Upcoming train rail strike to impact both supplies and Mach-E delivery ?

[Nygman]

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/21/sma...-as-rails-move-closer-to-national-strike.html

Here we go again, December 5th, earliest, but can get pushed to the 9th.

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[4sallypat]

These constant rail strikes and embargoes have really put a dent in vehicle deliveries this year alone!

Hope the feds can negotiate.....

 

[DadwithaMach]

Id be in shock if they don’t get this fixed up ASAP

will not look good for the pending election ?

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

These constant rail strikes and embargoes have really put a dent in vehicle deliveries this year alone!

Hope the feds can negotiate.....

Background: A tentative agreement was brokered through the Railway Labor Act (which governs railroad and airline employee labor relations) about 3 months ago. It was rejected by the two largest unions of employees in the railroads. As that agreement was brokered through a Presidential commission (which is more or less the final step in the RLA), there's little the administration can do to prevent a strike beyond continuing to offer super mediation (using a board member of the NMB) or using one of the appointed commission's members. Beyond that there is only a single thing that can happen to prevent either party from engaging in self-help: Congress can pass a law imposing a contract and the President can sign it. This has occurred in the past, although infrequently. The contracts imposed by Congress tend to be one-sided and do not address the underlying issues.

The area causing the problem for the unions can be boiled down to one area, days off. Currently, railroad employees are given 30 days off per year. No, I'm not talking about vacation, sick leave, or PTO. 30 total days off in a year. Those days off need to be bid a year in advance. There is no sick leave or vacation. The various duty-free time off periods required by safety regulations are granted after the fact -- if you didn't work that was your required regulatory day off. Railroad employees are for the most part on call all the time except during one of their 30 days off per year. It's not a particularly pleasant work environment.

The point of the RLA is to delay strikes and job actions by employees as in the national interest. It works well in doing that. My former employer is now about to enter year 4 of negotiating with its pilots over a contract that expired in 2019. My wife's employer is well into year 3 of negotiations with no settlement in sight. Airlines and railroads love the RLA as it reduces the financial incentives to settle. It makes contract negotiations very protracted and occasionally endless. But there is eventually an end point to the delays. The railroads are in it now.

At some point, something has to give. I'd not expect a settlement with the railroad unless the railroads remove their line in the sand over the days off and scheduling. Avoiding a Christmas season strike is also not in the unions' interests at this point*. If there is a nonbeneficial settlement, it'll be because of some serious behind-the-scenes arm twisting. or the NMB may try to kick the can down the road putting the strike off until it's outside the Christmas season by brokering another tentative agreement that needs a ratification vote.


* A strike during Christmas doesn't give the railroad unions as much leverage as you might expect. Railroad delivery is slow compared to airfreight or even long-haul trucking. Much of what they need to deliver is already delivered to various central shipping locations throughout the 48 states.

 

[SprManKalEl]

Id be in shock if they don’t get this fixed up ASAP

will not look good for the pending election ?

There's another election coming? Didn't we just have one 2 weeks ago?

 

[DadwithaMach]

Background: A tentative agreement was brokered through the Railway Labor Act (which governs railroad and airline employee labor relations) about 3 months ago. It was rejected by the two largest unions of employees in the railroads. As that agreement was brokered through a Presidential commission (which is more or less the final step in the RLA), there's little the administration can do to prevent a strike beyond continuing to offer super mediation (using a board member of the NMB) or using one of the appointed commission's members. Beyond that there is only a single thing that can happen to prevent either party from engaging in self-help: Congress can pass a law imposing a contract and the President can sign it. This has occurred in the past, although infrequently. The contracts imposed by Congress tend to be one-sided and do not address the underlying issues.

The area causing the problem for the unions can be boiled down to one area, days off. Currently, railroad employees are given 30 days off per year. No, I'm not talking about vacation, sick leave, or PTO. 30 total days off in a year. Those days off need to be bid a year in advance. There is no sick leave or vacation. The various duty-free time off periods required by safety regulations are granted after the fact -- if you didn't work that was your required regulatory day off. Railroad employees are for the most part on call all the time except during one of their 30 days off per year. It's not a particularly pleasant work environment.

The point of the RLA is to delay strikes and job actions by employees as in the national interest. It works well in doing that. My former employer is now about to enter year 4 of negotiating with its pilots over a contract that expired in 2019. My wife's employer is well into year 3 of negotiations with no settlement in sight. Airlines and railroads love the RLA as it reduces the financial incentives to settle. It makes contract negotiations very protracted and occasionally endless. But there is eventually an end point to the delays. The railroads are in it now.

At some point, something has to give. I'd not expect a settlement with the railroad unless the railroads remove their line in the sand over the days off and scheduling. Avoiding a Christmas season strike is also not in the unions' interests at this point*. If there is a nonbeneficial settlement, it'll be because of some serious behind-the-scenes arm twisting. or the NMB may try to kick the can down the road putting the strike off until it's outside the Christmas season by brokering another tentative agreement that needs a ratification vote.


* A strike during Christmas doesn't give the railroad unions as much leverage as you might expect. Railroad delivery is slow compared to airfreight or even long-haul trucking. Much of what they need to deliver is already delivered to various central shipping locations throughout the 48 states.

Interesting take on all of this… I agree with you that it will be shocking if this actually happened…. Would not look good on the current administration as a whole

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

Interesting take on all of this… I agree with you that it will be shocking if this actually happened…. Would not look good on the current administration as a whole

There may be an important (to you) consideration in my post. My background is as a multi-decade airline employee (Pilot) covered by a collective bargaining agreement between my (now former) employer and the Air Line Pilots Association. I am also a licensed to practice law in both the Federal and California court systems. I did several decades of working dealing with grievances and contract negotiations, both governed by the RLA, for the union and dealt with the various qualified retirement plans we had, governed by ERISA. My perspective is very definitely labor oriented and quite strongly so.

 

[Keeperofthe7keys]

The area causing the problem for the unions can be boiled down to one area, days off. Currently, railroad employees are given 30 days off per year. No, I'm not talking about vacation, sick leave, or PTO. 30 total days off in a year. Those days off need to be bid a year in advance. There is no sick leave or vacation. The various duty-free time off periods required by safety regulations are granted after the fact -- if you didn't work that was your required regulatory day off. Railroad employees are for the most part on call all the time except during one of their 30 days off per year. It's not a particularly pleasant work environment.

And that's exactly why they need the union and to leverage the ability to strike. I knew they had it bad but not that bad. Sucks for people whose stuff gets delayed in the system but the rail workers are human beings that deserve better.

 

[Nygman]

@Kamuelaflyer if I read right only one union line rejected the contract because it didn't cover them (days off). Are they close then, or has this been the holdup all along?

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

@Kamuelaflyer if I read right only one union line rejected the contract because it didn't cover them (days off). Are they close then, or has this been the holdup all along?

Turns out 4 unions rejected it. The one you're referring to is the largest of those unions. The problem with a congressional solution is that the solution being bandied about is to impose the contract that the unions who ratified their agreements agreed to. Those are separate unions representing differing classes of workers. One size does not fit all or this would've been over ages ago IMO.

While an imposed settlement is, on the surface, appealing it creates another potential problem -- disgruntled workers. The railroad companies probably don't want an entire group of employees doing everything they can to slow things down and "Monkey Wrench" the system. Work to rule is a very effective tactic. Unless the railroads think that operating that way is an acceptable form of business. I suspect that might be the case, but I honestly don't know. The only person I knew that worked the railroads left the business two decades ago because of the work environment.

Hopefully, the last 30-day cooling-off period expiration date will motivate all parties concerned to come to an equitable and mutually beneficial agreement.

 

[Bigfeets]

A comment on this thread suggested that I should add another theory about why the MME I ordered 12/7/21 and built 9/12/22 has not been delivered and has apparently been "lost' in Ford's tracing system (68 days in "shipped" status, and counting)
-sitting in the sun for 10+ weeks at ramp 6R waiting for a ride to California...*
-sitting at location X waiting for repair of damage in transit....
-parts hold in Richards-Gebaur, MO or location X...
-driven by an expert car thief in Albuquerque...
-on a train to (anywhere but California)...
-victim of disgruntled railroad/FoMoCo employee "monkey wrenching"...
-sold by my dealer to folks willing to pay $20K ADM...
-totaled, fell off forklift retrieving it from ditch after CONVOY wreck in Arizona...
-abducted by aliens...
-on a train near Mira Loma, CA (ramp CH27) arriving 12 months after order...

*this is the only one reported by Ford's tracing system

edit: I've been advised that I should add more theories to the list:
-It is a law of Nature that some things will "fall through the cracks" My MME order is in a crack.
-"end user" willful self-delusion. The MME is not really missing or late.

 

[Nygman]

@Bigfeets you really should be taking it up with your dealer or Ford Corporate directly, nothing any of us can do to help and people are still getting cars. I think this rail strike might impact deliveries after December, yours included, but I don't think your problems are down to this strike. Sometimes things just get lost in the cracks, and you unfortunately look to be one of those. I'm really very surprised your dealer can't do anything to help you here.

 

[Bigfeets]

@Bigfeets you really should be taking it up with your dealer or Ford Corporate directly, nothing any of us can do to help and people are still getting cars. I think this rail strike might impact deliveries after December, yours included, but I don't think your problems are down to this strike. Sometimes things just get lost in the cracks, and you unfortunately look to be one of those. I'm really very surprised your dealer can't do anything to help you here.

Your indifference to my plight, matches that of "my" dealer and FoMoCo.

 

[Pioneer74]

There's another election coming? Didn't we just have one 2 weeks ago?

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