That ratchets down the tensions a lot. It gives unions a lot of power to force management to negotiate without the pain of striking. They can still have an unauthorized strike, or even a wildcat strike (one without union management approval) if they feel strongly enough. But that breaks the balance of power they agreed to, and cranks up the stakes a lot.