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Employer associations from Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana and Ohio sent Congressional leaders a letter last week urging them to implement the Presidential Emergency Board’s recommendations.
Summary and audio linked here.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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Where is our brilliant Secretary of Transportation? Leading a massive and complex metropolis like Gary, IN surely would have prepared Mayor Pete to adroitly handle this situation, no?
Longest paternity leave ever….
The Secretary of Transportation was chosen only to check the “homosexual” box on the list. He has zero experience or knowledge of transportation.
No but he loves plans. Didn’t he get engaged at O’Hare or something?
Strange how this comes to fruition post-election. It’s as if the some mysterious power had pulled some strings to postpone the inevitable.
Agreed. That should tell you that a strike is inevitable.
The issue is not one of money. The Class 1’s have offered buckets of cash to the rank and file, with only some success. The operating crews are stretched to their limit, caused by cost cutting (layoffs), plus the aging out of the last major hiring binge before the dismal years of the 1970’s (retirements), and, perhaps most alarmingly, the reluctance of the Millennial and post-Millennial generation to accept jobs that don’t involve scrolling. Railroading is tough, hard, dangerous work outdoors in all weather. Rarely do things go awry on a sunny 72-degree day, more likely when it’s 34 degrees… Read more »
You’ve laid out a strong case for unions negotiating for other things besides money. Will be interesting to see what happens.
Railroader, thanks for the enlightening commentary
Railroader, thanks for the concrete and useful perspective. I love the part about young people not being interested in “jobs that don’t involve scrolling.”
I’ve heard two sides of the sick time/personal leave situation. One is as you explained, how the railroad companies have been bad actors, everything you’d expect from antiquated barons of industry. The other is that the railroad unions bargained for a higher wage in exchange for less flexibility in sick time/personal leave. In other words, they asked for it. Maybe the truth lies somewhere in the middle.