Class Struggle on the BNSF

In the western United States, the transportation of commodities via rail is dominated by BNSF, the largest freight railroad in North America. The secret to their success, as is often the case, is the brutal exploitation of hired labor. Many BNSF employees have no assigned days off and are on call 24/7, which is the norm across the industry.

Unsatisfied with the present degree of exploitation, however, the company recently announced a new attendance policy that will, with very few exceptions, punish employees for taking a day off regardless of the reason [this point should be better explained]. To regain credit with the management, an employee needs to go two weeks without any absences. BNSF attributes this move to the “competitive freight environment”. At CSX rail in the eastern half of the country, there is a similar policy already in place, only it takes six months to get good attendance points! Can we expect BNSF to continue to make changes – emulating the tyranny other railroads exercise over their workers – in order to stay competitive?

The unions representing BNSF workers, SMART-TD and BLET, opposed the proposal in negotiations, but their actions were weak. When negotiations broke down, they gave the company notice of their intention to call out 17,000 railroaders on strike. Predictably, BNSF immediately filed for a restraining order to prevent the strike. The bourgeois State, embodied here by the federal judge, sided with the railroad, and declared the strike illegal, wishing to avoid aggravating the ongoing national supply chain crisis (without, of course, excessively curbing the cost-saving measures of enterprises that gave rise to the crisis in the first place, so that the United States can remain atop the world market).

Indeed, the State has long recognized the railroads as a vital connective tissue for general commerce and therefore enchained those without whom the trains could not run. For instance, the Railway Labor Act makes it illegal for the rail unions to order its members to strike without first passing through a protracted series of negotiations, arbitrations, and waiting periods designed to sap the energy and collective bargaining strength of railway workers. If the union breaks the law, the State may confiscate the union’s funds and even abolish the organization. If the rank-and-file bucks the union leadership and refuses to return to work despite the federal law, they thereby forfeit the protection of the union and so are liable to lose their jobs and their pensions.

Confident that there will be no consequences because the organizations for the defense of the workers are toothless against the State and capital, the railroads for the most part ignore the complaints of the unions and continue to drive their employees into the ground.

Union leadership, being threatened with jail and fines, capitulated to the State. As an example, the following was sent to all members Pursuant to the Court’s Order, by The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) a division of the Teamsters Union. The union stearing committee is “Instructing all of its members employed by BNSF that they must NOT engage in any self-help against the railroad. This means that members must NOT engage in any strikes, work stoppages, picketing, slowdowns, sickouts, or any other activity intended to disrupt the operations of the railroad in response to BNSF’s Hi Viz attendance policy. Further, pursuant to the Court’s Order, BLET is notifying and instructing all members who are now or who may in the future engage in any strike, work stoppages, picketing, slowdowns, sickouts, or any other activity intended to disrupt the operations of the railroad to immediately cease and desist all such activity and to immediately cease and desist all exhortations or communications encouraging same upon pain of fine, suspension, or other sanction by BLET. This means that any member who continues to encourage other employees on social media, or in any other forum, to engage in a strike, work stoppages, picketing, slowdowns, sickouts, or any other activity intended to disrupt the operations of the railroad MUST immediately stop doing so. Members who continue to do so risk fine, suspension, or other sanction by BLET”.

To many combative railroaders, though, these difficult circumstances do not exonerate the union leadership. These leaders, good citizens and loyal servants of capital, seem comfortable with merely going through the motions while collecting mandatory union dues and securing reelection – thanks to the historic inertia of the labor movement. Despite further proof of the inadequacy of the leadership’s attempts to satisfy the workers using legal means alone, what sign is there that our dear labor leaders are preparing another strategy? Union representatives choose to represent the most docile tendencies and the narrowest interests among the working masses, rather than giving voice to the most formidable and class-conscious elements (the vanguard), lifting the strong above the rest, and uniting the working class around its most universal conditions and interests. They complain of mistreatment, but they do not stand up to and confront the abuser. This makes sense given the traditional relative security of a large portion of the American working class, which produces the illusion that if we just conform, things can’t get that bad. That narrative conveniently forgets that the partial, precarious satisfactions of working-class life in the United States were won by labor militancy and class unity, despite legal repression and numerous betrayals by opportunist leadership! And now that the labor movement is incapacitated, those concessions are rapidly being taken back in the name of “free” competition. The problem is not that workers are not ready for struggle; what we lack is adequate leadership up to the task. Due to this impotence and absenteeism, thousands of angry railroaders must remain idle while their fury and outrage dissipate.

The national rank and file coordination Railroad Workers United (RWU) have called for the following actions:

“Whereas, current conditions appear to be ripe for railroad workers to mount a successful national strike, including but not limited to:
– A general labor shortage where the rail carriers are unable to recruit and retain employees in the various crafts, including train and engine service.
– Supply chains in crisis, as goods in transit are hampered at every turn.
– Public opinion that has sided with striking workers throughout 2021.
– The record profits generated by the carriers, together with their alienation of shippers, passengers and communities, which suggest that railroad strikers would enjoy vast public support.
– Rail unions of late that have been largely standing together.
– The fact that the carriers have attacked ALL rail workers, solidifying workers from all crafts, unions, and carriers.
– The existence of a sitting President who claims to be “the most pro-labor President you have ever had”.

Whereas, such favorable conditions for rail workers outlined above have not existed for decades – if ever – and will not continue indefinitely;

Therefore, Be it Resolved that RWU urges all railroad workers to consider the strike option, and to prepare for such a strike; and

Be it further Resolved that RWU urge the rail unions to educate their respective memberships on:
– the Railway Labor Act (RLA) under which our actions are governed;
– the history of rail strikes;
– the benefits and risks of taking such action with webinars, printed materials, presentations at local union meetings, and other means of communication”.

The ICP would like to call for the following to fill out the demands of the RWU.
     – Abolishing laws that restrict the freedom to strike should be a constant demand by the labor movement, agitated for in every strike.
     – BNSF railway workers should build a strike together with the dockers and all the workers of the supply chain.
     – Railroaders, dockers, truckers, warehouse workers and postal workers: all of these industries are, bound together, essential to the smooth functioning of capitalism. When workers in these sectors act alone – in isolation – they are powerless to confront the might of the capitalist class and its State apparatus. United, however, they have the strength to resist the repressive machinations of the State and bourgeoisie.