Unions reach tentative labor agreement with freight rail carriers

The proposed national labor contract includes an immediate wage increase of 4 percent, with an additional 2.5 percent increase six months later on July 1, 2018 and an additional 3 percent per year after that, starting on July 1, 2019.    The Coordinated Bargaining Group, which represents over 85,000 railroad workers within six labor unions, has reached a tentative agreement on a new five-year contract with U.S. freight rail carriers, the CBG said Oct. 5.
   “This tentative agreement provides real wage increases over and above inflation, health care cost increases far below what the carriers were demanding, freezes our monthly health plan cost contribution at the current level, provides significant retroactive pay and imposes no changes to any of our work rules,” the CBG union presidents said in a joint statement. “This is a very positive outcome for a very difficult round of negotiations. We look forward to presenting the tentative agreement to our respective memberships for their consideration.”
   The proposed contract, which is expected to be submitted to the memberships of each involved union in the coming weeks, includes an immediate wage increase of 4 percent, with an additional 2.5 percent increase six months later on July 1, 2018, as well as an additional 3 percent per year after that, starting on July 1, 2019.
   The agreement also states that retroactive wage increases of 2 percent would be effective July 1, 2016 and another 2 percent, effective July 1, 2017, would go into effect after contract approval, for a compounded increase of 9.84 percent over an 18-month period and 13.14 percent over the contract’s term. That percentage includes a 3 percent wage increase that was implemented on Jan. 1, 2015, CBG said.
   The CBG’s negotiating team met in Independence, Ohio for a review of the terms of the proposed voluntary agreement on Oct. 4, following which, each of the CBG unions’ individual negotiating teams unanimously endorsed the tentative agreement.
   The six unions comprising the CBG are the American Train Dispatchers Association; the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, which is a division of the Rail Conference of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen; the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers, and Helpers; the National Conference of Firemen and Oilers/SEIU; and the transportation division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers.
   The CBG says that all benefits existing under the health and welfare plan are expected to remain in effect unchanged under the new contract, and that while some employee participation costs are increased, the tentative agreement maintains what the bargaining group termed as “reasonable” maximum out-of-pocket protections for its members.
   The tentative agreement also adds several new benefits to the workers’ health and welfare plan, and requires that the rail carriers continue to pay on average, 90 percent of all union members’ point of service costs.
   There will be no change, the bargaining group said, in any work rules.
   “The CBG steadfastly refused to accept the carriers’ demands for changes to work rules that would have imposed significant negative impacts on every one of our members,” the bargaining group said in a statement. “As a result of that rejection, the tentative agreement provides for absolutely no changes in work rules for any of the involved unions.”