Class I Freight Railroads Push For One-Man Train Crews and Trump and the Republicans appear to be okay with it

I voted for Trump but if he doesn’t reverse course on this issue of one-man train crews, he can kiss goodbye the votes of blue collar workers in the Blue Wall states who are the ones who handed him the Presidency in 2016. He’s putting the interests of the Railroads (which are still run at the top with the robber baron, corporate raider mentality) ahead of public safety and blue collar workers. I have friends and family who work as trainmen, carmen and machinists and they all tell me that if the Class I Railroads get away with one-man crews, eventually they will go to no-man crews. The automation technology and infrastructure is already in place. Railroaders will go on a nationwide strike if it looks like one-man crews will pass Congress with Trump’s blessing

“WASHINGTON — After hinting at it for months, Class I railroads have officially asked that single-person crews be part of a new national contract with a coalition of a dozen labor unions.

The request — formally outlined in the Section 6 notice issued last Friday [see "Freight railroads issue bargaining notice to unions to launch new rounds of labor talks,” Trains News Wire, Nov. 1, 2019] — will undoubtedly be met with stiff resistance from union officials who say single-person crews are a non-starter.

In the seven-page Section 6 notice, railroads call for conductors to be taken out of the locomotive cab to become a “ground-based” position. The Section 6 notice was issued by the National Carriers’ Conference Committee, representing BNSF Railway, CSX Transportation, Kansas City Southern, Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific and the U.S. railroads owned directly or indirectly by Canadian National. The plan is similar to one that BNSF Railway negotiated with SMART-TD General Committee GO-001 back in 2014 that called for having a single-person aboard each train and a conductor in an automobile working with multiple trains on a specific territory. That proposal was later rejected by a 5-to-1 margin in a committee-wide vote…”

trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2019/11/05-class-i-roads-make-official-their-desire-for-one-man-crews

h/t TheOriginalMexicanBob