Biden Presses Big Railroads to Offer More Paid Sick Days
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The Biden administration is pressuring three major rail companies to provide their workers with paid sick days, aiming to expand the benefit into an industrywide norm.
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su urged the railroads to reach agreements “immediately” with their employees’ unions to provide paid sick leave, without waiting for renegotiation of their broader collective bargaining agreements. The request came in the form of letters sent Sept. 25 to the chief executives of CSX Corp., Canadian National Railway Co., and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd.
“In an industry where workers’ constant attention is required to keep themselves and others safe, not providing workers sick days presents unnecessary risk that your company can fix,” the Cabinet members wrote in the letters seen by Bloomberg News.
Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific didn’t immediately comment in response to an inquiry.
In a response to Buttigieg and Su, CSX CEO Joe Hinrichs wrote that his company has offered paid sick leave terms to all of its unions, most of which have already accepted them.
NEWS: @SecretaryPete and @ActSecJulieSu urged railroads to guarantee paid sick leave for all employees.
Although access has increased from 5% to 90%, the remaining 10% of workers still lack this essential benefit, which is crucial for ensuring the safety of our railways. pic.twitter.com/7UVS0zg3mV — U.S. Department of Transportation (@USDOT) September 25, 2024
“We are disappointed that two unions have not agreed to the same basic terms that all the other unions agreed to on paid sick leave,” Hinrichs said in the message, which was shared by the company. “CSX is not the problem.”
Around 80% of union employees at CSX now have access to some form of paid sick leave following agreements reached last year, the company has said.
The AFL-CIO welcomed the additional push. “Pressuring these rail companies to provide sick days has been an all-hands effort, from the workers and their unions to these federal agencies,” Greg Regan, the head of the union federation’s transportation trades department, said in an emailed statement. “Sick or injured railroaders should not be forced to work on miles-long freight trains that travel through populated communities.”
Railroad workers’ sick days have been a hot-button issue in recent years, with members of some major unions voting in 2022 to reject contract deals reached by union leaders because they failed to guarantee them.
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After the U.S. Congress and President Joe Biden enacted legislation that year imposing a contract deal and preventing workers from mounting what could’ve been a 115,000-employee strike, labor advocates, lawmakers and the Biden administration have continued pressuring railroads to address the matter.
Over the past two years, the share of Class I freight railroad employees who are provided paid sick days surged from 5% to 90%, according to the Department of Transportation.
“While we applaud this success, it’s cold comfort for the 10% of railroaders who still do not have paid sick leave,” Buttigieg and Su said in their letters.
