Whoops, another NO vote... OH!
Phil
So the train strike may be back on...
Toot Toot
Not until mid November, per BMWE's reported statement.
It's hard to say how much a BMWE strike will effect train movement. You can run trains without union track workers if you really want to. Depends a lot on where the BMWE places their pickets and for how long though. The other crafts, if called to work, will honor the pickets, but otherwise will report for duty. There are non-union contractors for track work, and the class ones have their contact info, guaranteed. Unless the class ones want to make a (costly) point by shutting down for the BMWE (which I don't recall ever happening before), I'd expect a rail slowdown rather than a shutdown.
Ironically, IIRC, the last go-round resulted in BMWE getting more gains than the operating crafts - without striking. They must think they're harder to replace than in the past. Perhaps they're right. Near as I can tell, pretty much all of the generic work has already been farmed out. What's left is the more specialized or critical work that maybe isn't contracted as easily.
